Online search giant, Yahoo! Search Marketing, will invest up to $24 million in Australia’s small to medium businesses by offering free online search advertising campaigns for three months, going head to head with a similar Google offer.

The initiative, Big Bang, comes less than a week after rival search company Google launched a free $75 search marketing stimulus package to small to medium businesses to drive online advertising take-up.

The Yahoo! initiative trumps the Google offering by handing out $150 to a possible 160,000 businesses and offering a support service to those businesses yet to dabble in online advertising via a team of Yahoo! specialist consultants. The service aims to take the complexity out of search marketing campaigns by helping businesses with key word choices and auctions, cost, and even developing a website for those without an online presence through partnering with News Digital Media’s classifieds website True Local.

“The main objective of the Big Bang initiative is to educate and help small businesses to fully understand that search engine advertising is a compelling alternative that will make a positive impact on their bottom line,” explained Willie Pang, managing director of Yahoo Search Marketing. Addressing media at a launch event in Sydney this morning, Pang added that search marketing is the way of the future for small businesses given the shift in the way consumers’ access company information. “The time of print directories as a primary source of information is gone but many small businesses have not yet made the jump and followed their consumers,” he said. While there are approximately 1.93 million small businesses in Australia, Pang continued, only about 40,000 have tried search advertising or are actively using it at present. “Big Bang aims to drive a paradigm shift with this unprecedented initiative in the online advertising industry,” he said. According to Yahoo!, 1.1 billion searches are made through its network each month, offering small businesses the opportunity to increase exposure through a medium that is “targeted, accountable and measureable.” Jaye Radisich, CEO of the Council of Small Business of Australia, welcomed the initiative. “Yahoo! is looking at ways of growing its own business as well as helping small businesses, so it really is a win win situation.” While Pang predicted that 160,000 will take up a search marketing campaign by the deadline of July 31, it will extend to the campaign to more businesses in line with demand.