Posted by Jeremy Scott in Uncategorized | 12 Comments
Wal-Mart is Trying to Put Us Out of Business With Their New SEO Services
What do you think of when you hear the words “Wal-Mart?” Discount retailer? Grocery store? Evil corporate giant?
How about “Search Engine Specialists?” Yeah, me neither. But that’s not stopping them from trying to sell you SEO services. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of rewriting your website’s code and content to better communicate with the search engines–the end result being that you rank better on search engines like Google for your targeted keyword phrases.
We know a bit about SEO–and by “a bit” I mean “a great deal”–and we’ve helped many clients acheive higher rankings for their website. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a time-consuming, detailed process that can take plenty of time. The industry average for cost on a typical SEO project is well over $1000.
Wal-Mart is selling “Online Marketing” services for as low as $30/month. Think about that.
Honestly, I shouldn’t have expected anything different from them. I have bought jeans from Wal-Mart just because they can offer me jeans at a rock-bottom price (usually under $15). They’ve built their business on rock-bottom prices. Usually they can do so because they are buying in bulk and they’re buying cheap products that are (often) made in China.
But is SEO work the same as buying a pair of jeans? Wal-Mart is fine for buying my Cheetos, my Wranglers, and my deodorant. But I like a little expertise and value from my marketing expenses, thank you very much.
Let’s look at their website for more detail. It says that, for your $30/month, you get the following:
-Profile creation tool with unlimited updates
-Profile distribution to major search engines and online Yellow Page directories like YPGuides.
-Hand submission of your website URL to the major search engines and directories
Now allow me, for a moment, to take these one by one. First of all, what is a “profile?” I have no idea. It is a Wal-Mart creation. I’m assuming they will build a profile of your company in their own database and allow you to update it. But it’s not a common SEO term. It’s fluff.
The second item they give you for your thirty bucks is…drumroll please….submission of your business profile to a bunch of yellow pages directories. Ugh. Look, you can follow your heart here, but I don’t think yellow pages websites are much of a value. People who trust the yellow pages brand name are just using the book. People who have embraced the web as an information-finder are savvy enough to be using Google and Yahoo, and they’re not just going to the yellow pages site out of some sort of brand loyalty. So, ultimately, I don’t think having your “profile” (whatever that is) submitted to the yellow pages sites is worth your time or money.
Lastly, they’re promising to “hand-submit” your site to the major search engines. Wow. Okay, so hand-submitting a site to Google or Yahoo used to be a common SEO step. But the engines have evolved to a point where it’s no longer necessary. If you launch a site, the engines will find it. You simply don’t need to hand-submit. Even if you did need to (or want to), once you’re included in the index of a search engine there really isn’t any reason to submit again. So Wal-Mart is going to sell you a monthly service that no longer needs to be done, and when it did need to be done it was only a one-time thing.
Save your money. I know $30 a month sounds like a deal, but try to resist. I mean, I’ll sell you some bottled air for $30–one new bottle of air each month for one low monthly price. You’d get about the same value as you would with Wal-Mart’s SEO services.
SEO is a time-consuming thing. It’s an ongoing thing. It’s not a quick-fix. And it’s WAY more than just creating a mysterious profile, sending that profile to spammy yellow pages sites, and performing the archaic and unnecessary task of hand-submitting a site to the engines. SEO is done on the page…on your actual site. You can’t just submit your site to some yellow pages and expect to rank on the first page for anything you want. There’s a reason your site doesn’t rank number 1…and that’s because someone else who paid more than $30/month got an experienced SEO Specialist to move ahead of you and into that spot.
I don’t know what’s more ridiculous… that Wal-Mart is selling SEO services, or that many people will buy this worthless service because it’s cheap and it’s from Wal-Mart. If you want your website marketing to come from the company that specializes in cheap prices and long lines, then by all means…go right ahead. Just know that you’re reading the blog of a company that can offer professional SEO services–services that will actually make a dent in your search rankings… services that we will fully explain and lay out in advance. It will cost you more than $30 a month, but you’ll get a lot more value.
