How did you do it?

[Bestmiler]

For those of you who are ranked in the top 10 for your keyword(s), how did you do it? (links, articles, directories, etc)

[cessai]

patience and hardwork is the key...

get a lot of relevant back links, submitted articles and press release, promote our site to different classifieds, submitted to directories and blogs. refresh our contents.

[jeet]

Patience and good content helps.
Content plays more important a role...
Bye

[gobeyond]

Read all the seo books out there, starting with Search Engine Optimization for Dummies. Learn from experience. Title tags and backlinks are extremely important. Yes, you do need a lot of patience.

[parusa619]

Originally Posted by Bestmiler

For those of you who are ranked in the top 10 for your keyword(s), how did you do it? (links, articles, directories, etc)

The secrets in ranking keywords to the top 10 searches are:

- Patience, it can take a month to go to top 10 SERPs.
- Popularize your keywords by building links using your keywords as anchor text.
- Keywords that are not that popular can easily go to top 10 SERPs, but if you want to target popular keywords, keep it optimized.

[Cheetos]

Back links to your site

[Kasparoff]

-Dedication
-Persistence
-Long term focus
-Efforts
-and Luck

[freetraff]

• good content + onpage optimization

• link building

• article and press release distribution

• registration in few script directories (I remember only hotscripts, but seems like I was registering in more)

[terryuk]

Lots of link building, article submissions, relevant backlinks, directories, press release (if needs be), rss feeds etc etc

[netsearch]

I got the domain for my search phrase and added relevant backlinks google give a lot of weight to a domain match

[mitra]

Initially a well planned SEO will help you and eventually you need really good content for the visitors. SE will measure the average time spent on your site by visitors and rank the pages accordingly. Becoz every SE want to provide quality SERP with full of niche content.

[QwkSand]

Isn't competition a factor, too? My keyword is being used a lot, I've been doing SEO for months now and I'm still not getting any higher...

[sniperhiga]

Long work... it takes monthes and years to get top positions.
If you site... something local, you can get top positions in month, if your site.... real estate, seo, webmastering, casino... it takes years...

[tdd1984]

Originally Posted by Bestmiler

For those of you who are ranked in the top 10 for your keyword(s), how did you do it? (links, articles, directories, etc)

I would say all of them, but make sure when you submit articles they are unique, and different only submit to higher quality article directories like ezine articles, and etc.

I would highly suggest checking out

http://www.indianawebsitedesign.net/seo-blogs/

for more information on promoting.

[GeoFan49]

Originally Posted by mitra

...SE will measure the average time spent on your site by visitors and rank the pages accordingly...

Just how do you suppose the search engine knows how much time is spent by visitors?

[Web Gazelle]

Originally Posted by Bestmiler

For those of you who are ranked in the top 10 for your keyword(s), how did you do it? (links, articles, directories, etc)

All of those things. And continually seeking out places to get inbound links.

[nhebb]

Some keywords I ranked well for by creating niche content. For higher search volume / more competitive keywords => back links.

[jumpenjuhosaphat]

I ranked top 10 for "Official Lost" within only 3 days of being indexed. It really depends on how competitive the keywords/phrases are. I just yesterday realized that one of my sites is in the top 100 for the word "sexy" and top 30 for the word "celebrities". It took 8 months to get that status, but I never targeted neither of those keywords.

I think it's an open ended question. It really depends more on the specific keyword/phrase that you are targeting. What did the guy/gal in the top spot do to get there? Sometimes you'll find that you are in the top spot without doing anything to get there, sometimes it's much, much tougher, even just getting to the top 100. Different techniques work differently in different situations.

[Sadu]

All good advice above. Here's my 2c worth in no particular order.

A good looking design and well-written content will make it MUCH easier to get people to link to you. Nobody wants to link to an ugly site. Also, don't cover the site in Adsense until the site is getting busy - don't scare away potential links for the sake of $5 per month.

Research phrases that are achievable and logical - instead of targeting "seo" you are much better off going for "chicago seo company".

Decide what phrases you want to rank for and keep an excel sheet of your rankings each week / month for these phrases. I like to know which phrases are seeing improvements and which aren't, so I can spend my time where it is needed most.

Build links using a variety of different methods - and build them slowly. Don't spend a whole day each month doing link building - instead it's best to spend 20 mins every day so the links build slowly and naturally.

Don't get involved in anything that looks spammy - recip links with crap sites will hurt you.

Don't be afraid to pay for a few good links.

[zinruss]

I believe content is the king. Regular update is a must in order to provide latest information for existing users/visitors. I believe no one will bookmark a site which is outdated.

Another reason might be link building where linking the site with other quality sites can share the traffic.