What do you need to get top rankings on Google? There are many ingredients in the mix, but here are three of the most important that you need to concentrate on.

1.) Keyword relevant copy and content

Whatever the keywords you want to get ranked in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), be sure that you have enough copy and content about those specific words. Which would give Google a reason to rank you in the first place.

If for example, one of your priority keywords is "virtual assistant software". Create a separate page or section for this keyword (at least a few paragraphs) using the keyword in the headline, the first sentence, the last sentence as well as wherever it makes logical sense in order to achieve the keyword frequency and "density" that search engines are looking for. Ideally, each page will only have one or two keywords and will be very focused on that specific topic.

Additionally, by including on this specific keyword page either articles, pdf files or news items about your keyword, will help you improve your chances of a better ranking. Give Google a reason to rank you at the top. He with the most relevant copy wins …so make it rich and deep.

2.) Can the search engines read and "crawl" all the pages and content on your site?

Probably the biggest surprise to most marketers is that the search engines are unable to either navigate or read most of the content on their website. If they can't read your copy, then it's not surprising that you're not getting the rankings or traffic to your website that you aspire to.

The only thing a search engine can read is words. Sites that are dynamic, or created in other formats such as Flash or Java often can't be read by the search engines. Even if they can read the content on your site, many times they can't navigate it properly or just bounce "off the walls" as there are no specific links or site map to tell the proper sequence or where to go next

Want to see what Google is indexing on your website? Go to Google and type in: site:www.yourdomain.com This will show you the title and description of the pages of your site they know about. If they are all the same or they don't have a title or description listed chances are very good that your site is invisible to your target market.

3) Links... why they are so important?

Link popularity is one of the most important factors search engines use in determining where you will rank in the search engine for your keywords, and phrases, as it helps them to determine how important or popular your site is and what it's reputation is.

In essence the search engines are saying "we're going to give top ranking to pages that have important and relevant sites linking to them".

Link Building is the process of finding related/relevant websites and receiving a link from them to you. Natural linking occurs when a site has good content that others will link to. But to get these links people have to know about you. It is a catch 22. Building links has gotten sophisticated in the last couple of years. Today you need a mixture of links from many sources including articles, press releases, social bookmarks, directories and social media sites.

How many links do you need to have? It depends on the individual keyword or phrase you want to be found under and how the links are structured. The search engines look at inbound links as a popularity contest but more importantly, they are looking at the quality of the pages that are linking to you and the “anchor text” - the "clickable link" and what it says about the page that it links to. The key to linking is to have the right anchor text on a link that points to a page that has content using the same keyword phrase.

You do not want to increase the overall number of links by more than 10-15% each month for an established site with history as this may trigger a filter from the search engines as an indicator of artificially inflating the link popularity. New sites have an advantage since there has not been a history established and the link building can be done at a faster rate.

Linking is critical not only with your search engine placement but it helps stabilize you positions in the search engines and delivers traffic directly from the sites that link to you. But linking is not a once and you are done process. Generating new links is an ongoing process.

In Summary, successfully implementing the above 3 strategies either through your own efforts or through employing search engine promotion specialists will deliver the "triple punch" and the knockout punch you need to get top rankings on Google and the other search engines as well.