Why exactly are my competitors ranking above us on Google?

Author: Ryan Walsh
Date: 01/04/2026

You may have thought that you have put together a winning SEO strategy

That you literally were planning on wiping the floor with the competition!

However, several months have passed, the seasons have changed, and your competitors are still ranking higher that you on Google.

This means that you now have a rather frustrated look across your face, and you’re not happy with the marketing team.

However, lets try and turn that frown upside down!

Google’s ranking factors and why SEO is hard

Sometimes you do encounter businesses that occasionally feel that SEO is a walk in the park.

Something that can be done with a few clicks of the mouse, or through some sort of low-cost tool.

However, if search engine optimisation is implemented like that, well, it’s often a waste of time. Actually, it can do more damage than good.

To be a good, or let’s say a top SEO consultant that is top of your game, well, you have to be wearing many different hats at any one time.

You have to create engaging work, you have to be an analyst to monitor the stats, such dwell times. You have to be good and patient at building backlinks, you also have to be rather superb that explaining complex matters such as why a bunch of spam links have damaged the businesses visibility in the past. So, a good commutator is pretty essential as well.

So, if you’re sitting there all frustrated why your competitors are still above you in the SERP’s, let’s have a look at 7 reasons why that might be so, plus what you can do about it.

 

Your competitor’s information (content marketing) is just simply a lot better

Okay, so this is often where a lot of businesses fall down.

They may have paid a small fortune to get a website designed, and think that the web design will be enough to propel then up Google’s rankings.

However, web design is just one part of the SEO mix.
Often Google, or “Google’s algorithm” is just more interested mostly in the quality of the information that you are offering. Is it helpful? Is it useful? Is it holding the customers attention for a long period?

Now, that’s where a lot of businesses fail, that is the websites that we work on often then have the following issues:

• Content thin
• AI content
• Duplicated content
• Un-finished web design
• Not enough pages
• Not enough information regarding the business

 

So, what makes good quality content marketing?

Have a good look at your competitors content marketing.

Good quality content marketing has the following qualities:

Well written

The work is often written by an expert, for it to rank high on Google. This is a key part of Google EEAT, that is that the written work clearly shows that it has been written by an expert on the subject.

This can be calculated by Google’s algorithm in a split second, it uses Google Knowledge Graph, plus the sematic web, to instantly see and calculate that the work is written by an expert.

This will contribute to having a higher Google EEAT score.

 

Well structured

Another key aspect of the content marketing being high quality, will be that the work will be well structured.

It will use H1-H6 tags, it will also use sub-headings simply using bold text, it will split the page up using visual elements, such as many graphs, to simply explain information in a visual way as well.

Well structured content marketing, what this allows is for Googlebot, plus a shopper to better understand the content. For example,

Googlebot can better read the titles to understand the content marketing better.

Plus, also on top of that the titles can be used by a shopper to skip to section they want to read more about.

 

Original statistics and data

Google’s algorithm although its evolved, and its been changed countless times, the core of Googles algorithm still works on the principles of Google PageRank. That means that the quality of the information plus backlinks are important.

If you therefore publish relevant and important market research, let’s say that you publish market research in relation to electric car sales and brands in the U.K using a bar chart.

Now this research could be mentioned by hundreds of other websites, therefore providing link building opportunities. It also shows that you are a thought leader in your industry which is really important.

 

Relevant and kept up to date (Google Freshness)

There was a really important Google algorithm change, that rewarded websites that publish new content marketing on a frequent basis. The top SEO companies globally now refer to as the Google Freshness update.

Basically, if you’re updating your website, if your adding new content marketing, if your regularly adding new information then this can mean that Googlebot and also Google’s algorithm recognises that your publishing new information on a regular basis.

Some of the world’s best SEO consultants actually believe that this can also increase your companies crawl budget, meaning that Googlebot comes back a lot more regularly to crawl and index your website.

This means that new content marketing can get indexed more often, therefore can be displayed in Google’s SERP’s a lot faster.

 

Linking opportunities

Here’s one of the key reasons why a direct competitor, or multiple competitors could be ranking higher than your business on Google, that could be because of in-bound backlinks.

It could be the case that your direct competitor, well they might have a really good copy writer.

That copy writer might have been a busy-bee, writing content on regular basis, that’s not just written to be marketing waffle.

No, its content marketing that’s helpful, useful and the customer likes it.

It may have over years generated links, and that’s the reason why when you enter the competitors URL into Arefs, you can see that they may have a really high number of backlinks.

The links might also be high quality and also have high DA score.

 

Just more helpful

This is another key point; this is super important.

SEO businesses globally still take on the concept that they just need to churn out content marketing.
Employing copywriters who are put under pressure to write content marketing in absolute rush.

What does this produce?

