Although this news was being talked about for many months it was the surprise at how quickly it followed the Google local search changes that again had major impacts on businesses (showing only 3 results in the search page rather than the previous 7)
Removing the right hand side adverts puts more pressure on the now 4 places at the top of Google Search. An extra spot has been added which will only make the marketing in this area more expensive. It does mean however, organic search from Search Engine Marketing companies like (www.fusewave.co.uk) have an even more important role for websites to be on the first page of SERP (Search Engine Results Pages). It will make the competitiveness for SEO even more interesting more so on mobile and tablet devices as desktop searches (above the fold are largely showing PPC adverts) see below
As the PPC spots will become more expensive and the organic spots will become more lucrative. Especially with the advertising from the right disappearing it will make these organic spots more visible on mobiles and tablets. So the organic spots above the fold are what to aim for.
My advice would be to push for more organic positions and lower your PPC position. Keep your websites update and your content relevant.
To end Googles’ Larry Kim says this change only accounts for less than half of searches.
“So we’re talking 14.6%/2 = 7.3% of queries impacted. “ on the desktop only.