The majority of internet users do not pay attention to sponsored results. In fact, around 70 to 80 percent of users chose organic results over sponsored results. Search engine rankings therefore is very important for companies that want to gain competitive edge. Consumers today do more than look at ads of the products. Consumers today prefer to be more proactive in their purchase. They want the power to decide and they get that power from the information they get for their online searches. And when it comes to searches, getting good search engine ranking is the way for products and companies to be connected with the consumers. As consumers want information, only companies that have high search engine rankings will be able to provide the information that they want. This is because they are the ones that are seen easily, therefore visited by the consumers. Websites that have low search engine rankings, those that are on pages ten and lower, will less likely be visited by the consumers. Unless consumers know the website address of a product, they will instead visit the ones that are on the first few pages of their search results. And when it comes to search engine rankings, Google rankings where companies should concentrate on. Compared with the other search engines, Google has around 65 to 70 percent of market share. This is why getting consistently high Goolge rankings is important. And this is the reason why companies seek the services or search engine optimization companies.
Search engine rankings is of course more than just getting higher results in search engines, such as Google. Alongside search engine results, search engine optimization, it is also internet marketing or online marketing. It is really the marketing applied on where people are when it comes to products and services, which is the internet or online. Online marketing is very important for products or services. On the 26th of February 2009, Google tweeted its first tweet. It was a binary code that translates to I am feeling lucky. As far back as 2009 Google already knows the importance of social media. For companies today, marketing is not complete without proper social media representation and exposure. This is one example of online marketing. Another example is tapping into mobile users. It is estimated that around 70 million users use their mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, in making purchase. This is as of the latest estimate, 2012. Almost half of all mobile device users, 48 percent to be exact, indicated that they have used their device in reading product reviews and in search for promos. Companies that are able to communicate to mobile users means getting higher share of the market. Again, generally this is part of search engine optimization services. Search engine rankings and internet marketing are therefore the key to gaining competitive advantage for any company today.