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Funny how you didn’t mind putting American workers out of work to get cheaper pants, but now that it encroaches on your livelyhood Wal Mart is a problem.
Maybe you and a few thousand others should have bought that $15 pair of pants elsewhere when you saw major brands closing American operations to keep their prices “Falling” for a little bit more and they wouldn’t have your money to go into another sector.
Give me a break, RD. I’m sick of the Wal-Mart haters blaming the shoppers for the decline of American businesses.
I’m making a point that a big-box retailer selling a technology service is odd. You’re making a point that if I buy my jeans there then I should just accept whatever they want to sell… which is honestly a bit dumb. It’s like Pizza Hut deciding to start selling hammers. Or Home Depot selling psychiatric advice.
My point is that SEO services are a strange thing for Wal Mart to sell… and that Wal-Mart’s SEO service might not be high-quality–like a lot of what they sell.
Which is it: Do you hate Wal-Mart? Or do you want to beat me up for giving Wal-Mart grief? Because it seems like you want it both ways.
I would’nt trust the tech goons at wal-mart to install a network card and autorun a driver cd for me let alone search engine optimization for a commercial web site. alot of these big guys are a rip off waiting to happen. This monthly thing looks like a scam to me as just updating your webpage every month will get you a search engine bump even though temporarily. Not sure I’d trust them to pick my keywords, titles, reword my links, or even the most basic html modification. May as well pay the trusted local firms who’ll actually do the research to get you the best rating possible specifically for your business and your area.
You guys need to do your research before you jump the gun. Sam’s Clubs uses a Redmond, WA (near Microsoft) based company called Innuity, Inc. (http://innuity.com/) to provide all of the services including Website Hosting. I’ve personally called their support team and they are for real. They are not outsourced and do know their stuff. I hate reading these post because it clearly show people are too lazy to do some real research.
Good. Another Wal-Mart supporter comes by to judge us.
Let me tell you how this works. When Wal-Mart brands something and puts it on their website, whether it comes from a third party company or not, it is still a Wal-Mart product.
So the fact that they’ve partnered with an SEO firm you respect (and probably work for) means nothing. It is a service being provided and sold by Wal-Mart. And I think that while there are wide-ranging opinions across the country about Wal-Mart… it’s undeniable that they have earned a bit of skepticism whenever they roll out a new service they hadn’t previously offered.
And what they’re offering isn’t SEO. Anyone who leaves blog comments about SEO with the name “SEO Tester” should know that SEO is more than submitting profiles and URLs to search engines.
They want me to pay $30 a month to use a proprietary “profile builder” that will then submit my profile to directories and yellow pages. This is something people can do themselves, and is fairly useless to begin with. Wal-Mart will also, for my $30, submit my URL to search engines–something that is universally considered by SEOs to be no longer necessary. It’s also free and takes 10 seconds for people to do.
So Wal-Mart, through this wonderful SEO firm you love (and probably work for) is charging $360 a year for unnecessary and unhelpful services that won’t touch a customer’s actual website code in the least. Sounds like a scam to me.
“They want me to pay $30 a month to use a proprietary “profile builder” that will then submit my profile to directories and yellow pages. This is something people can do themselves, and is fairly useless to begin with. Wal-Mart will also, for my $30, submit my URL to search engines–something that is universally considered by SEOs to be no longer necessary. It’s also free and takes 10 seconds for people to do. ”
I could not agree more.
Wal-mart is now in SEO? With their deep pockets, it won’t be long before poor little business owners come out of the wood work to serve up a nice dose of litigation against wal-mart for ruining their small company. It’s one thing to be in litigation with a disgruntled former employee. It’s a whole new world when you are blamed for the ruin of mom and pop’s business. Right or wrong, wal-mart will soon find settling out of court just to avoid bad press is a lot more expensive.
