Yahoo! I'm Googled.

How much have all of our lives changed to due the Internet? Something that wasn't even invented 20 years ago is now a huge part of everyone's lifestyle, and businesses certainly are capitalizing. The technology is moving fast.

I attended The Online Marketing Summit in San Diego in February, and some of the facts and figures they presented were astonishing. Google's market cap is projected at $143 Billion. And all they did was create a really good algorithm! We're currently spending $9 Billion on search engine advertising. And that number is expected to go up to $19 Billion by 2011. Researchers also predict that by 2010 (just three years away) 100 percent of all high school graduates will have spent time online every day.

Where is all this money coming from? Print media is suffering, and so is television advertising. If you want to buy something or learn about something, your first resource is the Internet and your first page is Google or Yahoo. So, if your company doesn't appear at the top page of the search engine sites, you're missing a huge opportunity.

We discussed how the Internet ironically fosters "real" relationships, but also false personas. For example, you can present yourself or your company online differently from how you really are. Small companies can make themselves look really big (I try and do this with our Web site). People on MySpace or YouTube can lie or stretch the truth about their real lives. You can't trust everything on the Internet. On the other hand, the Internet is making it easier for people to connect and interact with each other.

From a business perspective, I've learned some interesting things about optimizing Web sites for search engines. I thought that my company's Web site was optimized, but there is so much more we can do. Additionally, I've learned about all the fancy Web analytics tools that are out there. We're already doing some of this at my company. Here is an example.

Online marketing is much more scientific and measurable than any other kind of marketing. I entered this field because I enjoy the creative and strategic aspects of it-- particularly the writing. But online marketing has made me develop an entirely new skills set. According to a major analyst firm, Search Engine Marketing positions are the hardest positions to fill in the U.S.. Even harder than IT jobs. Most people don't know much about search engine optimization because it's so new and the best practices are constantly changing.

These types of analytics have also raised the bar for my own job performance. It used to be that if I created an attractive, compelling advertisement, I had done my job well. These days, that's not enough. I need to create effective online campaigns and track them, and measure the ROI so that I can justify how I am spending my budget. I currently manage over 400 keywords, and that's relatively low for most online marketers. And the "creative" aspect is now writing three magical lines of text that will get someone to click on the ad.