Aaron Wall recently wrote a brilliant piece about the value of a #1 Google ranking. In his in-depth article, which is divided into 9 sections, he explains based on research and a variety of forum discussion that even small declines in ranking can break businesses. He goes on to explain the value of these rankings in financial terms, and explains how you can determine the value of your own rankings in 6 steps:

Establishing a baseline keyword value
Review Typical Click Distribution Profiles
Considering factors that modify click distribution
Tapping in the long tail
Improve monetization via scale
Take action

I won’t go into the steps in depth as Aaron does an excellent job himself. I recommend that you give his incredibly comprehensive article a read and maybe even a printout 🙂

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.