Comment by gregjotau

I have ranked a lot of websites, short answer: content.

Basically just follow Google's guidelines and have the content and you can rank in highly competitive areas where there are much larger players.

Wrote a lot here: https://respiroc.com/blogs/software/seo-and-ppc-search-ads

I have even succeeded with "blackhat" stuff like brandjacking, ranking first on other brands ;)