SEO is a winner-take-all, zero-sum game.
The harsh reality of SEO is that only a few win while everyone else remains invisible.
And the problem is compounding.
Consider these stats:
- The first organic result is 10x more likely to receive a click than the 10th position.
- Similarly, the first organic search result has an average CTR (click through rate) of nearly 28%.
- Over 90% of users never even visit page 2.
- The top 3 organic results receive nearly 70% of all clicks.
If your business is not in the top 5 results for your most coveted keywords, the likelihood of ever seeing scalable growth via online means is nil.
SEO-promoters will consistently tell you to “capture the long tail” and “go after keywords your competitors don’t rank for.”
That used to be a viable strategy, but the emergence of AI (artificial intelligence) in SEO results and the consumers’ proclivity toward other AI search engines like Perplexity.ai and ChatGPT are killing the SEO long tail game.
To add further insult to injury, SEO also takes longer than ever to be effective.
In SEO, you only win when someone else loses.
You can typically only grow revenue significantly when you rank in the top 1-5 positions for bottom-of-the-funnel, commercial keywords.
Let’s talk about how you can still craft a winning strategy, in spite of all the aforementioned negativity.
Table of Contents
Play to Win
Have you ever played a game with someone so competitive that they refused to capitulate — even if they were playing a simple board game with a child?
I have. It’s annoying.
Those same types of people I’ve found also have the mentality that they won’t waste their time playing a game they know they can’t possibly win.
In business, where results really matter, sunk costs may be irrelevant, but ROI is not.
Don’t play the game of SEO unless you know you can win.
Here are some questions to ask:
- In a content and link gap analysis, is there possibly a way to catch up to the dominating players in your niche? If so, what is the cost?
- What is the forecastable revenue from becoming an authority in your industry? Compare that to the cost of bridging the gap.
- If you can see a path toward bridging the gap, do you have the budget to get there?
- More importantly, how much time is it going to take you to get there? In SEO, your greatest deterrent to playing the game is more likely the time to rank and not the cost to rank. It can take 3-6 years even with the most robust and sizeable SEO budgets.
Playing to win in SEO means you have enough budget to bridge content and link gaps.
Playing to win in SEO means you are taking the long view.
Can you afford to wait for 3-6 years before you start to receive meaningful leads to your business?
Why Most Sites Lose
Most websites don’t lose because SEO doesn’t work.
They lost because they never played to win in the first place.
Unwitting business owners approach SEO like it’s a side project, rather than a core business growth strategy.
They don’t commit to the long term. They don’t build a real content moat.
They chase quick wins, half-heartedly publish blogs, and dabble in link building without ever developing website and domain authority.
Their strategies are often outdated, borrowed from a time when keyword stuffing and exact-match domains still mattered. Others focus solely on paid traffic or social virality, hoping for spikes rather than building sustainable momentum. And even more businesses rely on generic, templated content that adds nothing new to the conversation — the kind Google is increasingly good at filtering out.
Add to that a failure to differentiate — to stand for something specific and valuable in the eyes of both users and search engines — and it’s easy to see why most brands flounder. They’re not investing. They’re not innovating. And they’re certainly not executing with consistency.
They’re not really playing the game. And in SEO, if you’re not playing to win, you’ve already lost.
Here’s why most sites stay invisible:
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No long-term commitment. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Businesses bail too early.
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No content moat. They create thin, surface-level content with no topical depth or authority.
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Stale tactics. They’re stuck using outdated playbooks from 2012.
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No differentiation. They blend in. Google doesn’t reward “me too” brands.
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Short-term thinking. They chase trends, paid traffic, or viral posts instead of compounding value.
SEO is a war of attrition — and most brands are ill-equipped for the fight.
How to Win: A Proven SEO Playbook
Winning in SEO requires clarity, commitment, and a willingness to delay gratification.
You won’t see results overnight.
You probably won’t see them in a quarter. But if you’re willing to invest in a long-term, compounding strategy, the rewards can be transformational.
The first step is making the decision to go all in.
SEO isn’t for the indecisive.
You need the budget, the patience, and the confidence to stay the course — often for a year or more — before you begin seeing serious ROI.
But when the results do come, they tend to snowball.
Brand and Authority Trumps Rankings: Building Asymmetric Returns with an SEO Moat
Authority compounds.
Rankings solidify.
And traffic becomes consistent, qualified, and cost-effective.
Once you’re in, the next step is to build a content moat — not just any content, but deep, authoritative, valuable content that sets you apart from everyone else in your niche. This isn’t about churning out blog posts. It’s about publishing content that is so thorough, so insightful, and so useful that it becomes the go-to resource in your space.
Then, you keep it fresh.
You update your content regularly.
You protect your position.
We have found that our brand quality (i.e. SEO.co, PPC.co and DEV.co) creates an asymmetric return on our content marketing because there is a true brand moat.
How can you replicate this type of strategy, particularly in a competitive industry?
Continue to Earn Backlinks
But great content means little without authority, and that’s built through links — real, earned backlinks from credible sites in your industry.
This doesn’t mean buying links or submitting to spammy directories. It means PR-level outreach, helpful contributions to major publications, and link-worthy assets like studies, tools, and data that others naturally cite and share.
If you need help building links, I suggest our expert link building services.
Stay True to Your Niche
Beyond content and links, you need a unique reason for Google to rank you.
That means owning your brand position.
You can’t just be another generalist.
Whether you niche down, speak with a strong point of view, or become known for a specific solution, you need to give both users and search engines a compelling reason to favor you over thousands of similar options.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO plays a supporting — but critical — role.
Your site needs to be fast, mobile-optimized, accessible, and structured in a way that helps both users and crawlers navigate with ease.
Page experience metrics like Core Web Vitals aren’t optional.
They’re expected.
Brand Beyond SEO
You also need to look beyond traditional rankings.
To win the full SERP, you must target featured snippets, “People Also Ask” boxes, video results, and image placements.
Optimizing for these areas gives you greater visibility and helps your content punch above its ranking weight.
The best SEO campaigns are never static.
Winning brands constantly measure what’s working, adjust what’s not, and double down on the tactics delivering results.
That means auditing SEO performance, refreshing outdated content, and remaining agile as algorithms and user behaviors evolve.
In SEO, Play to Win or Don’t Play at All
SEO is not a game for the half-hearted or budgetless.
The rules are unforgiving, and the competition is relentless.
But for those willing to commit—to build, to invest, to outlast—SEO offers one of the most powerful, defensible growth channels available today.
It’s a moat. A multiplier. A machine that compounds over time.
But only if you take SEO seriously.
So if you’re thinking about dabbling, don’t.
If you’re hoping for quick wins without putting in the work, save your money.
But if you’re ready to build something real—something that grows while you sleep, something that turns strangers into customers without paying for every click—we should talk.
Because in this game, you either play to win, or you don’t play at all.
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