Does anyone else remember John Boy Walton, atop Walton’s Mountain, running an old printing press one page at a time? Well during those times, not everyone was able to read, much less write well. And that’s the early beginnings of marketing. Small newspaper ads.

Next came the mail service, from pony express to the US Postal Service, mail was initially intended to carry personal notes from place to place and grew into a means of marketing, it is no longer an inexpensive method of advertising, indeed it is no longer effective as most of you toss what appears to be junk mail right into the round file.

Video and audio recordings followed. Remember the whole Walton family gathered around the radio? Enough said!

The email followed closely, although now it seems obsolete with instant messaging and texting so readily available. But the concept of mass mailing lists is still very commonly used and it is an inexpensive way to market, assuming your communication doesn’t end up in the junk mail folder.

And here we are living in the digital age with online ads that can extend to audiences worldwide in a matter of seconds. Not only that, we can count the number of times someone clicked on our ad, what their IP address is and what other types of things they routinely click. While businesses continue to learn more and more about their customers, what will come next in the evolution of marketing is known only to state that it will likely be easier, more detailed and provide more analytical data for profile users. We live in one of the most exciting eras in history and just think, one day in the future, it will all be obsolete as we continue to advance technologically.

Change can be a scary thing, and keeping up can be a challenge. But the top search engines do it on a regular basis to keep up with technology and user needs. Remember the top goal for a search engine is to be relevant and useful. If you change something on your site, the search engine needs to remain relevant. Some of the top search engines have published webmaster rules and regulations and the penalty for not sticking to their guidelines is that their search algorithms will ignore your site. A high penalty for online businesses. If you decide to hire a webmaster for your site to build, be sure they have a good understanding of SEO and ask to see some of their other sites as well. Test them to see where they show up on a random search of your own.