My site has higher domain authority and perfect PageSpeed, but still ranks low – why?

Hey SEO community

I’ve optimized my site (https://icode.md) for speed and SEO. One of my key service pages is https://icode.md/ro/creare-site

Here’s the situation:

• My domain authority (DA): 55
• Competitor on position #1 has DA 54
• My Google PageSpeed Insights score: 100/100
• My site is indexed and mobile-friendly
• No noindex tags, no crawl issues
• But… I’m stuck at position #30+ for the target keyword “creare site Moldova”

This is my site

And Concurent

Meanwhile, a competitor with a slightly lower DA is ranking at the top.

So my question is:

What could be holding me back, and what can I do to outrank this competitor?

Things I’ve checked:

• Title tags, H1 structure
• Content is original and 800+ words
• Internal linking structure
• Meta description and image alt tags
• Sitemap

What else should I look into? Could it be:

• Backlink quality vs. quantity?
• Topical authority / semantic relevance?
• CTR and engagement metrics?

Any advice would be hugely appreciated!