As more businesses are taking to the web, Internet marketing is becoming the most talked-about topic at boardroom meetings.

For starters, Search Engine Optimization, or SEO (as it is commonly referred to as), is the process of improving the natural search ranking of your website. Various tactics can be employed to improve a website's page ranking, but it all boils down to how well you're able to “bait the fish.”

Each search engine has a crawler, or spider, that scours the Internet for webpages. Each spider carries a log of all the websites it visits, and should the website meet the requirements of the search engine, the site is recorded. Each search engine has more or less the same requirements, but Google and Yahoo! have specific details that separate the two, thus allowing for different results when the same keyword is searched on both engines. Google claims that its search engine is able to provide more relevant results than the others, but then again, everyone claims that they're better than the competition.

As a web designer, keywords, webpage layouts, title tags, and meta tags (text that is seen by a search engine, but not by Internet users) all play an important role in improving your natural search ranking. So, if you can imagine, it didn't take long before businesses started realizing that there was money to be made by offering SEO services to other companies. Services are available for improvements across all search engines, or specifically tailored to one individual engine. The result is the same: each company comes up with their own secret method of improving a ranking by playing with website copy, layouts, and tags.

Aside from those who believe that there is money to be made in SEO, there are those whose sole purposes in life is to trick the system. The Internet is a big place, and just because you can find one individual who follows the rules of SEO religiously, doesn't mean that the 99 others who try to abuse the system don't exist. In fact, there have been many cases of people who have adopted unethical practices to push their websites to the top. One example being repeatedly using a popular keyword such as “sex” for a “home improvement” website in order to boost the overall ranking of the site. The result was irrelevant search results for people actually searching for sex on the Internet.

As a search engine, your job is to provide the most relevant searches to any user. As a result, Google and Yahoo! have spent countless hours to improve their own search engine algorithms to combat unethical SEO practices. These constant improvements boil down to more demanding and specific requirements from websites, thus making it more difficult for legitimate SEO services providers. And in a business sense, this translates a bigger price tag.

So will there still be a demand for Search Engine Optimization when the price is ridiculously high? That remains to be seen.

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Internet marketing continues to grow in popularity as the days of integrated marketing solutions become the way of the future. Advertisers could once argue that the Internet would continue to be a research tool, but now, this opinion would be lost in a boardroom meeting amongst all those who believe that Internet marketing is the way to go.

Advertisers are constantly on the move to determine new ways to tap the vast market that the Internet offers. Traditional banner ads are a thing of the past – most people today don't even spend more than a second or two looking at them. Pop-ups and pop-unders are now being combated by Internet browsers themselves, and it is likely that their popularity will continue to drop. A few years back, all of these marketing tools would have been the most effective way to reach out to Internet users, but today companies are more demanding.

Marketers today are constantly being pressured by management to deliver quantifiable results. Marketing budgets are tightening with no sign of the pressure being relieved. Brand image is also a bigger contributor to media buying decisions, as pop-ups and pop-unders could damage the image of even the most well-established company.

Quantifiable results means being able to improve the bottom line. Traditional marketing methods on the Internet were great at promoting a brand or a company, but it lacked the ability to generate a credible call to action. Furthermore, the fact that everyone can put up a banner ad destroys the novelty of advertising on this channel. As a result, less viewers are willing to click on the links, fearing that they are a waste of time, or they will be hit with an onslaught of pop-up advertisements.

Thus, marketing has moved from the shotgun approach, to a finer, more finesse strategy. Search engine optimization has been employed to push company websites up on natural search results, pay-per-click has become popular in ensuring that companies are listed above all other results, and product placement on Internet games and advertisements have become ever so popular.

The focus now is on reaching out to these customers and ensuring that they are more than just a number. For example, many packaged goods companies have showcased their products on online games on first and third party websites. The popular youth game, Neopets, has company-sponsored sections within its virtual world. Companies such as General Mills showcases their products on mini-games in attempt to implant their brand names into childrens' minds. This marketing approach has created an uproar in some countries, with a complete ban on advertising to children as a potential outcome.

Why are so many companies taking on this approach? Because of the nature of online games and virtual worlds. Users are required to provide contact information. Advertisers and marketers don't mind featuring their products in exchange for these lists. At the end of the day, it's all about the leads that will become customers. Customers will generate revenues. Revenues are quantifiable.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is great at rankings. People will pay thousands and thousands of dollars to push their websites to the top of search results, but what does it all do? Just because you're on the top of the list, doesn't mean that it will improve your bottom line. At the end of the day, a company wants to see increased revenues. Their sole reason for developing an online presence was to get their company name out in the market. However, just because a lot of people know about you, doesn't mean they will buy from you.

This is the constant debate amongst Internet marketers: does search engine optimization actually lead to increased sales? The truth is that there is too much ambiguity to produce any sort of accurate answer that will hold up against an onslaught of counterarguments. As a result, people simply avoid the question. Search engine marketing has become something that “must be done” as opposed to something that “should be done.” Management hears about it, knows that their competition is doing it, and tells their tech team to find out how to do it, or find someone who can.

Now, let's turn the tables and focus on something completely different: lead generation marketing. What's the difference? Simple. While Search Engine Optimization focuses on pushing you up to the top of a search results page, lead generation marketing works to help you gather leads. At the end of the day, it's all about the leads. Having contact information of individuals who willingly provide you some amount of personal information means that they are at least interested in what it is that you do. As a result, a company who holds on to these leads can subsequently target them with their marketing materials in order to reap greater returns than the conventional mass-marketing, or “shotgun,” approach.

Illuminated Technologies, a Vancouver-based custom software developer, is one of the first companies to promote the concept of lead generation marketing to clients. Lead generation marketing is quantifiable: it shows results. It's measurable. SEO isn't. At least for the bottom line. So what will happen to SEO? Well at this point it will continue to be a popular thing. But Illuminated Technologies believes that lead generation marketing will become the next big thing.

The concept of lead generation marketing is simple: utilize conventional SEO techniques to draw people to your website. Where it differs is that lead generation marketing focuses on using RSS to push a website up the ranks above all other traditional SEO tactics. Furthermore, lead generation marketing focuses heavily on the information gathering process.

Illuminated Technologies won't reveal too much of what they're currently experimenting on, but ensures that when it is made available, it will be a powerful tool for companies.