Back in the olden days of SEO, we never stood a chance at outranking major websites.
Imagine your awesome new website with a 23 Domain Authority trying to outrank some goliath with an 83 Domain Authority.
Forget it…you’re knocked out before even walking in the ring!
Google leaned on link profiles a lot more than it does today. It was a really simple way to quantify trust: X (links) at Y (value) equals Z (ranking potential).
In other words, established websites could rank for keywords…just because they were big websites!
And they could get away with thin content and obnoxious ads! (Looking at you, Forbes!)
And by having a first mover advantage, their gains kept generating more gains in a virtuous cycle. Because they ranked in positions 1-3 for everything, they generated more links based on their ranking position alone.
It was truly the 1% claiming 99% of the market.
Punching above your weight class
Most websites aren’t huge powerhouses, so I’m talking to most of you readers right now.
Things aren’t the way they used to be.
Google is now attempting to return the best pages based on the intent of the searcher. So that means a page can’t just win outright anymore because it’s part of a strong website.
That’s good for us. And it’s good for searchers.
What that means is that if larger websites don’t step their game up, we can play the part of David taking down Goliath.
An unlikely SERP
The keyword “best cities for digital nomads” is searched 250 times per month and has a matching traffic potential of 250.
Yet, the top ranking page for this query has a lowly Domain Authority and Page Authority of 18 and 26, respectively.
That’s fairly low for a top-ranking piece of content, but these metrics are meant to be observed relative to other websites.
So let’s take a look at the DA and PA of the first page of SERPs:
Position one is the proud owner of the lowest Domain Authority and almost the lowest Page Authority.
It sticks out like a sore thumb, and is definitely NOT helping.
On paper, they shouldn’t even be in the same ballpark as these other competitors.
Yet…they’re beating everyone.
How is this possible?
How to outrank larger websites
We are going to dig into a few factors that might be helping them level the playing field. First, let’s take a look at their content score.
1. Content depth evaluation
Using MarketMuse I can evaluate how well the results on page one covered the necessary topic cluster in order to present a “complete” article.
In English, this is going to tell me how in-depth the content is for each competitor.
MarketMuse suggested a score of 33. Here’s how it shook out:
They definitely did better than the average bear (25.6), but they didn’t really blow anyone out of the water. That said, they nearly hit their MarketMuse recommended score, and that’s what matters.
Verdict: It’s helping
2. Topical Authority
Having topical authority means your website is trusted within a certain field of expertise.
If my field of expertise is aerial monkey yoga, and I’ve written a lot of expert content on aerial monkey yoga stuff, my website would be considered to have topical authority in this space.
If I decided to write an article on football gambling for this website, it would never rank because I have no expertise in the area.
I looked at each of the ten results in SERPs to determine if they have topical authority in the subject of “digital nomads.”
They either fit into one of three categories:
- Entire domain purpose: Their domain is dedicated to digital nomad topics.
- Peripherally: They write about digital nomad topics but it’s not the purpose of the site.
- No: They wrote about a digital domain topic, but their site has little-to-no expertise around it.
Here’s what I found:
Interesting.
So it appears that you need strong domain-level topical authority to crack the top of page one.
It’s worth noting that the bottom result had a low content score. Perhaps that’s what’s holding them back.
Verdict: Definitely helping
3. Page Speed
Page Speed is likely a direct and indirect ranking factor. So let’s see how each of the competitors stack up:
It’s really hard to make heads or tails of this one because every website loaded fairly quickly (zero over three seconds).
I would say that this definitely matters, but in this instance it’s a net neutral.
Verdict: It’s neutral
4. Title Tag Clickability
Lastly, we are going to look into aspects of the title tag that may be influencing clickability. One factor of RankBrain is “expected CTR”, in which Google measures your click-through rate compared to your peers.
If you are higher than expected, you may move up. And vice versa.
Let’s look at a few known factors that an influence a click:
Is it coincidence that position one had the only title that included both the year and a numbered list in the title? Maybe, maybe not.
It’s possible that they made better use of their real estate for a more clickable title tag.
Maybe.
Verdict: It’s maybe helping
So what do we now know about this enigma sitting at the top of SERPs?
- They have a relatively high content score.
- Their entire domain is about being a digital nomad (maybe bonus points for topical authority?)
- They have an average page speed.
- They have the only title updated for 2023 with a numbered list.
We don’t have a perfect smoking gun here, but we certainly know enough to say with enough certainty that these factors (and maybe especially the topical authority) are helping David take down Goliath.
So how do you beat larger websites?
We can only make educated guesses (like this case study) at why Google favors one website ahead of another.
But there are some factors we do know are important, and we know that we have control over:
- Write in-depth content using a tool like MarketMuse or Clearscope.
- Have topical authority on the thing you’re writing about.
- Having a fast page speed.
- Having a clickable title tag.
It’s certainly not in the vein of “easy SEO wins”, but the result pays for the resources needed tenfold.