seriously, longtail... nothing really beats it. @malcom nice one, - if you can't beat your competitor you can always kick them out
That is the best trick to follow the google guide line. I also only follow the google guide line only.
Backlinks. I know it is said that content is king. Well, from my experience, backlinks are the round table knights who can make an outstanding mystery out of the kingdom even if the king is weak or ill!
Follow the rules, extend your network and add value to your site... with 'relevancy' and 'compatibility' being the words of note...!
My best SEO Trick? Is to not use tricks. In all seriousness dont use SEO tricks they will only catch up with you, they might work for 1 month or 1 year but wont work forever. Just focus on getting quality back links and quality content.
I have a PR 6 forum. If a site needs to be indexed fast, I just place a link from that for about one months time period. Thats it.
Make a decent website, sell a good product through it. Build enough backlinks to gain visibility in SERPs.
follow the seo guideline.......not black hat techniques, good and unique content, backlinks with high PR, bookmarking with digg, technorati etc......