Need Your Questions For "Future Of SEM" Session

[dannysullivan]

Next week at SES Chicago, I have a panel called "Future Of SEM," where I have a range of search marketers who will discuss where search marketing may be headed. I'm looking for your help. What questions do you have about the future of the industry? Please contribute them here, and I'll see about putting some of the best ones to the panel.

[Marketing Guy]

- How will the search engine / SEO relationship evolve?

- Does the industry need regulation? If so, how should it be approached? Who should lead the initiative and who should control the regulation?

- Can SEM ever be fully integrated into traditional business models while professional search marketers can generally be substantially more successfull working freelance / consulting / doing their own sites?

MG

[Rob]

What will be the one "must have or do" technique or tactic for 2006?

Will blogs continue to grow in the coming years or are they already a passing fad?

How will personalization affect SEO/SEM?

[giubany]

What type of impact will complex web analytics and smart apps. as they progress have on the SEM market?

Now days we see application such as Bid by Webside Story where it has deminish the man power needed to control a large number of campaigns.

[DaveN]

why are more large corps spamming ..

DaveN

When are the search engines going to address the issue of SEO spam?

I have been working very hard for the past five years to develop an honest system for SEO and find it hard to keep up with the unethical SEO thieves who load their sites with spam and doorway pages. I have spent a lot of time even reporting sites that abuse the spam and mostly it never helps. In fact, most sites filled with spam and doorway pages never get punished and actually increase in page saturation.

In fact, one of my ex-clients who I developed a SEO gateway system for is now abusing my system and using it purely for spam; not my original intention. Their site has gone from 1500 pages of spam to over 10,000 pages of spam and doorway pages. In fact, you search the internet for their services and you find a page from their system. However, when you search their directory of listings, you don't find any services provided in that area.

Frank Beier

[Chris Boggs]

With the increased ability to track conversions from SEM efforts, and the increased trust in e-commerce websites, will online efforts account for a greater percentage of marketing budgets "across the board," essentially "stealing" from more expensive and less quantifiable media such as TV, Radio and Print?

[Discovery]

#1
Do you see interactive TV programming? Then with it, the introduction of Internet advertising schemes (Google, Yahoo, MSN) being played out on cable boxes around the world. Not just as traditional spot commercials mind you, but perhaps as placement within shows. This would have a dramatic and exciting impact on my company and career.

#2.
With Google and Yahoo being the only 2 viable ad networks their offerings are becoming similar. From what I understand they will soon become VERY similar in the way they handle rankings/bids/popularity, offering pay per call and so on. Add on top of that the mainstreaming of ad management tools, Urchin, Search optimizer. In the past one of biggest competitive advantages for SEMs was our marketing prowess combined with our technical savvy. This skillset allowed us to concoct an effective marketing and reporting system that few could duplicate. Will the big ad networks commoditise SEM with these low cost, simple to use offerings and mainstream tracking tools?

I’m not trying to sell us marketers short, our core knowledge of marketing is a huge value in itself, however if they (ad networks) do not continue to push the technological envelope we may have a smaller and smaller competitive advantage. This goes back to question one.

#3
Big brother
I’m not paranoid, nor a big conspiracy believer (I just think everyone’s out to get me!) no, really. With Google completing the full circle of services Adwords, Adsense, Urchin and of course all their related search features, Google, Froogle, Google Earth ect and then tying them together into one account makes me worry. When all this unfolded this month; like a close talker with bad breath I suddenly got very uneasy with them in my personal space.

SES Chicago... In December? There's a sleepy little town Nacho, myself and a few others could introduce you to, the only thing white around here is the salt on your margarita.

Cheers,

Discovery

[Robert_Charlton]

To the extent that the search engines are becoming media providers and super-affiliates themselves, how do you prevent conflict of interest?

[Chris Boggs]

Noticed this article and thought it may be relevant.

[Prestige]

Its more related to Internet Marketing, but here goes..

Everyone are using the same traditionals internet marketing tactics,
there isnt alot of room to expand and "think outside of the box" like
in offline marketing strategies.

- Will there be any other tactics in the future as a part of
the marketing strategy?

[Miguel]

Will SEO ever become a kind of default part of basic Webdesign? Or will it stay a seperate issue like usability.

[jewboy]

Why is the big giant Microsoft currently failing in the quest for greater search engine marketshare? With Microsoft execs on a mission to crucify Google, do you anticipate a big "shake-up" any time soon?

[Richard Gregory]

- In which month next year will Google's market share start to decline?
- What will be next year's killer search app?
- Will the increase in the volume of contextual search partners lead to click price deflation?
- When will we see the first prosecution for Click Fraud?


