It turns out, I managed to learn something extremely valuable about SEO back when I was in high school.  Which is odd, given that I graduated in 1991. 

It was my senior year, all my friends had been in the class of 1990, and I was taken suddenly by an uncharacteristic desire to make my mark on my small rural high school.  After toying briefly with the prospect of toilet papering the yards of all the staff members, I decided to set my sights on that paragon of high school achievement: the Senior Superlatives.  You know what I'm talking about here.  That section of the yearbook containing the pictures of those deemed Most Likely to Succeed, Most Attractive, Most School Spirited, and Most Likely to End Up in Jail. 

I had one problem: nobody knew who the heck I was. 

Beginning to sound familiar?  Is getting ranked in any social strata all that different?  So, at any rate, I decided to simply ask people to vote for me.  In every class, I asked the two or three people who sat next to me "Would you vote for me for Most Dependable?"

Why Most Dependable?  Because nobody else was competing for that title.  I mean, seriously--who stays up at night wondering "Is Janice more dependable than me?"  Nobody.  "Is Janice hotter than me?"--sure.  "Is Janice going to earn her first million before me?"--no doubt.  But nobody is losing sleep over the Most Dependable spot. 

Not surprisingly, the votes of the fifteen or sixteen people who sat next to me resulted in my being ranked Most Dependable in my class (gee, come to think of it, I sound like a Toyota Camry)--despite being a completely unreliable nitwit at the time. 

So what are the SEO lessons to be learned here? 

Fight the fight you can win.  Be honest and realistic when selecting your keywords.  If you have no shot of getting a high ranking for your most desired keyterm, put your energy into ranking for a term that you can totally dominate. 

Know the competition.  Yes, I was an unreliable nitwit running for Most Dependable, but my competition was... other unreliable 17 year old nitwits who didn't care if anyone thought they were dependable. 

Don't forsake relevance for rank.  Yes, when you've got a choice, pick the relevant, valuable keywords you can dominate, but also remember that a high rank for keywords that don't apply to your real business does you no good. 

Ironically, I found out after the vote that I was a close second for Most Likely To Be Famous (I was a theater geek).  Had I tried for that title, I might have gotten a superlative that actually said something about the real me.