Ruby McKenzie
Trying to outrank your competitors on Google is no simple task – especially if you are a young business with a brand-new website. The question is, is it possible to outrank a competitor website with a very old domain age? Is there any point even trying to compete? Read on and let’s find out!
Is domain age an important ranking factor?
According to Google, domain age is not a ranking factor in Google. However, it is still widely believed that older websites do tend to perform better in search – for a wide variety of reasons.
For example, older websites:
- Often have stronger backlink profiles.
- Have more content (e.g., established blogs).
- And other important ranking signals.
Is it possible to outrank a competitor with an old domain age?
The short answer is yes.
Just because a website is older, it does not necessarily mean that it is ‘better’. The fact is, there is a wide variety of ranking factors that Google takes into consideration and, again, age is apparently not one of them.
In some cases, having a newer website can actually be advantageous. For example:
- A mobile responsive design.
- Fresh and authoritative content.
- A better UX design with a superior on-page experience.
Of course, if a competitor has an older website and ticks all of the right boxes, then you will have your work cut out for you. But that’s not to say that it will be impossible for you to experience success.
That, and there are many forms of digital marketing for you to leverage – not just SEO. For example, this best SEO company also offers PPC (pay-per-click) advertising services and social media marketing to boot.
So, even if you can’t immediately outrank your competitors in the organic SERPs, you can gain fast visibility with PPC ads and start dominating on social media.
Is there any point trying to compete?
Yes! Absolutely. Again, domain age is largely irrelevant. All it means is that they’ve been in the game a little bit longer than you.
It doesn’t matter how new you are to SEO; it’s all about how well you perform. So, if you want to smash the competition out of the water, make sure you hire the specialists and develop a world-class search engine optimization campaign with a high-value content marketing strategy and you’ll be on your way.
How to outrank your competitors?
We’re paraphrasing here, however, here’s a quick look at what you can do to start working towards outranking your established competitors as quickly as possible:
- Analyse your competitors’ keywords.
- Produce high-value, informative content – consistently.
- Master your website’s on-page SEO:
o Title tags
o Meta descriptions
o Headings
o URLs
o Alt tags
o Page load speed
o Internal linking
- Develop a strong backlink profile.
- Improve the overall user experience on your website.
Understand that Google is more interested in ranking website’s that provide value to their users. This means that as long as you understand your audience, your focus keywords and their search intent, and then exceed expectations with a valuable on-site experience, you’ll be on the right path.
Conclusion: Everybody has to start somewhere
Don’t be put off by your competitors or how long they’ve been in business. Where there is competition, there is demand! It’s a big world out there and so long as you do your due diligence, you shouldn’t have any trouble attracting organic traffic to your website and converting them into loyal, paying customers!
