Nacho at SEW Forums has posted a thread entitled "SEM Industry Biggest Growing Pains". In it, you'll find some of the best responses to any thread at any SEO forum in the last several weeks.

Major players like Orion (Dr. Garcia), Danny Sullivan, Mikkel Svensen, Barry Schwartz & Aaron Wall chime in with their own thougts about what's affecting the industry in 2005.

In the middle of the thread, Nacho has created a list of some of the problems being talked about, including:

1) Minimize the divide between the SEM and IR industry.
2) Keep improving SEO/SEM conferences (in general) for topics and advanced issues.
3) The SEM industry's reputation

• Strengthen the relationship between the search engines and the SEM professionals.
• People (or businesses) that seek SEO services need to better value SEO professional’s career preparation, dedication and services.
• Weed out the unethical SEO companies (firms) that are misinforming clients or potential ones to get accounts.
• The SEM industry’s professionals as a whole need to understand and accept the various levels of tactics through risk levels rather than defining it as “standardsâ€? and dividing between “goodâ€? and “badâ€?.

4) More learning elements such as "good, new research on search behavior that's giving some new things to be cited�.
5) When mainstream corporate marketing is finally fully plugged into SEO.
6) Lack of competition goes hand in hand with lack of innovation.
7) Search engines need to get away from a “linear� format to help improve conversion rates.
8) The SEM industry seems fractured and needs better organization into categories (ie. government/industry/trade representation)
9) Public knowledge of the industry.
10) Mis-appropriated penalties from the search engines.
11) Many talented SEO/SEM professionals tend to move on as business entrepreneurs seeking to grow their new ventures and forgetting to share with the rest of the community important lessons learned.
12) Most new industry professionals are focusing on the paid search aspects replacing the organic “giants� lost to start their own businesses.
13) Over abundance of information that makes SEO appear "easy".
14) SEOs are becoming a “in-fighting and backbiting� dog eat dog competition.
15) New players with lack of marketing and business knowledge seeking to enter the search engine MARKETING industry.
16) Shrinking ROI due to competition, therefore the competition gets fierce and SEO much tougher.
17) The SEM industry needs more specialization divided by the various market focus or disciplines that make up SEM (organic, ppc, conversion, etc.)
18) SEO continues to be a guess of the table scraps of patent filings, trended data, experience shared from communities, various tools and techniques.
19) Professional experience accredited by respected sources such as universities and regional industry bodies or organizations.
20) SEMs need to see more the good things happening around rather than start complaining about the few bad things.
21) Money, power and control to gain market domination.