Over the first four days of March 2004, search enthusiasts flooded three floors of the massive Hilton New York, which spans a full city block of Midtown Manhattan, just steps away from Radio City Music Hall. But the only music in the halls of the SES Conference was the chorus of cell phones and pagers beeping from the hands of a diverse group of professional search engine marketing analyst who converged at SES to learn the ins and outs of search from the industry's leading experts.

Attendees represent a wide range from online marketers and SEM professionals to ad agency media planners, e-commerce managers and web business owners. Some attendees have years of experience in search marketing and do their own SE consulting. Others are beginners who realize they need to become current in this important industry, which some are calling the "hottest topic in marketing." Regardless of the sector each attendee represented, everyone was there for one purpose: learn as much as possible and get the latest scoop on search from recognized experts and their peers.

Facts, Current Trends & the Future of Search

The biggest benefit to attending a Search Engine Strategies Conference is making business connections, learning strategies to apply to our client needs, and hearing the speculation and buzz about the industry up close and personal. Here are a few tips and trends I picked up just by networking with fellow attendees, furiously scribbling notes during workshops, or just overhearing discussions in the hallways.

• According to "The Golden Search" (a 90-page report published by U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray), the search industry is already a $1.5 billion business and estimates suggest it will hit $7 billion in revenues by 2007. More recent reports say annual search revenue is at $4 billion today and expected to triple over the next four years. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin just made the cover of Newsweek on March 29, 2004. Search is no longer a niche industry.
• Yahoo! dropped its Google powered search results in February and rolled out its own search engine in preparation for a major rivalry with Google instead of being business partners.
• Last November Google made significant changes to its algorithmic formula (Google regularly upgrades its search engine algorithms) causing changes to web page rankings (upsetting some who felt their ranking was penalized) that are still being discussed. Industry insiders nickname these changes in a fashion similar to the way that names are given to hurricanes. This last change became known as "Florida."
• The top search engine is Google, providing 80% of results for all searches done in the world (and currently earning a quarter of all search engine revenues), but Yahoo! and MSN are the second and third contenders and both are gearing up their technologies to challenge Google its stranglehold on the top spot.
• To fight to keep its top spot, Google will continue to enhance its search features, a new upcoming one to look out for is the ability of Google to serve up results relevant to not only the term you searched, but also relevant to that term's synonyms.
• Pay-per-click and paid inclusion are gaining ground, more emphasis is being put on paid placement, but natural optimization is still very important and should not be ignored.

Yahoo's new Overture Site Match paid-inclusion/PPC program has just been unveiled and there is already debate about the ROI it will or won't offer and its effect on the perception of paid listings versus natural listings, for a current lively discussion on this issue see: http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4264

Because of the rise in popularity of pay-per-click, bid management software is expected to be developed and become more widely used.

Advertising and marketing agencies have not been quick enough to the forefront of SEP. According to Fredrick Marckini, author of "Search Engine Marketing" and founder of iProspect.com, we may begin to see a trend of SEO firms being acquired by advertising agencies.

The market place is rapidly evolving and if your competitor offers a good or service that becomes widely accepted, then customers will expect you to offer it as well. By the same token, if your top competitors are ranking well in search engines and you aren't showing up - then you'd better get on the bandwagon before it leaves you behind!

If you are interested in attending an upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference please see http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/ for a list of dates and places.

To learn more about Pop Art's Search Engine Marketing Services, please visit our website at: /solutions/search-engine-positioning.html