what is the future of search engine marketing?

Answer 1

A lot of growth. As advertisers realise the potential returns on search marketing expect more and more to flood into the space, pushing prices and therefore revenues up.

Providers (Google and Yahoo, for example) are already responding with moves into other spaces such as Video, Click to call, pay per sale and so on. Hell Google has even put adwords ads on tv.

The amount spent on search marketing just keeps going up and up every year and I personally can't see an end to it any time soon.

I still see certain keyword searches that don't have any advertisers! The opportunity is still there all over the place.