We all know that investing in backlinks can have enormous effects on your position in search engine results. If you have been working on this for a long time and have invested well in it, you can already achieve very high positions. However, a major frustration for many people is that after months - perhaps years - of investing and... link building are still not in position one, but their competitor is. How is this actually possible? This can have several causes, which we will discuss in this blog.

Age of the website

The age of your website is a factor that contributes to your position in the search engine results. A domain that has existed for a longer period of time has a higher status in the search engine than a website that has only recently existed. This is because a domain that has existed for a longer period of time has received all kinds of visitors. The domain gains a little authority for each visitor. A domain that has existed for a longer period of time usually receives a lot more visitors than a new domain. However, you cannot change this: it is a matter of patience.

SEO title and headings

Another factor that can contribute to the fact that your competitor is number one and you are not, is that your competitor has optimized his SEO title and headings and you may not. You can optimize the SEO title and headings by incorporating the most important keyword. A few other things that are recommended are to make the SEO title clear and concise and make sure it makes the potential visitor want to click through.

Meta description

Another aspect of your website that can have a lot of influence on your position in the search engine results is the meta description. If you have not completed the meta description of your website, but your competitor has, he or she may be ranked above you. So make sure you include the most important keywords.

Relevance of backlinks

We know that generating backlinks is a powerful way to increase your website's position in search engine results. But did you know that the relevance of these backlinks largely contributes to that position? It is of course good to have a lot of backlinks, but if they are not relevant, not much will change in your position. So make sure that the backlinks come from websites with a similar topic to yours.

High-quality content

It may happen that your competitor is above you for a certain keyword, while this keyword does not even appear on your competitor's page. How is this possible? The search engine can deduce what an organization does from the content on the page, i.e. from the context. It is therefore not only important that your backlinks are of good quality, but so is your website itself. So pay attention to the content on your website.

As you can see, there are many factors – large and small – that can affect your position in the search engine results. Have you invested well in it? backlinks, but is your competitor still above you? Then take a look at aspects such as the SEO title, headings, meta description and content of your website.