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Wal-Mart To Offer Search Marketing
By Joseph Hunkins at December 28, 2007 1 CommentsWal-Mart’s decision to offer businesses search marketing services is a good sign that internet marketing is now fully in the small business mainstream. I’m not as skeptical as many SEO’s who have commented online, suggesting Wal-Mart can’t do SEO and SEM well. Quality search marketing is mostly a function of basic technical knowledge, basic principles of search, common sense, and quality analytics which Google now provides at no charge. Most SEO and SEM functions can be taught and outsourced, though it will be interesting to see how Wal Mart approaches the education of the thousands of specialists they could need to meet demand for these services.
Although it’s extremely unlikely that any big players will switch from internal projects or even outsourced high-end firms, this entry by Wal-Mart could threaten the huge number of mom and pop SEO/SEM shops by scooping up business that would otherwise go to them, especially if there are any Wal-Mart special deals with Google, Yahoo, and MSN to provide Pay Per Click or other forms of advertising at discounted rates. Also, if there is a money back guarantee it could cinch a lot of small businesses away from local “experts”, many of whom have very questionable SEO and SEM skills anyway.
So, would you trust Wal-Mart to provide your small business SEM?
Labels: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
One Comment
Walmart clearly sees an opportunity here. It is commoditizing and minimizing SEM like toilet paper. SEMs won’t like Walmart getting into this space because they could be a huge threat. Who would?