We normally talk about search engine optimization (SEO) on this blog and how the changes to Google's algorithms can affect how you rank for certain keywords and keyword phrases, but another huge part of the equation comes from search engine marketing (SEM). This is when advertisers purchase ad spots on the search engine results page. Not surprisingly, we're seeing huge growth here.

According to a new report put out by eMarketer, spending on search advertising is expected to hit $19.51 billion in 2012. That's based on US spending alone and it represents a huge 27 percent growth compared to last year's figure of $15.36 billion. That's a lot of money and, not as you can likely expect, Google is leading the charge when it comes to scooping up that advertising revenue.

Part of this increase in spending is fueled by the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in London, as well as the US Presidential election, along with other major elections around the world. They're saying that Google will have a 77.9% share of that revenue for 2012, followed by Microsoft's Bing at 7%. The growth will slow over the next few years, but search ad spending will continue to rise.

And yes, Yahoo and AOL will be bringing up the rear with a combine share of barely over 5%, eroding down to even less by 2016. Google will be snatching up most of that, but Microsoft gets a small increase too. At least, that's what the predictions are saying.

What does this mean for all the SEOs in the audience? Getting higher rankings could prove even more valuable than ever before if advertisers are willing to spend that much more money for prime spots on the SERPs. Will you be shifting your focus from SEO to SEM? Or will you use some combined effort between the two?

SEO is long term. It's probably the simplest statement I can make to a potential client but the hardest for them to understand. We live in a ROI driven world where clients and management are breathing down our necks to produce results now! Unfortunately, you can't rush SEO and expect anything good to come of it. And outsourcing your SEO doesn't speed up the process either.

Here are 5 things you should do before you even consider outsourcing your SEO:

Wait at least a year from site's launch

A site's age and trust factor with the search engines are two incredibly important ranking factors, and a new site just doesnrsquo;t have them. It doesn't matter what kind of SEO campaign you build, your site's age and trust factor can't be rushed along. It's better to spend the first year getting your site to the best version of itself and focusing on the user-experience before you invest in any heavy off-site link building.

Understand the online market and your target audience

If your business is relatively new to the world on online marketing, you've got a lot of work ahead of you. One of the most important things to do is go back to Marketing 101 and define your target market. Your offline customers may not have the same characteristics as your ideal online consumer. How do they use the Internet? What social networking sites do they have profiles on? What are some of their favorite sites and blogs? In order to effectively reach your online audience, you have to know where to find them first.

You also need to define who your online competitors are. You may be the leader offline, but if you're late to the online space then you need to figure out where you stand in relation to the competition. What niche have they carved out for themselves and where do you see opportunity for your brand? SEO can help you outshine the competition, but you need to know who they are and what they are doing beforehand.

Learn the basics for yourself

Unfortunately, the SEO industry gets a bad reputation from the black hat SEO practitioners and scammers that are looking to take advantage of unsuspecting site owners. Don't let yourself be fooled! If you take the time to learn the basics of SEO for yourself, you'll have a better idea of what is and isn't white hat SEO, what the search engines are looking for and general best practice tips every site should follow. Since you know the basics of SEO, you'll be able to implement some of it on your own and allow time to take its course. That way, when you do decide to outsource your SEO the foundations for a great campaign are already in place. Your new SEO provider can just pick up where you left off and run with it!

Start blogging right away

Just like any other website, a blog needs time to age and develop a trust factor with the search engines. If you start blogging right away, when the time comes to outsource your SEO your'll have already built up a strong archive of valuable content, found your niche in the blogosphere, and courted loyal readers. This gives your SEO firm a lot more to work with; they can better leverage your blog for SEO and brand building.

Build your social profiles

Social media marketing might be even more long term than SEO. Don't expect to just launch a Facebook page and have 1,000 Fans overnight. It takes time to develop real relationships with current and potential customers and to develop a voice for your brand on social networking sites. Before you even think about outsourcing your SEO (or social media) build and develop your profiles. Focusing on gaining real, human fans/followers/friends (that means you donrsquo;t buy them from!) that will become brand ambassadors for your company.

About the Author

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing (http://www.brickmarketing.com), a Boston SEO company. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal (or SEO Journal) and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.

