How do I get a higher ranking in Top Lord?

The secret to getting into the higher spectrum of the ranks is simply by preparing before the actual Top Lord week. What this means is that hold off your upgrades and improvements (meaning save your speed-ups) until the actual day that you'll need them. For instance, if the day is about Castle Building day, that is the only time that you'll pretty much need to use the building speed-ups. The same with Training-day, where you get to use your training speed-ups. You should do this as well with saving up on stamina items until you compete for the Kill-Marauder Day. To help improve your rank in PK days without having to bother other players in your kingdom, this is where a Farm account will become invaluable as it will serve you well for this very purpose -- simply create hospitals that can easily recover the total number of soldiers that your farm account has, and set them (farm account gathering troops) on resource tiles so that your main account can attack them and repeat this cycle until you get high in the rankings.