Always max your base out, and never rush your town hall.

If you max you base out, (including but not limited to defenses, storage's, walls, troop upgrades, and whatever you want else) some of the advantages that will come to you is, you will get attacked by higher town halls. This may sound like a bad thing, but they will get higher loot penalty on you and you won't lose as much resources. If you don't want this, you can drop down low in the trophy range. Another advantage is you will be one step closer to max town hall 10, the ultimate goal of all clashers. One of the things you want to avoid is rushing your town hall. Once you rush, you are more ninjae to lower town halls attacking you and taking all your resources. Also, you will get the loot penalty on the bases. If you have level 1 and 2 barbarians and archers, and you are town hall 10, You should be attacking town hall 4s. But, since you are such a high town hall, you will get like 1000 gold and elixer to spend on your base. So, in other words, you won't be making a any progress on your base. So, NEVER rush your town hall and ALWAYS max out your base.