From my experience the best way to get to the top of listings for a keyword and remain there is first by optimizing your site by writing good content and using the keyword maybe 4% of the time. Then by building backlinks to that optimized page with relevant anchor text. Once Google notices your good optimized content and then later your good backlinks then they will rank you high once you have a little bit of pagerank. In order to keep this high position you must update your page with new information as often as possible. Google loves fresh ever changing content but don't forget to keep the page optimized for the same keyword. If anyone else has any more suggestions on high to get to the top and stay there then please share your thoughts.
people always tell me that updating is necessary to rank at the top, but ive seen first hand from one of my competitors that this is not the case. maybe its because he has had his site up since 02 though.
There are too many things a competitor can be doing to affect rank so just because they never update their site doesn't mean that it doesn't work for other sites.
get backlinks with true text from all types of web sites (blog, directories, articles etc) this is the way of getting to top and staying there
Folks forget PAGERANK. True it is all about backlinks but u gotta get this rediculous idea that getting ranked high has anything to with pagerank of the backlink out of your mind. fastman true you can also through that idea out the window.
You can never tell whether you will be ranking first 'coz it depends on SEs algorithm...Due to continuos updates the changes on number one ranking changes also...
off page seo can have a significant effect on getting your site in top ten. One way links with keywords as anchor texts, from similar content sites as yours, is what really matter. On page optimization is just a basic thing one should do.