Wal-Mart to Offer Search Engine Marketing Services

Karl Ribas spotted a great find the other day: Wal-Mart is now offering Search Engine Marketing services at this sign-up link. The offering seems to be a $100 per month PPC service led by a Redmond Washington SEM agency.

Forum members are having a field days with this finding, even though Barry points out over at Search Engine Land that the service has actually been available since the summer of 2004. Here are some reactions:

WOW, I never thought they would go that low. Now Wal-Mart/Sam's Club wants poor people to pay them for NOTHING when search engines pick your sites up for free? Freaking amazing...

Tim Dineen says:

I love their SEO service: "Establish a local search profile and have your website submitted to the major search engines..."

(Sound familiar?)

Some folks (like Matt McGee) think it's an April Fools joke. It must be given that the company offering has been around for 3.5 years now and nobody has really heard about it.... is it for real?

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

Like The Story? Vote For It On Yahoo Buzz! Or On Sphinn!

posted Tamar Weinberg in Search Engine Marketing Organizations at December 28, 2007 9:19 AM Comments (4)

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Seriously? I wonder what type of deliverables customers could expect to see for $100 a month... They must be marketing this out to anybody with a DBA.

Posted by Mike Calimbas at December 28, 2007 17:01

Hello Everyone,
This idea is best for SEO services. I thought it would be better for Search Engine Marketing ....

Visit us: http://www.bhartiyaminfo.com
contact us: kanpurmart@yahoo.com

Posted by Khushboo at December 29, 2007 00:25

Amazing what Wal-Mart will come up with next! And I thought SEO had to be a personalised service to get the best results!

Posted by No Name at December 29, 2007 10:56

Don't dismiss this because it is from Wal-Mart. While there have not been many comments on this forum, on others there is a very dangerous feeling of smugness - i.e. no way can they do as good a job as us.

Many small businesses do a lot of business with Wal-mart via Sam's Club (where this service is being offered - not in your regular Wal-marts as reported.0 This is the way that most will get their first experience of online marketing.

Most agencies don't want any part of these clients who have limited marketing budgets. Many would have a hard time spending $100 on PPC since they are locally oriented businesses. Some of my clients (selling farm equipment) focus on a small geo-targeted area and it is often a struggle to get them a decent amount of traffic - there just aren't that many searches.

Someone who develops a way to provide these services on a massively automated scale with minimal customer support will be able to tap into the millions of small businesses who are going to be online sooner or later.

Posted by Tim Madel at January 2, 2008 16:32

Wal-Mart to Offer Search Engine Marketing Services

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