Search engines change their ranking algorithms from time to time. A page in your Web site that earned a top ranking last week might drop in the rankings a few months later. Then left untouched, that same page could climb right back into its old search position, although this is unlikely to happen by chance.

The trick to always being on top is to learn the variables that can be influenced and analyze the contents of a top-ranking page and simply make yours match it keyword for keyword. This does not mean you copy the page or reuse even one of their sentences. I am not condoning or recommending copyright infringement. Instead, evaluate the page ahead of yours by literally clicking on their listings, visit their site, and select View from the pull-down menu in your browser and then Document Source in Netscape Navigator, or Source in Microsoft Internet Explorer. This allows you to view the actual HTML, code that makes up their page.

Ask yourself, "Is a particular keyword more prominent in their Title tag than in Mine?" If this page has a keyword in the third position, make sure your Title tag has a keyword in the third position. If their page has the keyword twice in the title, in position three and seven, you do the same without copying their Title tag. If their page has 264 words of copy, write 264 word of copy for your informational page. If their 264 word of copy contains three occurrences of the targeted keyword, yours should have three, and so on.

Although Google claims not to consider other META tags, such as the Title or keyword tags, for its relevancy rating, it does appear to place pages which have the search term in the Title tag in more prominent positions. Additionally, it appears that Google may rank a page higher if there is a link on the page that contains a keyword. Using the keyword in a header tag also helps draw attention to it. However, there is never any substitute for having meaningful content on your pages.

Perhaps they are using the keyword in the heading tags, or maybe keywords appear in hyperlinks to other internal pages or some other way that you had not considered or are not using. In theory, you can build a page that is identical to theirs in format. However, the search engine will treat the two pages differently depending on what other ranking factors the engine considers such as link popularity.

It is also highly recommended to include keywords within heading and use bold type and large font size. For best results, make sure that these keywords are located within close proximity, as the search engines calculates the distance between keywords. The keywords near the bottom of the page are just as important as the keywords at the top of the page. It must be noted that the search engines relies heavily on link popularity in determining ranking. Despite your best efforts to create a highly optimized page, if this page has no link popularity, there is a good chance it will not achieve a high position.

Finally, keep in mind that there is no substitute for content. The search engines makes it known that they prefer not to index pages that are low in content, so make your pages content-rich and relevant. In the search engine's view, there is nothing better you can do than provide real content that will solve searcers' problems.