The question I’m asked most often is how a business can appear at the top of Google results. The real answer is that there is no definitive answer.

Business owners can spend thousands of dollars on search engine optimization only to have Google change the rules midstream. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal online edition tells the tale of businesses that significantly lost search engine position when Google adjusted its algorithm – the rules by which it evaluates a site to determine its position in the search engine.

“You can’t focus on Google alone,” says Stoney G. deGeyter, an online-marketing consultant in Canton, Ohio. “You got to really diversify your online marketing efforts and that includes social media, direct client communication, email marketing and following up with your current customers.”

As a small business owner or professional practitioner, before you spend a lot of time or money obsessing about search engine results, here are a few things to consider:

• If there are many businesses like yours and you are just getting started online, chances of your showing up on the first page of search engine results is minimal to nonexistent. Although you can do some basic search engine optimization as you are constructing your site and writing copy, your time and money is better spent on other forms of online marketing.
• If you offer a unique service in your local area, including keywords and your location in the page title can help you get good results. For example, Dr. Sherry Gaber is an animal chiropractor in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although her site is relatively new, if you search for “animal chiropractor Santa Fe,” Sherry’s site comes up in the fourth position, and she is mentioned in two of the first three results. Sherry is the only animal chiropractor in Santa Fe who has a website.
• If you have a Gmail account and/or logged in, your Google results will be different from those seen by someone without the Gmail account. I noticed recently that when I search for one of my blog titles, it comes up somewhere in the first three positions with a picture of me and the words, “You posted this.” When I log out of my Gmail account, the results can be entirely different.
• There are certain industries where it pays to hire a search engine expert, such as restaurants or tourist lodging, although even this can’t guarantee that you will get the results you are seeking. You can be in the first position and a few weeks later find yourself in a lower position.