IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report Shows First Half of ‘08 Up 15.2% From Same Period ‘07.

The following data highlights key first six-month revenue data breakouts; dollar figures are rounded. ($ millions if not indicated):

Internet Advertising Revenue

Search engine marketing (SEM) companies such as Didit and Reprise Media report that third-quarter search budgets were up, mainly due to a shift from more traditional marketing to search advertising.

Will the economic downturn put a stop to this? Google that is by far the leading channel for search marketing saw its shares halved in price last week, from their top ever value (bask in 2007). Interesting times ahead!

RED FALGS while choosing the SEO SERVIES! The following is the list of things to avoid at all costs in order of importance.

1. Getting involved with a SEO company based on the nice email you just got in your mailbox, that has a report about your site linked and a nice thumbnail screenshot of your front page is going to get you as much good to your business as getting involved with any other SPAM email your get every day.
2. We can rank you on top for the single word phrase of your choice. – when a SEO service company offers you something that sounds just too good, it probably is – just too good to be true. Do not expect to get on top of the search for any commonly used English word. Web sites that get that high have a team of SEO gurus working in house and managing a number of external SEO service providers.
3. Guaranteeing anything in SEO is just childish. It is rally easy to invest in the marketing with a tangible and measurable results. Unfortunately you cannot ‘Purchase SEO by Units’. Traditional marketing formulas do not work here. It is not back page of the Sunday Times, or the supplement in the magazine printed in X colors, on X pages in X copies. When a SEO service provider gives you guarantees of their future achievement, that is a almost certain guarantee you will not renew their contract!
4. Your SEO company is not going to tell you what are they going to do? Run away! It would be nice to just outsource your SEO Service to a vendor and forget about it, wouldn’t it? There are several layers if issues there. First is that your newly acquired traffic might simply disappear when you stop paying. Second is that you might even be penalised by Google for the actions of your SEO Service provider, and your site banned from the Google index for a long time.

SEO Service is many different tasks, and not all web sites necessarily need all of them. Also different SEO companies offer a different SEO services that in some cases do not overlap even marginally. Every SEO company will try to sell you the service they have on offer. Find a SEO company that sells the SEO service you want and need.

Do not talk to the sales people. As with any vendor, you need to talk to the people who will do the work for you or their management. Not the sales people. The sales guy you might spend an hour talking to might have been selling cars yesterday, and learned what SEO stands for yesterday.