The marketing role of search is to capture prospective customers who actively seek information in three generally applicable groups: brand, product and category information. Prospective consumers are searching for information at various stages of their conversion process.

Do ad agencies "get" search? While the question has become something of an industry cliché, the answers vary based on who is being questioned and the time period during which the debate is held. Given continued consolidation and the evolving definition of search, the 2003 response is no longer valid in 2008. And this is precisely why I agreed to moderate a session at SMX East on the topic - with a twist.

There's no question that search engine optimization is a field straddling science and art. As competition to command search rankings has exploded, SEO strategies have become increasingly elegant and complicated. Most marketers and business owners these days end up toiling over complex SEO solutions in pursuit of the-next-best-thing. Progress has its drawbacks, though.

In 1999, I entered the SEO/SEM industry. The amount of changes since then has been staggering. The largest search engine today, Google, wasn't even on the map.

For too long, there's been no true planning process for search. The stock line is that search is managed from within, as we optimize performance in real-time. Users identify themselves as your target by the keywords they search and, because the media is sold on a cost-per-click, your traffic is further qualified by the clickthrough.

Over the past five years, the client summit has become a popular, annual event among search engine marketing agencies. I have had the privilege to participate at a number of these events; most recently, Range Online Media's Client Summit and Fall Fest, which was held last week in Dallas. While I initially intended to report on a social media panel that I moderated, I felt compelled to relay that almost half of the afternoon was not spent on SEO, PPC, social media or even creative development — rather, it was spent on attribution models that effectively move measurement away from the last click before conversion.

No matter which medium is used to touch customers, the likely medium of deeper engagement will be a search engine. Consumer actions have changed dramatically and advertisers need to change their game plans.

As mobile communications increase, marketers may still hesitate to make local search a large part of their strategy. Our experts discuss the pros and cons of investing in local search.

Semantic search has generated a lot of buzz this summer, which has search marketers considering whether the future of optimization will be focused on content or keywords.

This industry's evolution is swift and capricious, but it always manages to steer itself to the next best iteration. Marketers can never really sit back and rest on their laurels, successes or stellar ROI. If you want to inject some momentum into a cam­paign that's gotten a little "comfortable," consider these sugges­tions, ranked from one star (easy next step) to three stars (better clear your week — and your weekend, too).