The Interactive Advertising Bureau, made up of companies who control over 80% of online advertising, has released The IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for 2010. PwC, the world’s second-largest professional services firm, prepared the report.

The report, which is available here, puts Internet advertising revenue for 2010 at $26 Billion, a new record. Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB, had this to say in a recent press release:

“As the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report amply demonstrates, brand advertisers and marketers have adopted the power of digital media as a central element of their campaigns…Consumers have shifted more of their time to digital media – watching television shows and movies online – and advertisers now accept this multifaceted medium as a key component for reaching their targets.”

Any business owners reading this post should pay attention closely to what I’m about to say. A whopping 46% of internet advertising revenue in 2010 came from search advertising. That’s almost $12 Billion dollars. Much (if not most) of the revenue attributed to the “search” channel comes from paid search advertisements, or PPC. With that in mind, take into account that 85% of searchers don’t click on PPC ads. Most of us, myself included, stick to the regular (organic) results that appear when we’re using search engines. Furthermore, optimizing your site to rank prominently in organic search (the art of SEO) is much less costly than buying PPC ads.

So, for pennies on the dollar, your business can use SEO to reach way more customers than your counterparts who are using PPC. If paid search advertisers are making good money as it is, just imagine how much you could grow your business using SEO. As time progresses, the market will only become more competitive, so you might want to consider making a small investment while the iron is hot. As your competitors catch on after you, their sites will be at a disadvantage–older, more established sites that have been SEO optimized (like yours) will tend to rank better.

Structured markup, also known as semantic HTML, is a way of using HTML markup to present more details about the nature of elements present within a website. If this sounds confusing, let me explain plainly how it applies to your business.

Structured markup is an extension of standard HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). HTML contains information about your website that tells a browser (like IE or Firefox) how to show it to a user. It tells a browser what text will look like, where the text will go, what size an image will be, how links will function, etc.

Semantic HTML uses the same language to assign more meaning to the attributes of a website. Using “tags”, a web designer can categorize pieces of content as addresses, recipes, product information, and much, much more. Google uses information from some of these tags when presenting search results to users who are looking for products or businesses. The conversation goes something like this:

Website: Hey Googlebot, this is L’Amourita Pizza. Our address is 123 Main St, Albuquerque, NM. Our phone number is 206-555-1234.

Googlebot: Thanks, website. I’ll make sure that information is stored in my database correctly and shown to searchers.

It is important to note that Google’s official stance is that structured markup will not boost your rankings. However, it will help your CTR (Clickthrough Rate). Those familiar with PPC will understand this metric, which is how often users will click on the link to your site when it appears in their search results. Sites with richer, correctly displayed information will receive more clicks and more business.

I had the pleasure of attending an Austin Internet Marketing Meetup on the subject hosted by Homeaway. I can’t say enough about what a great host Homeaway was, not only for letting us use their attractive space for a free event, but especially for the great beer and appetizers they provided attendees. The speaker was Jay Myers, Lead Web Development Engineer for BestBuy.com, who gave a really great presentation and explained how the semantic web is especially powerful for those who sell products online.

E-Commerce websites can take advantage of Google’s Custom Search technology, which allows website owners to tailor a user’s search experience within their own website. You can create higher-level classifications for product information, including reviews and pricing. An example is shown below: