Search Engine Marketing Specialties

There are many areas of importance to an up and coming search engine marketer to make yourself more marketable to clients or an agency. We all know that on page search engine optimization is a starting point for many newbies in the industry, but this area is flooded with those who feel that their skills and techniques are far superior. Therefore I feel this is an area to add to your skillset, but not focus your energy on becoming the best. There are many other disciplines within the online marketing and promotion realm that can provide you a better chance of succeeding in this career path.

Below are a few areas of study that would be a huge opportunity for anyone who wants to stand out from the crowd to learn more about.

1. Analytics - Still one of the most important aspects of any web site to justify ad spend or online marketing resource allocation. The backbone of any online campaign and any website that truly knows how to convert customers. Good ones to learn are Site Catalyst from Omniture, Web Side Story's Hitbox, Google Analytics, ClickTracks, or WebTrends.

2. Social Media Marketing - With all the new types of social media sites available and their overwhelming popularity with younger generations this online avenue will continue to grow for marketing experts who want to find new and creative ways to reach this target market for years to come. Some of the sites to check out are MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc.

3. Widgets & RSS Feeds - This on demand technology brings content to the user and is constantly evolving in scope and popularity. Imagine the possibilities if you have the ability to develop a widget that a business can use to help bring content to their user base and to their desktops. Integrating these widgets with the RSS technology strengthens both the delivery method and the ease of use.

4. Blogs - Obviously well known for their marketing and promotion abilities, these personal journals are and online masterpiece of technology allowing everyone to create a space for themselves online for little or no cost.

5. Microsites - These small version websites are chalk full of dynamic content and work well to deliver a special piece of the online marketing and exposure puzzle for many larger companies that utilize the technology and marketing ability of them daily. There is a lot to learn for up and comers to help sites maximize their online presence using these microsites.

6. Social Tagging - One of the most fascinating new online technologies is social tagging. Sites like Digg and Del.icio.us allow the Internet to be compiled into one location that is different for all of us and yet allows each individual to share within the community setting. Brilliant, and a geat marketing weapon for your own content.

7. Of course there are many more...Community forums, CMS sites, peer-to-peer sharing, photo capture sites, online affiliate program development, e-mail campaigns, sponsored campaign management, etc.

Strengthen your knowledge in any of these areas, and reap the rewards as the online scene continues to take over how companies market their products and services to an ever changing world and a rapdily evolving and technologically savvy consumer base.