Google is continuing their march to fill up the prime areas of your screen with their paid ads. In an earlier post, I pointed out that only the top 7 local business listings are now being displayed (vs the top 10 previously).

The search engine has now removed phone numbers from local business listings in order to free up more real estate for sponsored ads, according to Aaron Wall. As more ads fill up the ‘above the fold’ area of the screen, organic search listings are being pushed down with the exception of the top 1 or 2 ranked websites.

This new development highlights the importance of getting to the top spots of the organic search rankings so that your website can be visible above the fold. Since it takes time and resources to get to these spots (unless there is very little competition in your niche), this leads back to doing the proper keyword research so that you’re targeting the most important keyword(s) for your business.

Posted via web from Kym Wong’s posterous

As you can see in the image below, instead of displaying the top 10 local business listings, Google is now only showing the top 7.

This makes it just that much more difficult for local businesses to show up on the first page of a local business search in competitive markets.

This change also re-emphasizes the importance of optimizing your business listing so that you can improve your business’ local search ranking position.

Make sure you use the appropriate categories and keywords in your local business center descriptions and try and get additional citations from local directories as well.

It looks Google made this change in order to free up real estate on the first page for their new Local Listing Ads service. For a flat monthly fee, Google will display your business ad in the sponsored search section as shown below.

This service is currently only available in San Francisco and San Diego.

You can learn more about the Google Local Listing Ad service in the video: