Getting your page on top of the search engines

If their is one thing about the internet that truly shows you the heart beat of the online world it is the search engine rankings. You could have a good search engine ranking one day and it could drop completely off the map the next. Their are techniques you can use however to keep your site at the top for some time but no matter what you do you will have to stay on top of it. Their is no completely automated way to get good rankings that never go away. The internet is the conglomerate of billions of people networking all at the same time.