Search Engine Marketing - Is Google the Only Game in Town?

Is it a smart choice to focus all or almost all of your SEO firepower to trying to woo the mysterious Google engine to index your site high above your competitors or it it a slightly misguided thought that is perpetuated by the conventional wisdom, and 'bubble-like' industry thought that Google has the key to the success of your online business?

The thought or belief that Google is the only way to salvation is based on the engine's dominance, confidence and market agility that has enabled it to buy and jump into arenas where it's competitors have previously been dominant such as email, chat, telephone and desktop search and indexing. Also, it is thought that technically oriented and other business users that have the potential to buy are more likely to use Google than Yahoo, MSN or AOL.

On glancing at a few studies out there on demographics and internet search engine choice [http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/software/article.php/3362591 ] one can see that there is a very slim margin in the differences between the search engine choice for the population surveyed. I would assume that the people with buy-power (those earning between 30K and over 100K), MSN has a slight lead although the three (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) are all very close.

It is often imagined that Yahoo and MSN users are leisure surfers who are not likely to convert into corporate leads. Along with that thought comes the idea that Google is the ideal choice for potential leads. This issue is also not settled as there are studies that have shown AOL to produce more convertible (although less in number) than any other of the big 4 engines.