Search Engine Blog: The State Of Search Engine Marketing, 2003. Google rules the roost

A nice discussion of the issues facing SEM in 2003. This year should certainly be interesting, with the Google, Overture, Yahoo, MSN, and AlltheWeb all likely to be involved in some serious wheeling dealing.

Two trends that many interviewees acknowledged, besides the potential and popularity of this marketing channel, were that search engine optimization is in the process of "growing up", moving beyond pure placement and firmly into the realm of marketing. ROI, conversions, reporting and tracking are becoming increasingly important. The old-school technical exercise of attaining high rankings is perhaps becoming increasingly marginalized. If rankings do not translate into sales, then what good are they? It's no longer enough just to be seen, web sites must put search engine traffic to work.