Google is the most popular and used search engine in the market, Wikipedia reports Google has more than 80% of the market share. Your first objective is to optimise your site for Google.

People do not scroll and are used to clicking on the first result they see, which usually means the top three search results. Your second objective is to rank at the top of search results on Google.

Tips to rank at the top on Google

1. Write appealing titles and descriptions you only have 65 to 70 characters to write your headline, place important keywords close to the front, start every title tag with the mention of the brand,
2. Create clean and optimised URL’s, place yourself in the mind of a user and look at your URL, shorter is better, use keywords, go static and use hyphens to separate words
3. Write a great meta description, make them descriptive, load keywords that are relevant to the article, make them unique as each meta description should be different from other pages, make them short, Google limits meta descriptions to 160 characters or less.
4. Internal linking, is about how and where you link a page or post to other content that is relevant within your website. Google wants to provide the user with the best possible experience they can. If the internal linking is managed correctly you will improve your search engine rankings.
5. Attracting inbound links, if your content is so good that it generates huge interest it will get shared on social media sites. People will start to like it, Google+1 it and share it on Facebook. Google takes into consideration where the link has come from.
6. Use Google+ and the +1  are enabling users to influence online activity and this is having an effect on search results.
7. Add social sharing tools, make share buttons very visible, ask readers to share content,

Search engine optimisation techniques are constantly changing. What does not change is the fact that if you invest the time creating good content that has value to your target audience on a regular basis you will soon find your site and pages getting top search engine rankings.

For more information on SEO, you can read How to search optimise your site.