I've found a number of SEO companies that guarantee top 10 rankings. How is it possible to guarantee search results?
Quite simply, it isn't possible to guarantee results on the organic listings, or search results pages (SERPs). The only way to be certain of top 10 results, is through PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns. On Google, this means using Google Adwords, which can be extremely effective for some websites.
Many companies that offer search engine optimisation or search engine marketing make outrageous claims that simply cannot be backed up. This is the most common one. Frequently you will be told about the company having a special relationship with Google, or that they "work closely with the search engines", which of course is completely untrue and thoroughly misleading.
Google does not have any such close relationships or working partnerships with any SEO company or individual, not anywhere on the planet. They do not inform anyone of algorithm updates, changes, or policy. Certainly, not in the way they would have you believe.
There are frequent interviews with Google staff and engineers where they occasionally offer insights as to what's going on, but these are not secret in any way. There are blogs, and forums that you can monitor to find out exactly the same information as the rest of us, such as the blog by Matt Cutts, a senior Google engineer on the antispam team, or the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.
You should think twice about enlisting the 'help' of any search engine optimisation or marketing company that offers ridiculous guarantees like this for organic search results.
How to get your website into the top 10 rankings on Google
It's really quite simple, how to get top 10 rankings on Google, and every other search engine. More than anything, it's all about content. Fresh, top quality, unique and engaging content; and making sure the search engine crawlers can access it. There's no point in creating a great looking website with superb content that you update frequently, if the search engines can't find and crawl your pages. I guess thats more of a design issue, so consider how your pages will be crawled if your thinking about a new website.
Think about each page of your site as if it's the most important page of your site. Make sure you introduce your page well with a good, appropriate, unique title in the <title>...</title> tag. Make sure also that you have described your page correctly in the meta description. The search engines will likely use this description as the page preview in the search results.
On the page itself, make sure your content begins with an <h1>...</h1> heading tag; and make sure there is only 1 such tag on the page. There should be definite synergy between the meta title, description, and the opening content heading. Make sure your page content is unique and engaging if you want it to do well on the search engines, and if you want your website visitors to be interested.
Images can make a page more interesting and engaging. Where appropriate, use images to if it will help the users to understand and/or relate to your content. If relevant, create a summary or conclusion at the end of your page.
Where relevant, create links in your page content to content found elsewhere on the web that relates to your page topic. This helps the search engines to understand the general topic of your page, and it is reinforced by the links to similar or related content.
Lastly, create new pages and content regularly.
If you do these simple things, you're pages and content will naturally do well, and naturally attract inbound links by interested visitors.