Some folks get real excited when they start seeing their pages begin to show up on search engine results. Too many companies don’t realize just how huge the game is and how much money is at stake when it comes to keyword ranking and the value of search engine placement.

So… here’s an example where I can quantify the value of rank. Let’s imagine we’re a San Jose Real Estate Agent and we’ve got a great blog and search engine marketing campaign that’s driving us upwards for the term San Jose Homes for Sale.

1. Last month, there were 135,000 searches for San Jose Homes for Sale.


2. The median home price of a home for sale is $544,000 in San Jose.


3. Real Estate commissions are between 3% and 6%, so let’s imagine a 4% median commission rate.


4. Let’s now imagine that only 0.1% of searchers resulted in an actual sale.

SEO Researcher has provided some statistics on rank and response, so let’s do the math and calculate the commissions from a position of 8 on the page, to a position of #1 on the search engine results page:

Currently, Trulia holds the #1 position and Zillow holds