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.