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.
What They're Offering
For
$25 a month for Sam's Club members (and $39.95 a month for non-members), people
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, description, etc. Once you've completed
your dashboard, Innuity will submit your site to various local search engines
such as Yahoo! Local, YellowPages, Metrobot, 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.
Why This Is Good for the SEO Industry (The Pros)
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.
So, not only is that good for Sam’s Club, but it is helpful to all search
engine optimization companies. Additionally, the Sam's Club name gives SEO a
bit of respectability. This may help the mainstream accept the idea of hiring a
search engine optimization company in general.
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.
So, not only is that good for Sam’s Club, but it is helpful to all search
engine optimization companies. Additionally, the Sam's Club name gives SEO a
bit of respectability. This may help the mainstream accept the idea of hiring a
search engine optimization company in general.
The
problem with this particular offer 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 provides.
What
Sam's Club is offering cannot directly compete with the services provided by a
search engine optimization company. SEO companies specialize in what they do
which is search engine optimization; they are not a grocery store trying to do
something totally out of their league. This program can be reasonable for a
company with a small budget looking to boost its local exposure, but there are
plenty of small business SEO companies that would provide a better service.
Research needs to be done to find the right company. Unfortunately, it could 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 a SEO company.
