Once you learn most of the more powerful techniques involved in effective Search Engine Optimization, you quickly realize the tremendous power that comes along with that knowledge. The ability to take a web page, and within days to weeks manipulate it so that it rises to the top of Google’s rankings for the most valuable keywords, provides amazing opportunities to the SEO expert.

All of us have “competitors” if you’re in the field of producing online content. Maybe you own a forum or a blog, and you’re competing for organic Google traffic. There may come a point when, during your keyword research, you recognize that a significant number of people are searching for information about your competition.

Or, another situation may be that a specific newsworthy event is taking place involving your competitor. There are a few techniques that you can use to harness those search keywords and use them to your own advantage.

Flanking The Enemy With Aggressive SEO Techniques

Whenever you recognize a newsworthy event, or a large influx of search requests for the web domain of your competition - the best way to handle that information is to turn it around to your advantage.

In warfare, the larger the enemy is, the easier it is to covertly slip behind enemy lines and plant weapons of sabotage. The same is true here - you can take the popularity and size of your competition and turn it around to your own advantage.

Identify the Weak Points of Your Competition

The first step in accomplishing this “aggressive SEO” strategy is by crossing enemy lines. This means using all of the keyword SEO tools at your disposal to uncover keyword phrases that involve your competitor’s website, are very popular (highly searched for in the search engines) and low competition (hardly anyone else is writing about it).

You can see these sort of opportunities with the large online retailers. They have very popular online stores, and many people can’t remember the URL, so they use Google to search for the site. Most other websites and bloggers wouldn’t think about focusing on that keyword phrase, because it’s obvious the person typing it in is looking for the store front.

However, the savvy blogger would take that popularity and do something like write a review about the retailer’s storefront, or otherwise capture the high popularity of that phrase, and take advantage of the low competition.

Exploit the Weak Spots

Once you’ve identified those keyword phrases that are normally “owned” by your competition, then it’s time to produce content on your own domain that focuses on those particular keyword phrases. There is no law that says you can’t write about, or review, your competitor’s products or website - so you don’t have to worry about copyright or infringing on the trademark name.

It’s a free country - and you are allowed to write about anything you like, so long as you don’t claim the products and services are yours. Write a high-quality and very useful review or overview of your competitor’s product or service (or newsworthy event), and then make sure to use the SEO techniques I’ve described on this blog to draw in those search engine queries that are normally aimed toward your competitor.

By using this approach, even small-time bloggers can reroute high-volume traffic of the much larger and more powerful competition.

This should not be your own focus of content - because you want to differentiate yourself from your competition, but by funneling keyword traffic away from your competition, you may be able to show people who were originally looking for your competitor’s site why your site is so much better.