Today the concept of money has become even more abstract and most of our efforts are recorded and rewarded as numbers on a balance sheet. Not to many of us carry or keep thousands of dollars on hand.

There is a new currency emerging. This currency is even more abstract than all those that have gone before it and in many ways is more volatile. However, it forms the basis of many open economic models.

In the internet economy popularity = money. If your website ranks high and you get plenty of traffic you can convert that into real dollars through ad revenue or sales of existing items. That model makes sense to most people. However, there are other instances where popularity turns into real dollars. Observe the number of individuals who have gained respect within a given community who then become high paid consultants. Greater reputation on the internet leads to more opportunities. Older companies might be purchased for their aged domain name and their Google Page Rank.

Incoming links are currently the hot item among SEOs. One way back links from high page rank sites can command high prices. What is interesting however is that if someone provides truly valuable information those links can also be obtained for free.

A new abstract, reputation based economy is emerging. Understanding the models behind it will surely lead to new and interesting opportunities for those that understand and embrace it.

Today I learned that Walmart and Sams have entered the SEO market. This seems absurd and if you pay attention to what they are offering you will realize it is ridiculous. In typical Walmart fashion they are charging a low price, but what you are getting is junk. For $25 a month they will submit your site to search engines - a practice that has been long abandoned. For $50 they will help you setup a campaign using Google or Yahoo. Just like the pro shops instance, Walmart saw a market and is now attempting to take it over from those who built it - the SEO professionals who have been at this for 10 years.

Will they succeed? I am betting they will have an impact. There are plenty of small businesses that don't understand technology and who shop at Sams. For $25 or even $50 a month wouldn't you love to have your internet marketing problems go away.

In the end they will get the kind of service you get at Walmart which is almost always sub par. The irony here is that SEO is a service not a commodity, but they are packaging it as a commodity and those who bite will be disappointed in the results. The upside to this is that the SEO market has little to worry about. The guys who will only pay $25 don't make great clients and those who care about internet marketing will continue to do SEO the hard way which is the only way to be successful in that space.

Giant companies like Walmart are great at efficiency so for the every day stuff they do a great job. If I need shampoo or diapers I am buying from a large manufacturer so I don't really care if I buy it at Walmart or some other similar store. The lowest price in that instance wins.

Giant companies are not good at customer service, local knowledge and information dissemination. If you are headed out for the ultimate fishing trip do you want to get your information from some kid making $6/hr or a guy that has fished every river for 100 miles. If you want gardening information do you really want to ask the 16 year old in the funny uniform or do you want to go to the garden store that charges a bit more, but who can tell you exactly what is wrong with your tree by looking at a few leaves? (I go to Anderson Seed in Logan. They are awesome).

If you want SEO would you ever trust the company who is currently coming up with a strategy to put you out of business? Think about it.

I need to setup one of these companies. They are usually run by a couple of jokers who know very little about SEO. In this case the jokers were looking for easy money. They wanted 10k for a 'keyword analysis' and 10k to optimize 10 pages. Holy Crap!

The 'analysis' involved a bunch of people at the university running around coming up with the 'things they want to advertise' - read keywords. Not sure what that leaves for the SEO company to do. I guess they can type it up. Makes them a pretty dang expensive secretary. They then wanted to charge to setup an adwords campaign - you know because Google makes that process so hard.

My tip?

Start with SEOChat.com. This site is a vibrant community of real SEO pros that will tell you all kinds of neat stuff for free. Work a little and save yourself the tens of thousands of dollars.

In case anyone cares here are my SEO links on delicious.