If the buzz is to be believed, Sam's Club is now a search
engine optimization company that is targeting the local search
market aggressively. The fact is, this isn't something new;
it's just recently come to the forefront. Sam's Club has
partnered with a company called Innuity to offer a program that
is primarily targeted at small businesses looking to get noticed
in the local search results.
Many people are screaming that this is a "worthless" service –
but I disagree. It's not worthless, but it also isn't close to
the service a comprehensive search engine optimization company
can offer. Let's take a closer look – with the caveat that I am
assuming that the service listed on the Innuity page for
LeadConnect is the same
service being offered through Sam's Club (also called
LeadConnect).
What They're Offering
For $25 a month for Sam's Club members (and $39.95 a month for
non-members), you can sign up for the LeadConnect service from
Innuity. You'll get access to a dashboard that you can update
with all of the necessary details about your business – name,
address, phone number, types of products you offer, and so on.
Once you've completed your dashboard, Innuity will submit your
site to various local search engines such as Yahoo! Local,
YellowPages, Pricegrabber, Google Local, and more. Then, if you
update your dashboard at any time, Innuity will update your
information at all of those local search sites, just like any
search engine optimization company being paid a retainer fee
might.
Innuity also claims on its website that this program includes
having them submit your website to the major search engines (not
to be confused with the local ones). This part is largely window
dressing, as any good search engine optimization company knows.
The major engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) all find sites on
their own, and "submitting" sites won't do anything to
influence rankings.
My Opinion
If you don't have the time to do it manually and you don't
have the budget to hire a search engine optimization company,
paying $25 a month for a company to handle the submission to the
local search sites isn't a terrible deal. The ongoing fee also
makes sense if your business changes frequently, as again it
will save you time from needing to update your listing on each
local search engine each time you make a change.
The big question is what happens when you disengage from the
service. Will your results remain on the local sites after you
stop paying the monthly fee? Or will they be dropped the day you
stop paying? In my opinion, it would be somewhat unethical for
them to actively remove you from local search sites if you
disengage, and I'm betting that they don't. I tried to reach
them directly to ask but was unsuccessful (well, I called twice
and was put on hold for an inordinate time in each instance
without ever reaching a human being - you can draw your own
conclusions from that).
Why This Is Good for the SEO Industry
Having a large, recognizable chain like Sam's Club acting as a
"search engine optimization company" and offering this type of
service has several benefits for the SEO industry. People in the
SEO industry often forget that most people do not even know what
SEO is, so this initiative is bringing awareness of the industry
as a whole, even if it is focused on local search.
Additionally, the Sam's Club name gives SEO a bit of
respectability. Search engine optimization has long been
considered some voodoo science or, at best, a fringe discipline
– but with this offering by a household name, it's now
something that the average person might want to investigate.
This may help the mainstream accept the idea of hiring a search
engine optimization company in general.
Why This Could Be Problematic for the SEO Industry
The problem with this offering is that it is rather limited in
scope, focused only on local search initiatives for local
businesses. Because it is more common for people to use the
general search engines over the local search engines, this may
not bring in a large volume of new business. Yet at the same
time, it is advertised in such a way as to seem to the average
person as full-service search engine optimization. Nothing in
the description online or in any of the literature I've gotten
my hands on indicates that Innuity is letting people know that
local search is just a part of a larger, more disciplined
approach that another search engine optimization company might
provide.
As a result, businesses that use LeadConnect rather than a
search engine optimization company may find the results are not
what they were hoping for. And they then may dismiss SEO in
general because they don't understand that the LeadConnect
service is limited. Local search is important, but there are
many other ways to target a local market online that this
service is not tapping into.
In addition, to see really great results from a local search
initiative, your business must appear in the top few results in
the local search engine – because those are the ones that will
also appear on the main search results page. Any result beyond
the top several will be more difficult for the average searcher
to come by, whereas a first or second-page result on a main
engine, which a full-service search engine optimization company
might be able to garner, can be of great benefit to increasing
exposure.
Conclusion
What Sam's Club is offering cannot directly compete with the
services provided by a search engine optimization company – and
it's not supposed to. This program is reasonable for a company
with a small budget looking to boost its local exposure. Plus,
it can bring the SEO concept to the masses. Unfortunately, it
could also give people a false sense of what SEO is and what it
can do for them. And it remains to be seen if people really
want to buy an SEO package from the same vendor that sells them
giant jars of mayo and bulk toilet paper.
About The Author
Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, which was recently named the
number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld.
Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004),
MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves
local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based
on your goals and your data.
