First of all, this is my first post and I hope my English won't be too bad (I'm a French Canadian but I did my best). Enjoy!

-------------------------------------------------

This weekend, I participated in an indoor rock climbing competition. For those who don't know how indoor rock climbing competitions are processed, it's not a race as the majority may think. Rock climbing is an individual sport focusing on the objective of surpassing ourselves to always become stronger to be able to do things that are more difficult. In competitions, routes are very difficult, so the goal is not to climb to the top as fast as possible, but to try to get as near as possible of the top. The routes are made to be difficult enough so the competitors usually fall before they reach the top.

I was lucky this weekend--was able to reach the top of each route while my major competitor fell just before he could reach the top of the third route. With this performance, I got first place in the competition, but was I really the best? I almost fell twice in the third route.  If I had fallen either of those times, I would have finished second. Even if I finished first, I could have done better without any doubt. If I'm not trained correctly until the next competition, I might be defeated by my competitors.

As rock climbing is a sport that depends a lot on the physiognomy of the climber, each climber has his own style and techniques.  What might be easy or a good method for a climber might not be for another because of his physiognomy. So, when it is time for training, I don't check other climbers. I check for my own personal weakness and try to make these points better. Even if I'm used to doing something that might help me, I must try things completely different to see if it could make me worse or better.

By comparing rock climbing and SEO, I found a lot of similarities (you probably found some too by reading my introduction). Search engine optimization focuses on reaching as close to the top of the SERPs as possible. Once you rank for long tail search terms, you are trying to rank for queries that are more competitive. So, even if you might be the first on certain queries, you still can grab a better seat on others. SEO is a continuous process. If you stop working on it, your rankings will suffer and your competitors will outrank you.

Methods and tactics are really website specific. Each webmaster has his own way to get to the top. A tactic that might succeed for a website might fail for another. So when it's time to optimize your website, do not copy your competitors. Check what you could do better on your own website. The time you take to analyse your competitors is time you lose on improving your website. Instead, try things that you never thought would work and that you've never seen before. Because there is nothing magical about SEO, invest time in testing different tactics on a regular basis.

This is my vision about climbing and SEO, two things that take a big part of my life. But what about you? What other part of your life relates to SEO? I want to hear your stories and opinions!