When its nip and tuck on the serps..

what seo elements really make a difference?

[claimsweb]

Here's a situation that may be familiar to many of you:

You are in an ultra competitive industry
Your site is doing well but not quite top dogging across the sector.
Fortunately no one site actually is - there's a wide spread and a varying top 3 for the main keywords.
So your competing but not quite edging forwards
Your rankings are stable save a little freshbot jiggy jiggy
Your links are numerous, well selected and (reasonably) on topic
You think youve done most seo things right and have stuck to the 26 Tabke tips religiously.
All of the above is underpinned by your stability on the Google serps post Florida / Austin et al

With all that in mind - what other seo elements are likely to give you a boost at this stage of your sites development?

Its an obvious and probably niaive question but 5 months post Florida what have we learned about the new G that if implemented really should make a difference.

Should the seminal 26 Tabke tips now in fact be numbering 30-40-50?!

[JuniorOptimizer]

More links. More anchor text. That's how to rule.

[Stefan]

what have we learned about the new G that if implemented really should make a difference

Good content, on many pages; quality incoming links and no dodgy exchanges; more content. Brett's 26 steps still work for all the SE's, including G.

[GoogleGuy]

Industry-specific terms, slang terms, precise terms, and sloppy terms. Check out your logs to see what users are typing. If users are typing
configure my widget
compile my widget
then you'll want to make sure you also mention widget configuration, reconfiguring your widget, widget compile errors, widget customization, etc. The spread of words that 100 people will use when they have the same information need is staggering. Be thinking about what queries your missing because your page has the word "configure" but not the word "configuration." Note that Google does some of this semantic analysis (e.g. some stemming), but it's better to find the words from your own pages instead of Google having to guess that your "compile" page also deals with "recompilation."