Kick no higher than the waist
Do not place anything other than the most important information or call to action above the fold. Once you gain a user off the SERPs, you do not want that user bouncing back. Hold them with compelling content, and strike below with optimized content and links. Make use of CSS to make your content stronger.
Maintain your balance
Balance is everything. Make sure your marketing initiatives as well as your site and content creation are balanced. You want quality links, but a natural profile.
Protect you centreline
Make sure you defend the most ciritcal searches and keyword terms for your site. Go to lenghts to strike at the competition, but your centreline must be protected.
Watch your opponents blow
Keep a keen eye on what your competition is doing. Are they moving in on keywords you hold. Block them. Stirke back. When your competition moves into a new area or implements a winning strategy, follow. Retake the intiative.
Fight on the blind side
Out-manouver your opponents whenever you can. Move inte new segments and use new strategies before they do, this will keep them from getting the upper hand.
Train to see everything
In order to see everything you must first focus. Focus on what keywords are driving traffic to your site and what changes they are displaying. Observe the trends in search for how these keywords evolve over time. This will show you your strengths and also where your competition is vulnerable.
Put your opponent on the defensive
Make sure you are actively chasing at least one of your competitors keywords all the time. You will never gain positions by only defending your own keywords.
Attack your opponents balance
As stated, balance is everything. Attack your competitor and try force him to over-commit to a technique – while you remain balanced.
Learn to recognize openings
Use trends or other search and query related data to predict what searchers will be using the SEs for. Predict what the SEs are trying to do for users and prepare for that.
Have ”heart” but control your emotions
Believe that you can win. Seeing impacts of online marketing can take weeks and long-term SEO can even take months or years to bear fruit. Remain vigilant and believe in yourself. Should you falter, lose hope and give up – your competition has already won.
This post was inspired by the 10 Wing Chun principles by Eric Oram
Image attribution: Huno, Flickr
