1. The document discusses using military tactics for SEO, including planning SEO campaigns like military operations through situation analysis and mission planning. 2. It recommends gaining and retaining initiative through differentiating content and being unpredictable with releases to prevent competitors from copying. 3. Monitoring competitors through tools like Google Alerts and deception tactics like leaking fake information are also proposed to maintain awareness of competitors' actions.

1. Tactical SEO
Conducting SEO as though lives depend on it

2. Start of pre-
deployment.
Feeling pumped!
During pre-deployment training:
No sleep, no showers, no food, heat
exhaustion, hypothermia…
Enlistment day 2006.
Feeling excited!

3. Why combined military tactics & SEO?
 Localsearch.com.au attracts millions of
pageviews
 Tens of thousands of businesses depend
on those leads
 Any change will impact many people
 Our competitors are:
 Large & well resourced
 Highly motivated & aggressive
 Quick to copy (anyone)

4. To win we need to be…
Smart
Creative
Strategic

5. Using a military mindset enables
you to find more creative
solutions to difficult problems.

6. 3 military tactics to handle a
highly motivated opponent.
I need 100 backlinks
if we’re gonna get
this traffic…
Rel=nofollow?
PR1?

7. 3 key military concepts
Military mission planning

8. 3 key military concepts
Gain & Retain the initiative

9. 3 key military concepts
Monitoring & deception

10. 1. Plan SEO like a military operation

11. Mission Planning: SMEAC
1. Situation
2. Mission
3. Execution
4. Admin & Logistics
5. Command & Signals

12. Situation: Friendly
 Current situation
 Desired end state
 Assets, resources
 Wider strategic goals

13. Situation: Enemy
 Assets, resources
 “They have a large development team, are well
financed, and have a big youtube channel”
 ENMLCOA (Enemy most likely course of action)
 “Historically they have been known to copy our work,
and the work of other competitors.”
 ENMDCOA (Enemy most dangerous course of
action)
 “In 2014 they filed a lawsuit against [company]
because they released a widget which they believed
was a threat to their market dominance”

14. Mission Statement
“Who + what + why + when”

15. Mission Statement
“XYZ Company will release [thing] in order to
capture 1000 organic visitors/mo, no later than
5pm on Friday the 3rd of May 2018.”

16. Real Example
“Localsearch will release a new
META description format, in order
to improve CTR no later than
February 24th, 2018.”

17. Execution
 Who, what, where, when
 “Content team will publish article by dd/mm/yy”
 “Marketing will send emails by dd/mm/yy”
 “Sales will finish closing leads by dd/mm/yy”

18. Execution
Risk mitigation: How does this method…
 Maximise our strengths, minimise our weaknesses
 “Leveraging our large content team, we will release content at twice the rate and
and be twice as thorough. We will also use our strong industry relationships to
generate links and maximise rankings.”
 Exploit enemy weakness, mitigate their strength
 “Even though ABC Industries are very slow to release content, and their content is
thin. This means we will be perceived as the more responsive, thought leaders.”

19. Execution
What do we do if we experience…
 ENMLCOA (they copy our work)
 “We will also post their version on our social media (highlighting the date
difference) and ask our audience what they think of this alternate content
(knowing that ours is vastly superior).”
 ENMDCOA (they try to sue us)
 “We have located a legal precedent which demonstrates that our work does
not infringe on their IP. We can also demonstrate evidence that our content
was derived from original research from our own data sources.”

21. 2. Gain & Retain the Initiative

22. Be different &
difficult to copy
 Do specific research
 Case studies
 Leverage strategic partnerships
 Create custom widgets
 Release content more quickly (if they are slow)
 Release more in-depth content (if theirs is thin)
 Release more entertaining content (if theirs is dull)
 Release video content (if theirs is all text)
 Solve a more specific problem (if theirs is generic)
 Target keywords which they have overlooked.
 Add bonus content to add value

23. Retain the initiative
 Be unpredictable
 Always add unique value & innovate for your user
 Have 2 or 3 more releases ready to deploy before
you publish the first
 Have a roadmap in place

24. 3. Monitoring & Deception

25. “If you know the enemy
and know yourself, you
need not fear the result
of a hundred battles.”
– Sun Tzu

26. Monitoring & deception plans
Spying has been used in wartime
throughout history.

27. Monitoring
 Google alerts
 Facebook’s page monitoring
features
 Download their free guides
 Test trial accounts
 Interrogate their chatbots
 Subscribe to their newsletters
(with fake emails)
 Use keyword tracking which
monitors your competitors

28. Create an ongoing program of work
designed to actively deceive your
competition.
Deception

29. Deception plans
 Find key email addresses with
Hunter.io
 Send fake newsletters about
upcoming features
 Send “accidental” emails which
appear to be internal company
memos detailing future plans
 Leak strategy documents
 Create fake landing pages using
Unbounce or Leadpages with fake
information
(remember to no-index/no-follow)

30. If you behave as though absolute success is the ONLY option,
you will explore every possibly option to ensure it happens.