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Mike McDonald of WebProNews took in the afternoon session on Working Together, which focused on getting everyone on track with SEO initiatives.

How well does your company work together? Like a well-oiled machine, or a lot of squeaky wheels and rusty gears? Post your SEM budget battle stories on WebProWorld.

Among the speakers at this session were Mike Moran and Bill Hunt, whose book "Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic To Your Company's Web Site" just hit the shelves of retailers everywhere.

Mike Moran, an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Manager of Site Architecture, asked questions of the session's attendees, ones that they'll want to ask in-house after the conference. What is your site's goal? Why do you have a website? Are you showing the value of making changes in your search marketing strategy?

How a site is marketed should be in line with its goals. Do you have those goals defined? Teams in an organization must have an understanding of their roles and responsibilities, keeping the goal in sight at all times.

Moran also emphasized keyword planning. Identify the ones you must win, and get their landing pages in place. Organizations large enough to have multiple business units need to communicate and make sure they aren't bidding against each other for keywords.

The CEO/President of Global Strategies International, Bill Hunt, talked about the always tricky task of getting a dedicated SEO budget. Organizations always claim there's no new money for projects. The smart planner will have to collect data and build a case showing solid justification for SEO.

Detail the ways search marketing can complement business initiatives, and potentially increase the company's bottom line. You have to show how being on the second page of results means losing out on revenue with each search that fails to find your site. Users look at the top ten search results for 6.4 seconds, but have a 60 percent recall rate.

The competition's efforts at SEM can make a strong argument; demonstrate how a hated rival is gaining at your firm's expense. This is the time when bringing a solution to the meeting will get SEM initiatives, and more importantly budgeting, serious consideration.

Any budget SEM has dedicated to it will come at the expense of other initiatives. You should be ready to keep on top of the SEM effort, and make sure the decision-makers receive reports showing that SEM work is boosting the bottom line.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.