This article isn’t about eco-friendly businesses, recyclable products or “going green.” It’s about business development and economics. Specifically, it’s about the value of organic search engine positioning as it relates to your business growth.

Maybe you’ve heard the statistics: Nearly 70% of consumers make their choice from the top-10 websites appearing on the first page of organic results related to their search terms. That is a huge amount of potential business that, if you’re not on page-one, you’re missing. Meanwhile, your competitors are enjoying free referrals from their successful organic search marketing efforts.

Pay-per-click (PPC) and other types of paid search campaigns are a great short-term solution for driving traffic to your site, but it’s easy to forget that you’re paying for that traffic – each and every click.

With per-click charges that can soar beyond $20 per-click for many competitive key phrases, you may be spending significant dollars per month for traffic you could otherwise drive for free. That is, if you ranked on page-one of organic search engine results at Bing, Google and Yahoo.

Laurie Manny is a Realtor® specializing in Long Beach residential and residential income properties. She doesn’t use paid search services because her website places in position #1 for related organic searches. “When you have the right organic positioning you don’t need to do paid search,” explained Manny.

Not Organic Food; Organic Search Engine Rank Placement

Organic search engine rank placement (SERP) can be a difficult task but well worth the effort once you’ve placed effectively.

Just ask Tom Worthy at Bixby Knolls Flowers (who ranks on page one in Google for related searches) if page-one placement in search results makes a difference.

“I think it does: We’re achieving a lot more Internet business. On an ongoing basis, it’s continually increasing,” Worthy said.” In Manny’s case, she attributes at least 90% of her business to organic search engine rank placement. “Anybody who doesn’t recognize the value of page-one positioning [for their business] now will be working later for other people that do,” predicted Manny.

A “continually increasing” stream of FREE referrals?

It’s tricky business though. If it were easy, then everyone would be on page-one. That simply isn’t possible. It is possible – and even highly probable – for you to place on page-one in search results related to your product or service – if you implement a proper search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

How did Manny achieve the highest page-one rank possible?

“Everybody wants to know that,” she exclaimed. “I worked 14-18 hours-a-day, 7-days a week for 3 years to attain that.” She went on to say that she basically educated herself and went through iterations, changes and tweaks to help move her site up. “I did things over and over until I got it right. The only other alternative is to use a good search engine optimization firm.”

Thankfully, there are ways to make SERP effective. Aside from the fundamentals of search friendly site architecture, a good understanding of keyword relevance as it pertains to your web presence and what you’re positioning for, there is indeed more to it. For example, paying attention to key areas of your site makes a huge difference in both where you rank for searches on given key phrases and how long it takes to get your site higher in the rankings, even to that vaunted page-one position.

Search engines scrutinize specific aspects of your web pages. So, adjusting the code and tags of individual pages in a way that delivers favorable search engine rank placement is important. Furthermore, it pays to be specific. Don’t market your site under “computer repair” when you can be more precise. Use “Long Beach computer repair” or “Macintosh MacBook computer repair.” You’ll get better results and see improvements if you can use key phrases with a minimum of two-words.

There are also many other secondary and tertiary tactics that effect SERP. Page rank is another important facet of SEO that is essentially the measurement of your site’s popularity. This is mostly determined by links leading into your site. This is why backlink or reciprocal link-building efforts are also critical tactics in SEO strategy. Issuing search optimized press releases (from the last article) is a great tertiary tactic to help build search engine positioning. Social media, customer review and other user-generated content sites also add to the overall search positioning equation.

Ultimately, the key is to continually make improvements and tweaks that systematically ratchet your position up in the rankings. Case in point: “I have to continually make changes to maintain the positioning I have,” stated Manny.

With the right strategy and tactics, you’ll be on page one in no time. Or, at the very least, you’ll be ranked higher than your competitors. Either way, all of that free traffic will have paid your efforts back multiple times.

“There is nothing better than page-one positioning,” said Ms. Manny. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was smiling.

Richard is co-founder of the digital business solutions firm ASTRALCOM, LLC, a published author and an avid socio-political marketing fan. Previously appointed to the Presidential Business Commission and recognized as California Businessman of the Year, Richard’s primary business focus is assisting clients achieve success through effective social intelligence messaging and customer experience management. Richard encourages your comments and feedback. He can be reached at 562.240.2114, via email through the staging-live.lbpost.com at Richard@lbpost.com, or by posting your comments here.