Over the last seven to 10 years, paid search has proven to be a cost effective channel for affiliates and performance marketers alike to drive high quality leads while maintaining strong ROI. In fact, search engine marketing (SEM) frequently represents an inordinate portion of a performance marketer’s business – often more than they care to admit.

Raise your hand if you've heard of Blendtec. I bet you are familiar with Blendtec and I bet I know how you first heard of their blenders - from their viral video series called "Will it blend?" That series, showing iPods and other unusual items being reduced to powder by a powerful blender, serves a strong branding message: If it can annihilate an iPod, it will make quick work of your smoothie.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau,there are nearly six million businesses in the United States. Think about the enormity of that number.That's billions and billions of dollars in revenue generation every year. That's also six million businesses that all require the same basic nourishment to survive - marketing and sales.

Hamlet Batista, president and CEO of NEMedia, wants to change your content. He wants to change it so much that he can't wait to get his search team cracking on it. It's his bread and butter. And like any SEO outfit, he claims he can get your site optimized and ranking rapidly. But he also has a passion for words. He wants to respect your content - the carefully crafted articles, summaries and reviews you painstakingly labor over. "You have to write the content for the user," he says. "If they don't like it, they are going to leave."

Japan's had it hard. After nearly a decade of stock market doldrums and an economy on the brink of disaster - just as the rest of Asia struggled too - Japan bounced back. Growth happened. Its economy is still a tad slow, but there are many industries looking way up. Online marketing is one of them.

"As search marketers, we are the insiders. We are supposed to know and understand search in all of its dimensions. We are moving into uncharted territory. It is not territory that I am excited to explore, but I will go there nonetheless," writes Amanda Watlington of SearchForProfit.com.

Despite her status as an expert on blogs, RSS and search marketing, Watlington is still trying to put a finger on what may be coming down the pike for search this year. Her pondering may sound a bit gloomy - because in many ways, things have never been better for search.

In the mid-to-late '90s, none of the search engines wanted to be mere search engines, because searchers quickly left their sites. Instead, they largely ignored search to create portals - those sticky sites they hoped would show more advertising to each visitor by catering to all of their information needs.

I admit it - I'm a skinflint. Call me a tightwad, a miser - I don't care. Basically, I'm cheap. And even if you're not cheap by personality, you might need to conserve cash by necessity. If that's your situation, don't despair. The Internet is tailor-made for you. Internet marketing, and search marketing in particular, is the land of the free. So step up, you skinflints, and let's see what you can do for nothing.

It was a cold night in Pennsylvania when Leila Crooks was on Digg.com, the community-based popularity site, and came across a story about a "slanket" - a fleece blanket with sleeves that offers the freedom of arm movement so people can play video games or surf computers while snuggling under a blanket.

When I say the word "marketing," what do you think of? Probably some kind of advertising - maybe a TV commercial for Coke. That's brand marketing, and it's gotten the lion's share of attention from marketers for decades.

Far fewer people are direct marketers - the folks behind the catalogs and mail solicitations that fill our mailboxes. If you know any direct marketers, you may want to hire them to run your search marketing campaigns. Let's look at the basics of direct marketing to find out why.