Richard

[BKCB]

First of all, I want to say that all three of these are really tough questions, but "many heads are better than one", and persistence of effort sometimes pays off. These things could affect where the search marketing industry is headed, IMO.

1. What can the SEM Industry Associations do, as well as each SEM who is or is not a member (as a unified group and on their own), to motivate the primary search engines to cooperate with each other in coming up with a way to test relevancy?

2. The future of SEM will be greatly affected (probably not in a positive way) if government regulation of any sort starts to happen. So what can the SEM Industry do to help prevent online end-user consumers from carrying over their negative feelings about much of the offline marketing and advertising industries into the online search marketing industry? This DMA page shows a study that said: "65% think there should be more limits and regulations on marketing and advertising." (bullet #4 under "A Changed Marketplace")
http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispnewss...icle=2197+++++

3. What can the SEM Industry do individually, and as a whole, to help make online end-user consumers less wary and more trusting of internet usage considering, mainly, the specific points brought up on this DMA page that shows a recent study on this:
http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispnewsstand?article=4137

[projectphp]

Who are the questions aimed at Danny? I looked at the Agenda and couldn't find the session details, so I really have no idea what sort of questions you want.

Who the "range of search marketers" makes the difference. Are they SE reps? Are they industry people? In any case, would be curious.

[Artyom]

Well...speaking of my own experience I know how it's hard to convince your boss to run additional service (SEO) to a company services set. The reasons are obvious:

1. 'Show me some samples of sucessfull SEO service providers. What company and for which client they did SEO work and got nice $$$ payment without a chargeback later because of fail to a service promises'?

2. How we gonna convince potential clients to pay us, let's say $700...1,500, for SEO services if we won't able to show them visible results within a fist month?

My strong believe is these questions are the biggest issues to slow down SEO industry grow now.

How the situation in terms of these questions will change at the next year and later?....

[dannysullivan]

These are search marketers, and the questions should be aimed I'd say at where you see them believing that search marketing is heading. Are we in a bubble? Are we going to see SEM get easier, harder, why? How will search marketing look on other devices, like mobile? Will more vendors (google, yahoo plus ask and msn) make things better or worse for the marketer? Will SEMers get sucked up by agencies?

[B-Double-U]

I am finding it increasingly more difficult to convince Execs to try new methods of SEO even though past and current endeavors are quantifiable and undisputable. The reasoning given is that there is not a direct control or perfect example due to the vast number of differences between situations.

I would like to know if we are trending towards an increase in SEO tactics, a decrease, or simply a maintenance level of growth.

Do you foresee people moving away from technologies that are not compliant across all aspects of use, such as CSS and DHTML menus for the simple reason that they are not fully viewable on a phone or PDA? Or will we move to the addition of a standalone version for such technologies?

Do you see more companies taking their efforts to outsourcing agencies who have established best practices in place or keeping an in-house staff that will continue to provide those structures?

Do you see an upward growth pattern in the market itself or are we the air conditioner repair men/women of the decade (no offense to all of you who are currently working those jobs Do you see your work as a marketers dream or a marketers nightmare?

What are the increasing trends that you see? Are there any new and emerging technologies that are opening up new methodologies? Are there whole industries like affiliate marketing, which are just beneath the surface? Which one will be the one to take hold or be able to maintain a position in the workplace and corporate environments?

Do you think that more and more companies will allow integration to dynamically change certain aspects of the relationship or will they move into a more isolated structure trying to maintain footing in their market space?

Will the large number technology barriers that are making certain types of marketing ineffective be broken down opening up a new channel? What are your current barriers? Where are your current efforts focused?

Do you think the learning curve of the average user will grow fast enough to maintain a necessity for more in-depth and acute refinements of current efforts or will it wane down to just structuring the basics that are in place now? How often to you currently evaluate your efforts? What are your current gauges of success and failure? Will the "technology bug" that has afflicted the general public cause a new wave of interest or will it be met with apathy and disregard promptly after the millionth time they are the millionth visitor to a website.

Are you saturated in your online marketing efforts? Are you to the point of trying anything as long as it has some value? Will you be moving into or do you currently make use of traditional marketing efforts? What are the marketing channels that you are moving away from? How long were they in place before you made the decision to slow or stop use? What is your best channel on each level of; Traffic, ROI, Volume, GP, etc. etc?

How are you dealing with information overload on a consumer level?

And last but not least...

What is the perfect navigation system for a website? <----I really do want to know this one..


Sorry, and I apologize for the length.........

[cline]

SEM is booming right now. Busts follow booms like rain follows sun. How far off is the bust? What is the bust going to look like? How can SEMs prepare themselves now to weather the bust?