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Search engine marketers should prepare themselves for "explosive keyword inflation" over the next few years, according to a keynote address given by SearchEngineWatch's Chris Sherman.

Sherman's words are relayed to us via Media Post from the publication's Search Insider Summit.

The driving force of the predicted rise in keyword prices is less reluctance on the part of big name advertisers to allocate a larger portion of their budget to search marketing. Sherman said that "big brands have barely started to play."

It's not so much click-through or conversion rates, which occupy much of budget-minded small and midsized business's concern, that will move larger players online. Instead, major companies will be interested in protecting their brand-related keywords.

What does that mean for the smaller players? Strategies will have to be rethought as keyword prices go through roof.

SMBs will have to be much more selective about keyword choice and creative in their utilization of the millions of keywords in the "search tail" that are collectively useful, but the big brands won't care about controlling.

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