The one good thing about the Internet and running a website based business is that you get to see how the opposition is doing in relative terms as far as individual search engines go. Who the are, and what they are doing in SEO terms.

Of coarse you rarely get to find out if they are outselling you.

In most businesses it is very hard to get information on how many people walk through a specific door, into an opposition business

Having this information is a great bonus. But the information sometimes tends to work against you, especially if you look at what you learn by it in a negative manner. Be positive about it, Use what you learn to fight back. The harder the competition fights for each customer and customer satisfaction. . the better you should get.

We have several expert SEO on this site. It is quite possible they would be reluctant to give you a step by step fightback plan, as this would be giving away hard earned skills.
you could contact one of them.

I personally have great respect for - incrediblehelp and webnauts (user-names)

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