Two guys are in the jungle when they see a lion running towards them. Frantically, one of the men starts putting on his running shoes.
Surprised, the other man says “What are you thinking, you can’t outrun a lion!!!”
“I don’t have to outrun the lion,” said the man, “I just have to outrun you.”
This story is told by the good guys at Noble Samurai, the creators of the formidable SEO software, Market Samurai and has huge relevance to SEO strategy.
You see, it’s not always necessary to be the biggest, strongest, or fastest in the jungle – you don’t have to even outrun the lion – you just have to a little bit better than your competitors. This concept is probably one of the most important considerations of SEO strategy.
As I tell my clients, there is no such thing as a perfectly optimized website or a faultless SEO strategy – there is always something more you can do to improve your web site’s search engine optimization; get more back links, make more posts, add more media etc. So the goal for your SEO strategy should just be to do a bit better than your competitors. Taking this approach should mean you achieve better results without wasting any effort!
Look at this way….
When you do a Google search you get 10 results on the page. The second result listed on this page can be expected to get 21% of clicks, which sounds pretty high doesn’t it?
…well you would thinks so..BUT listen to this….The first result can be expected to get 42% of clicks…
This is a massive difference– the first search result gets double the amount of organic traffic than the the second.
So what’s the difference between the two web sites? Has the first ranking result been optimized twice as well as the second ranking site?
No way has it!
In honesty, the site that appears second in the ranking might be equal in almost every single aspect to the site in first place:
• It may have the same PageRank
• It’s domain might be of the same age
• It may have the same on page optimization factors such as having keywords in the page title and meta tags
The difference between the 2 sites might merely be something as small as one backlink on the number 1 site being of better quality than one on the number 2 site. For example that link goes to a relevant PR3 website as opposed to a a slightly less relevant PR 2 website. You see all it could be is just one link…yet it gets twice the amount of traffic!
This is why it’s so important to remember the theme of competition…
…Just one back link could mean the difference between 42% of traffic and 21% of traffic…and twice (or half) as many customers for your product or service.
With 21% of search engine traffic potentially hinging on something as small as a tiny little back link, you can make your approach to web site search engine optimization far more focused.
To put this critical SEO strategy in to play you first need to find out how fast your competitors are running – remember you don’t need to outrun the lion, you just need to out run your competition.
Step 1: Examine your competition closely. Look at the specifics of their web site and ask yourself two questions:
1. How much effort, time and money will it take for me to match the success of my opponent? And then secondly…
2. How can I exceed their results?
In the example above we have seen that tiny differences can cause create totally different amounts of traffic, and therefore change drastically the potential revenue your site will yield.
Unfortunately though the hard truth is not just as simple as building one stronger back link than the opposition. If you can build more strong links, don’t you think your competitors can too? Put it this way, if you are watching their every move, the chances are they are watching your every move too. What ends up happening is you both commit massive resources to out doing each other and a huge back link war ensues…there can only ever be two losers in this type of war…and you are both going to lose out!
So, what is the correct strategy to play? Well you need to find yourself an unfair advantage that will seriously tip the playing field in your favor. It could be that you are able to produce better quality content, anchor off your relationships in your niche, or your ability to magnify your Search Engine Optimization efforts using a highly leveraged SEO strategy.
In an upcoming post I will discuss one of the strategies you can use to out muscle your bigger stronger competitors. This strategy works great will small businesses who want to out hustle the opposition in a competitive market.
Until then, just remember that you don’t need to out run the lion, you just need to outrun your competitors.
Learn more website search engine optimization strategies – CLICK HERE
