What is MerchantCircle you ask? Its an online marketing solution for U.S. small businesses. Depending on your definition, that category could include anywhere from 10 million to 17 million or so entities. Like many others, MerchantCircle takes aim at the yellow pages services market and hopes to lure local advertisers with a range of cost-effective offerings: a rich, structured landing page, blog, newsletters, online couponing and search-marketing. There are two packages: $29 per month and $99 per month, beyond a limited free offering. The site is not a consumer destination, but a hosted platform intended to help businesses be found in search results and communicate with customers.
The landing pages, which are intended as a substitute for a website (but could be a complement to one), are highly SEO-friendly according to CEO Ben Smith. A random search of listed merchants produces mixed results in terms of where they appear in SERP rankings. But as the content grows on the directory, which Smith likens to profile pages in MySpace, those SEO rankings should improve.
The site officially launched today. For more detail, see my blog post.
Related reading
The state (or statelessness) of technical SEO in 2019
What do we need to know about technical SEO in 2019? Here’s an overview to keep in mind, based on a presentation by Mike King of iPullRank at TechSEOBoost.
Five growth hack ideas for SEO
Five things you can do for free to boost organic search results. Tip #4: How just one word in a title can cause a 59% increase in organic traffic.
How did the Gillette video impact search traffic?
Gillette's “The Best a Man Can Be” ad sparked lots of coverage. The real question is, "What impact did that video have on search traffic?" The trends since.
Why SEO and front-end developers are the perfect search marketing team
Getting SEO and front-end developers to work together can lead to spectacular success. Find out how this approach can take your strategy to the next level.
