You may already have raised your eyebrows, but this is true! Brand name bulk-seller Wal-mart and Sam's Club got into SEO and SEM services recently. Journalists are writing about this all over the web. This new venture made many well-established SEO, SEM professionals really angry. Aaron Wall links to it and threatens to fight back by selling Chinese-made US flags for three cents each. Some people are concerned about the return policy. Lot of people find it ridiculous. Why? SEO and SEM is a highly specialized job requiring a good amount of time to be spent with each client to understand their business. Once they have the idea of the business next comes keyword research, planning ad campaigns, doing all the on-page optimization all over the site, building backlinks for off-page optimization and so on. Services Offered A. Search Engine Optimization Costs $25 per month. What you get are: * Offers a tool to create your profile, which is distributed to major search engines and online Yellow Page directories like YPGuides. * Hand submission of your web site URL to the major search engines and directories. B. Pay for Performance Although they are saying its Pay-For-Performance on their site, its actually Pay-Per-Click service. Packages start at $50 per month. What you get are: * They set up a campaign for you in Google and/or Yahoo, creates your ad, and will send a targeted number of qualified consumers to your web site each month. It started long ago Apparently Walmart, Sam's Club trying to put their foot on this industry about two years ago when they started offering Website Building Services to businesses. So its basically an expansion to their existing services. Its good for SEO & SEM Professionals at the end Wal-mart and Sam's club got huge small business client base. And most of those small business owners have none or very little idea of SEO and SEM. From what I see Wal-mart & Sam's Club is offering with a service, will pretty much fail to do much good to their clients. Why? As I mentioned earlier successful SEO and SEM requires much more research and time they are offering. As a result of buying these services small business owners will be more aware of the SEO and SEM services. So Wal-mart and Sam's Club is doing the awareness job basically. And eventually it will open more business to mainstream SEO and SEM professionals. SOURCE: http://www.cosmocentral.com/post/2008/01/Sams-Club--Walmart-SEO-and-SEM-Services.aspx
I work in the SEO industry, and sadly enough, they'll probably do great with it - due to the fact that most people that are apt to order packages like that are completely new to webmastering anyway - so they see a good value from a recognized brand - and they'll bite on it every time. Trust me - this is EASY money for Walmart/Samsclub.
I noticed that even Quickbooks has adword marketing tied into its software so that bookkeepers can manage ad campaigns??? Maybe it will get the customers feet wet for the real thing.
I think it will create more awareness among small business owners about the importance of SEO and SEM. And it won't take long for them to figure out its really not working! So indeed a portion of them would turn to more skilled people.
I think the real SEOs who are too busy to take on every lsmall-business and mom-and-pop won't have to worry about Walmart taking our business. I mean seriously, if Walmart's SEO services are anything like the guys in the blue bibs at their retail stores I think we're going to be doing alright.
You know thats a very good idea. After all they have the brand name many people knows. With hiring right people, they could do it.
Excellent Forum. By the way Here I came know about a concern Vane technologies offers SEO and web designs services. They are providing excellent services. vanetechnologies.com