"With paid search marketing forecast to grow to almost $1 billion within three years, the increasing cost of buying keywords has sparked a boom in search engine optimisation, the art of manipulating the formula that search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN use to rank websites in their so-called natural, free or organic search results". Australian IT.

Firms that know the tricks of the trade have employees starting at salaries of about $120,000. "The best ones -- and there are a handful -- earn $200,000, with bonuses," Australian IT "One guy I know received $500,000 on bonus. If they're really good, the value (to the client) is there."

In Australia, Search Engine Marketing is a $20 million industry, but the growth is outpacing even the $250 million paid search sector, which grew 80 per cent in 2006.

More and more companys are looking for natural search results since it costs nothing to maintain once achieved where as a sponsored listing will cost a continous amount to keep and the price can rise sharly from week to week.

The return on investment has seen sites that usually achieved hits between 30 and 70 a day transform into thousands with entire wings of their business stemming from the web. One firm in the Perth CBD viewed the web as nothing more then a phone book equivalent. After a strong campaign on Google over three months, over 80% of their enquiries were coming off the web compared to signage, adverts in the paper and direct marketing. The cost of Search Engine Marketing was less then a quarter of their expense on adverts in the local newspaper alone!