With more and more people giving it a shot every day and growing length of time and resources it takes to begin ranking a site, what is the future of the industry and competition? Will it end up being so hard to rank and make money that only huge companies with a lot of financial backing will be able to compete? Will the average webmaster/SEO have to work much harder to make a living? I read somewhere a while back that within the next 5 or so years 75% of the U.S. population will be shopping online routinely.. this will no doubt attract a lot of competing sites...
It is really getting harder and harder. And everyone shares this opinion in the industry. Check the recent interview with Brett Tabke and his opinion on this issue (the interview on toprankblog.com): "Future for search marketing? Saturation - something has to give. Too many people are currently chasing the same SEM/SEO ad dollar. I think we will see significant consolidation in the industry this year." (end of citation)