Keep Content Fresh

Keep your website content up-to-date and fresh. Check all your links and make sure the sites they point to are still there. Are your prices current? Did you remove that product you no longer sell? Keeping your content current will ensure that your site is optimally positioned for the most relevant search terms.

Keep Optimizing

Make sure that the new page you added last week has the correct Meta tags and that text includes targeted keywords. Many people are diligent when they first optimize their sites, but when it comes to adding new pages, they forget that these too need to be optimized.

Use the Google Toolbar

Download the Google Toolbar. This great tool sits alongside your Web browser and has some very useful features. For example, it will show you the PageRank of each site you visit. This is a rank out of ten that indicates how relevant Google thinks the page is. The higher the number, the better ranked the Website is likely to be in Google search results. Using this tool, you can quickly see which of your competitors are doing better than you, and react accordingly.

Check Backward Links

Check on the links that point to your site. As you know, the quality and quantity of links that point to your Website can affect your search engine position. Using the Google Toolbar, you can view all "backward links" for the Websites you visit. Use this to find all the sites that point to your own Website and make sure they list your site correctly with your targeted keywords in the link text. You can also check on your biggest competitors and see which sites link to them -- contact each of these linking sites and see if you can encourage them to link to your site as well.

Keep Up The Good Work

If your site has managed to creep up to top position on the search engines, you can bet you've dethroned at least one of your competitors to get there. Do you think they'll simply sit back and be happy with their lower position and reduced traffic? Of course not.

The reason you wanted to climb up out of search engine obscurity is what will motivate your competition as their site drops down the rankings. This makes maintaining your search engine position a time consuming but equally rewarding process. Out-witting your competition is a big challenge for any business -- but one that's certainly worth the effort.

The suggestions above are by no means exhaustive, but by following them you'll help ensure that you get to keep the great search engine rankings you worked so hard to achieve. Good luck!

About The Author
Andy Beal is Vice President of Marketing for Keyword Ranking, specialists in search engine marketing. Highly respected as a source of search engine optimization advice, Andy has had articles published around the world. Under his guidance, Keyword Ranking has grown to become one of the larger and more successful search engine marketing companies. They were one of the first companies to offer guaranteed levels of success using spam-free methods.