Jeremy Scott you really don’t get it do you? This is Local Marketing this has very little to do with SEO. Helping people submit their business information to Google Maps, Yahoo Local, etc… is a waste of time? Have you read the the news on how Local results is one of Google top priorities. So again, I ask you.. do you really thing this is a waste of time. Yes any one can do this on their own.. duh! But not everyone knows how to do it. We all wouldn’t be here if every one magically know how to do SEO, SEM, and local marketing. People are more focused on running their business then trying to build a business profiles on business directories and local search engine. I hate how people start bashing on something and not having a clue what they are talking about. No I don’t work there. I just did my research. Something you clearly do not know how to do.
SEO Tester, you’re kind of a liar.
The link you placed in your comment–on your name–goes to http://leadconnect.innuity.com, where I can read about how you offer the same useless service for “local business profiles” that Wal-Mart is offering (via Sam’s Club).
And when I click the link in my original article, it takes me to the Sam’s Club page. And what’s in the upper right-hand corner? Oh, a mention that these “SEO” services are “provided by Innuity.”
So you do work for them. And you left a comment on my company’s blog outright saying you don’t. And bashing me for not doing research. Allow me to bash you right back for hypocrisy. Not only did you not disclose your company’s relationship with Wal-Mart and Sam’s, you flat out lied about it.
Answer me this, though… why the heck would you put that link in your comment name to your own site? It completely blows your cover.
To SEO tester…
Ignorance is bliss isn’t it? Making money of business owners for a task that takes 10 minutes to do and then calling it seo is a joke. First of all Local listings are FREE!!!! Second you don’t know anything about the web, most sites like yellow pages and other use google/yahoo data repositories through web Services/Api’s to get there new data onto their own databases so is submitting to all the other directories a little redundant? “Yes any one can do this on their own.. duh! But not everyone knows how to do it. We all wouldn’t be here if everyone magically know how to do SEO, SEM, and local marketing.” this is exactly what is wrong with the market, companies like yours who practice such business ethics like to exploit peoples understanding on a subject they have no clue about. I am sure your company has its own secret sauce too… lol the fact of the matter is that everything local listing companies offer is a rip-off. TRUE SEO like Mr. Scott implies takes a lot more than just filling a form and submitting to a couple of search engines. You can’t optimize a site via a form, seo is a process that never ends, and because of that most companies don’t want to do seo as it doesn’t yield profits like local listing scams. Companies that offer seo services most of the time are scams where local listings are interpreted as seo. 3-4 Months later when your client cancels you have made your money, so let’s move onto lurking for the next victim.
Real SEO will never be automated; local listings will never be SEO get over it. TRUE SEO is a science very few can afford.
I WILL NOT EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM WALMART!!!
THEY CHEAT THEIR EMPLOYEES. THEY MAKE THEIR EMPLOYEES WORK OVER TIME WITH OUT PAY, IF THEY REFUSE THEY LOSE THEIR JOBS. THEIR EMPLOYEES HAVE TO GET WELFARE INSURANCE TO COVER THEIR FAMILY. THEIR CHEAP PRICES ARE THERE BECAUSE THEY HAVE THEIR OWN FACTORIES OVER SEAS, WITH CHEAP LABOR. THEY OWE SO MUCH TAXES THAT THEY COULD
LOWER THE UNITED STATES DEFICIT. THEIR FACTORIES
ARE NOT ECO-FRIENDLY. MANY PEOPLE THAT WORK FOR THEM, NOW HAVE CANCER, LUNG DESEASES, CHILDREN
BORN WITH MANY BIRTH DEFECTS AND MUCH MORE.
IN THE KNOW
My one and only question to you is this. Are you still shopping at Wal-Mart?
I know that Wal-Mart was destroying America a few years back and I go out of my way to not shop there. I’d rather pay a few more bucks somewhere else and help keep others in business.
Like the one poster said, you complain when it hits you personally but not when you were, inadvertantly, putting other companies out of business.