My last column laid out thoughts on holistic SEM in a number of areas ('The Semantics of 'SEM Strategy'). This week, I want to talk more about the basic elements of the search marketing channel, as it relates to overarching enterprise search marketing strategy. This is very basic information about SEM, but worthy of revisiting, as I'm still finding that many in the industry and on the client side are strategically polarized either towards paid search media, or natural search. In effect, those that hold on to these notions have an incomplete view and practice of enterprise search marketing strategy.

Forget the subprime collapse; the Internet is where it's at for investing in real estate. Given the near-infinite number of Web pages, and the exponential addition of new ones, you would think that online real estate would be easy to come by. Unfortunately for advertisers, widget-makers, and plug-in developers, this isn't the case.