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

With so much competition on the web, it is no longer possible to throw up a web site and expect to be found by potential customers.  Business owners with web sites can no longer keep their sites a ’secret’ – they need their sites to get found by showing up in search engine results.

In today’s online space, Google is the 800 pound gorilla that confers ranking and determines the authority of web sites. A web site’s search ranking has become critically important given that 80% of online searchers do not actually go beyond the first page of Google’s search results. So if you are not ranking on the first page, the chances of getting potential customers to visit your site is dramatically reduced.

In addition, with increasingly sophisticated web users, online search behavior has also changed. Results from the ‘Think Eyetracking’ study shown here highlight these differences. Unlike search behavior in 2005, online searchers in 2008 focused primarily on the top 5 results on the first page, with the most clicks going to the top 3 ranking sites.  These findings are supported by a Cornell University study which found that the top 3 Google results get 79% of all clicks.

What this all means for business owners is that their web site not only needs to be found, but it needs to show up in the top 5 positions on the first page of Google to really matter.

Putting together a well thought out and concerted effort to get to the top of Google’s rankings is more important now than ever before.

Business owners typically face some big challenges when it comes to search engine optimization:

• Often, Google doesn’t even know their sites exist (this is VERY common)
• Even if Google knows about their site, it never shows up in search engine listings
• Even if their site does show up in some kind of search, it’s hardly ever the “keyword phrase” that the owner would like
• Even if the owner could dictate to Google what keywords to show the site for, most business owners don’t know which words or phrases are the money makers!

In shopping for Search Engine Marketing services, business owners should also bear in midn that aggressive ranking efforts done the wrong way can even get your site de-indexed, which means that it will be removed from Google’s index and will not show up at all in any search results.

Therefore, when working with a Search Engine Marketing consultant, make sure that they are being totally transparent about their methods; showing you exactly what they will do, and why it helps to propel you to the top of Google.