1) Get a higher Google PageRank score than your competition For any given keyword. There is a minimum PageRank required to rank at Google. In order to see what this minimum PageRank number is, search Google for your keyword and look at the PageRank of your competition's web sites that are ranked in the top 10 of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). An easy way to view the PageRank scores of your competition is to use Google Toolbar or the SEOChat PageRank Search tool.

2) Get more relevant links than your competition. All links are not created equal. The best links are "relevant" links from web pages related to your keyword.

3) Get more links on more different web sites than your competition. Getting links on a variety of different web sites on different networks is crucial for high rankings.

4) Use the keywords you want to rank high in the search engines as the anchor text of your in-bound links. "Anchor text" is the visible text within a hyperlink. Text links and anchor text are the two most important criteria for how Google and other top Search Engines rank web sites.