Not all websites are created equal. They all stem from a variety of factors and marketing signals the search engines use to determine the power and ranking ability of your web pages. It does not matter who has better design or lower prices. It really just boils down to who brands themselves better in order to attract authority in their respective business space. There are significant concrete reasons why your competition could be outranking you and it is important to realize why it could be that they are higher in the search rankings than you are.

Here are 15 reasons why your competition could be outranking you in the search space:

1. They have an older domain: An older domain will often times have an advantage over a newer domain. Google tends to favor older domains in the search engines so if you have a competitor with a domain that is many years older than yours that could be a reason.
2. Good ole fashion marketing principals: Good ole fashion principals when it comes to marketing your website will almost always go further than trying to game the system. Building your rankings online all starts with respecting the search space and marketing your website.
3. More authority: Authority is given to a website when they generate a certain amount of power in the business space. Guess how that authority is generated? By marketing your business online! Don’t worry about finding the loop holes, just worry about marketing your website online.
4. Properly optimized website: A properly optimized website is probably the most important factor. Well written optimized content, custom meta data for each page, a well-built internal linking structure, proper navigation, XML site map and image tags are probably some of the more important areas to focus on when optimizing a website. No optimization means zero visibility.
5. Natural one-way links: Naturally occurring links often times generate a great deal of link power. This can only really happen if you apply a well-rounded web marketing campaign to your online business.
6. Active link building: Active link building is not about locating search engine loop holes and pouncing on them, it is about marketing your business. If you come across a nice business directory catered toward your business niche list your business, if you are part of an association see if they will list your company in the general directory, write and distribute a press release when you have some news worthy to mention.
7. Active social media use: You might think Twitter & Facebook is just a fad or a waste of time but the reality is that it is not. The search engines can see how and when you use these social giants because more and more social data is starting to filter into the search engine space.
8. Good website coding: There is such a thing as bad website coding. If you use dirty code on your site the search engines might not like it and penalize you a little bit for it. Always make sure you use clean validated code.
9. Server quality: The quality of your server is also important. Where your website lives plays a very strong role in how it will rank in the search engines. If you are a U.S based company and you have your site hosted overseas somewhere you could have a negative impact on how your site appears in the search engine space.
10. Poor URL structures: Your URL structures should be search engine friendly & clean at all times. I often times bump into websites that are utilizing a poor quality CMS system which generates URL structures that look so horrendous they hurt to look at. This will hurt your abilities for search rankings.
11. Too many affiliate ads: If you have more affiliate ads, links and banners on your website than you do copy for your own business that is going to be a problem overtime.
12. Too much flash: Too much flash on your site can also hurt your ability to rank. Some is OK but too much can negatively impact the overall strength of your website.
13. Frequent website changes: Search engines like to see stability. If you are always making wide sweeping content and website changes it will impact your sites ability for search engine visibility.
14. Size of website: If your site is 5 pages large but should be 20 than change it. By breaking out your services or products into individual pages you can ultimately increase the strength of your website overnight.
15. Wasting your money: Think about what kinds of services you are buying to promote your website. There are many companies that offer all the gold in Ft. Knox for next to nothing often times just leading zero marketing value. If it sounds too good to be true it most likely is.