While I realise you're ranking well for some of your main keywords on MSN & Yahoo, how are you doing for that and other more appropriate keywords on Google?

The traffic you'll get for high rankings on Google will be more than Yahoo & MSN added together and then some, so it's MUCH MORE value-for-money in terms of pursuing high Search Engine ranking results on Google than the #2 & #3 Search engines offer.

According to the statistics I've recently read, Google has nearly 81% of ALL the search engine traffic in Australia (and is similarly high in many other countries), which gives you an idea of how much traffic you are currently missing out just relying on Yahoo & Ninemsn.

If you do some quick searches and your web site doesn't rank in the top 3 pages for your main keywords on Google (anything below the top 3 pages is pretty much a waste of time), then you're leaving LOTS of traffic (and potential paying clients) on the table.

If you were to get (in particular) a first page ranking for one or more of your main keyword phrases in Google, you would be blown away with the amount of traffic and enquiries you get at your site, compared to what you currently receive.

Something else that's important to consider when you review rankings is the amount of TEXT content on your site. The higher ranking sites almost always have lots of text content (articles, news, reviews, etc) on their site and the lower ranking ones don't have much.

Here's a quick experiment you can try for yourself. On Google, Yahoo & MSN, do a search for your top 1 or 2 keyword phrases, and note the sites that come out in the top 10.

Then, go to each of those 3 search engines and see how many pages of these sites are indexed, compared to yours. It's easy to do this by just entering the following command in at each Search Engine:

site:www.domainname.com

(obviously substituting your site URL and the other top 10 site urls where appropriate)

If the number of pages in the index for your site is significantly lower than the competition, there's one of your main reasons for a poor ranking (there are other factors, but this is an important one).

I often have prospective search engine optimisation clients give me the excuse that they are getting decent results from Yahoo & MSN, and anyway funds are tight, so they don't want to invest in getting results in Google. You know, the old classic "Call me again in 6 - 9 months!"

However, what they don't realise is that the additional income they would receive for a higher ranking on Google (from the ensuing customers it brought you) would not only well and truly pay for our SEO services but give them plenty of ongoing new clients, which would take care of any cashflow concerns they might have for a while to come.

Consider that many of the big companies in your market niche spend large sums of money to advertise on TV, Radio & Print to drive traffic to their web site/s & retail location/s, but a good SEO strategy will bring visitors to your site for literally cents on the dollar - a much higher ROI. According to Google's statistics, a quality Search Engine strategy can achieve similar results but be 20 times CHEAPER than direct mail (for one example).

I guess the lesson here is not to be penny-wise and dollar-poor. Work out how many additional new paying clients you would need to get via Search Engine Optimisation results to break even with the SEO firm's fee, and then go after the main game in town: Google.

Your return-on-investment for good Seach Engine rankings is way ahead of most any other form of advertising and marketing you can come up with, but you need to see the big picture first. Don't wait until your competitor sees the light and takes action before you, or you'll miss out.