Cloning other people ideas leads to nowhere - here's why

Cloning someone's idea because it was x or y makes no sense.

Once you start with a need you may encounter that doing what your competition did makes sense.
But if you think doing what your competition has done will make you successful, you are on the wrong path.

Let's say you want to sell products for weight loss.
You start to spy on your competition.
Now you think the only possible way to win with them is by competing with them by doing what they did.
You start to build the same links. You start to create the same content, but 10% different.
You basically do not test things and you basically do not know what you are doing.

Once you start to pick different puzzles and glue them together, you will create what they did.
But you will do it in the proper order and you will know which things were the most important.
Then you will be able to repeat the successful and proper strategy.

The other way of looking at this is by thinking of different business models.
You must pick a model that suits your needs. Not a model that seems to be working for your competition.

I have worked for my competitor - didn't really feel good, but I have taken a lesson or two out of that experience.
So my competitor I have worked for used to look at competitors and blindly repeat them.
He even used to repeat himself and apply the same (rather simple and naive) strategy everywhere.
This created a cat and mouse game where competitors were just doing more of the same stuff.
They constantly outranked each other until one of them gave up.

But when you do it properly you leave your competitors clueless. They will have no idea what made you successful.
In the game of SEO they will create more of domains and links burning deep holes inside of their wallets.
Eventually they will run out of money and you will just keep on doing what really matters.
What is that factor in the SEO? Probably something else than just thousands of links and the same repeat content.

Never in my life will I buy links from someone that hasn't increased results under at least a dozen of keywords using a single link.

This principle should be applied everywhere. A videomaker who produces a clip without stunning effects that shock the audience, is unlikely to do otherwise within the next 5 years.
A programmer who produces a website that is difficult to navigate, is unlikely to do otherwise within the next 5 years.
A painter who produces a painting that is ugly, is unlikely to do otherwise within the next 5 years.
A bodybuilder who doesn't make it in the contest, is unlikely to do otherwise within the next 5 years.

Chances are all of those people would just repeat their masters.
Within 5 years many of them will become skilled enough to become masters themselves and realize they've never needed a master.

In fact, people who chase and clone the competition become slaves of their competitors. The relation of master and slave is racist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Terminology_concerns

From now I believe there are 3 levels of master and slave consciousness:
1. You are the master and rule the marketplace.
2. Your competitor is the master and they rule the marketplace.
3. You are an employee and decided to be that way for the rest of your days without even trying to be at level 1. or level 2.

An SEO who doesn't make it with a single link under a low competition keyword, is unlikely to do otherwise within the next 5 years.