Well content marketing that’s a bit rubbish, not helpful, and just written to a set word count.

This is no good.

This won’t work.

On the other hand, your direct competitors, may have worked extremely closely with a marketing company such as ours. They may have worked hard to address the frequently asked questions that your customers ask.

They have analysed the answer that are currently ranking in top 3 spots in Google SERP’s, and seen that they could improve on those answers.

And that’s exactly what they have done, they have set about to answer the questions better, offering more expertise. Which then means that Google has assigned a higher Google EEAT score to the work, therefore that content marketing can then leap frog the current answers, the company is then increasing their organic traffic, through having many high-ranking pieces of content marketing.

 

What are the common hurdles that businesses need to overcome

 

AI content

We wouldn’t recommend using AI written content on your website. This work won’t reflect your expertise that you have regarding a certain product or service.

This means that the Google EEAT score will be lower, because Google realises that the work is not original, its just AI written work.

 

Content thin

Many businesses, including many e-commerce companies have this problem, and that is that the main pages are content thin.

 

Duplication issues

Duplication can cause “cannibalisation issues”.

Plus, on top of that, what it can also cause is if you have copied from an external website, it can mean that the quality rating of that page is low, because it’s been duplicated.

 

Poorly written content

Often, also the work can be written by a copywriter, who has for example, not researched the top enough. Google can therefore see that the work is content thin, often blog posts or main pages that are not well written, and are therefore not high quality, can mean that often that work won’t be indexed.

 

Not adding enough content marketing on a regular basis

This is a really important point, and one our experience is a major problem with both broushue websites as well as ecommerce websites as well.

That is the businesses, when times are good, they don’t make hay when the sun-shines.

That’s a British expression for saying that, they don’t take action to maintain their business ranking high on Google.

Sometimes a SEO company can be highly successful in a getting business to rank high on Google.

And that’s often because the business is hungry to succeed at the start.

However, as the directors get preoccupied with running the business, and perhaps as the marketing budget expands, and the marketing managers are trying to spin too many plates at once, often what happens is they lose sight of what made the business successful in the first place.

It could be that they were very good at implementing good on-page optimisation at the start, and also, they may have written and published really high-quality content marketing at the start.

However, that enthusiasm, that drive to write helpful content marketing, which Google Helpful Content Marketing update actively rewards, sometimes that work doesn’t add for weeks and months at a time.

 

What then happens?

Well, that’s clear as crystal, often the business starts to lose momentum, the organic traffic can die off, then you start to lose customers.

You start to lose those high-ranking positions on Google.

You start to have outdated information, with high bounce rate, therefore the work means that you start to drop down the organic ranks substantially, a resulting drop in sales often follows.

Therefore, to be successful at implementing search engine optimisation, you have to keep on top of your game.

 

Backlink is so important

Okay, if you have been writing, and writing, and perhaps writing some more, and your not seeing the SEO benefits that you had hoped for, have been working as hard on improving the company’s backlink profile.

Despite what some businesses say, Google still considers backlinks as massively important.
And we would say that especially small businesses in particular, backlinks are the reason why they struggle to comprehend why a series of competitors are ranking above them.

Often company directors, and also some marketing teams believe that it all down to web design, that’s if they have paid enough to have a website designed, that they believe looks superior, they often believe it should rank higher.

Offering a good user experience though good web design is important, however, a website even if it looks dated, if has a strong backlink profile often it will rank higher.

 

Backlinks are still the number one ranking factor.

They are often the reason why a competitor is positioned in the number 1 position on Google.

Therefore, if your company in the U.K is struggling to comprehend why a business is ranking number one, then do use a backlink checking tool such as Moz Pro.

Moz Pro is absolutely excellent and we use it at our SEO agency all of the time. Then you can simply input your direct competitors URL and see which backlinks they have earned.

The great part about doing this work, is that you could potentially then try to build the same links. If the backlinks have a high domain authority, which in these tools is often called a high DA score.

 

Your direct competitors could be offering a better user experience?

So, let’s say that you have been working on your business’s backlinks and content marketing, in regards to that aspect your level pegging with the competition.

However, now you’re still scratching your head thinking, well why is the competition still ranking higher on Google after all of that work has been implemented?

It could be due to the competitor’s website offering a better user experience.
For example.

 

The Core Web Vitals could be better

It might have a better mobile design, in terms of its simpler to use.

The website might just be faster

It might have a design which just answers the customers question quicker

It could have more pages, dedicated to each service, and therefore explains the services that the company offers better

It could therefore have higher dwell times

It could also have lower bounce rates for example.

 

Why not hire us?

If you’re looking for one of the best SEO companies around, then look no further than Walsh & Partners. We offer e-commerce SEO as well as for companies that want to improve their local search engine optimisation.