Contact Nick Stamoulis as 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com

If I can compare SEM to SEO, there's a lot of difference with each other. With search engine marketing, the only function used there is to submit your sites to different existing search engines in the internet and waiting to get indexed there. Search engine marketing is also helpful to gain traffic and backlinks. On the other hand, search engine optimization is a method which you only concentrate on few search engines to optimize that can gain you popularity, backlinks and traffic to your website.

Most people right now are using SEO services rather than just SEM. So here's a question of my own, will SEM still exist in the upcoming years? Most people right now are just relying to optimize their websites to the big three (Google, Yahoo and Bing) and not relying on second rated search engines. You know why? They're already finished and only the big three will be left standing tall in the search engine world.

I know there are still some of them like DogPile, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, AOL and Ask that are very profitable and way behind the big three, but if I create a search engine of my own, better not do it because it's already too late. It will not be profitable if we will create a new search engine just to let them convince that "We're going to beat Google".

I predict that SEM will no longer exist in the next 10 years, as SEO will be more focused than ever. But if you are looking for some competition to be on the top rankings on the keyword you are using, better concentrate on second-rated types. If you can sense it, you will realize on how the link building methods can fall anytime.

Hello everyone! This is the first time that I will blog here on GSeo. This is what I want to share about how SEO webinars. But the first thing, what do you mean by webinar? This is similar to seminar which you attend it by actual, but webinar is where you attend it online? Here are the things that webinars are more attractive than regular seminar?

* Watch the seminar live on your computer with other international users.

* Interact with other international users online.

* Enjoy watching while learning on the webinar.

* No payment or less payment online.

SEO webinars are so important for me, because I still have a lot to learn about SEO and I want to excel myself for my future website to be launched soon. Speaking of launch, I am now planning to setup my own WordPress blog within this month and I'm going to make it as a do-follow social bookmark.

Digg is already no-follow, so if they want their sites to be ranked high in the search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing, then I have to set it to do-follow. But I still need to learn more about SEO by attending different webinars and online conferences with top professional bloggers like the famous Matt Cutts, if he can implement it.

Try it for yourself guys, at least one SEO webinar event. Without webinars, you cannot be successful if you cannot try attend at least one. If you don't have any flash player or camera installed, better buy one because this is your chance that you will be taught and discussed more about SEO and SEM as well.

So far in the internet today, SEO and SEM are one of the basic methods of building good links to your website. But also, your website will be ranked depending on the quality of your content and keywords. Keywords are one of the main basis on how your website's content is ranked on the SERPS. Most of the webmasters and bloggers now are relying on keywords and keyphrases which they use them to optimize and build backlinks on do-follow forums, do-follow blogs, social bookmarks and so on.

So what about if you implement a keyword league of your own? Is it a competition or something? Duh! Of course it's a league. You will compete it on your own which you want to be ranked high in the search engines, base on the keywords you are implementing to your content or anchor text on link juices.

Let's start off with Google Analytics....God damn it!

We'll for me, Google Analytics has an option on how your site is ranked based on keywords. All you have to do is to add your URL on the Google Analytics account (unless you are not a member you need to register), and to see the stats by category. You can see within the statistics of the Google Analytics on how you ranked all around the world based on Alexa, country, traffic and keywords or keyphrase.

So how can we join the keyword league?

We must go to Google Keyword Tool, because this is the best keyword analyzer ever in the internet today.

So here is the image of the Google Keyword Tool. But first, try to type a keyword you want for your site, and it will give you results in less than 20 seconds. As you can see, there are lots of potential keywords that are categorized by search volume and competition level. So if you are going to analyze it, what would it be?

As for me, I can join the low competition and average search volume. Why? If I go to higher competition, it is hard to reach unless you hire a SEO service provider and invest your own money to rank high in the search engines...make sure it's not BH type! If that's BH, probably you have a chance to get sandboxed. If we go low and average search volume, we can start the competition right away. Write in the notebook the list of your spinned keywords. Once you are set and ready for action.

Put them in your content when you post a blog, and also your anchor text when you do serious SEO. Just keep doing it until you are the champion in the keyword league of your own.