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Demise of the Yellow Pages

Written by: Bill Treloar

Article Overview: Yellow page use is declining. If your Yellow Pages leads are drying up, there ar4e two important lessons. You need to have a web site, and customers need to be able to find it in the search engines.

Demise of the Yellow Pages

Demise of the Yellow Pages

Two Important Lessons for Your Small Business

by Bill Treloar The Yellow Pages have long been an essential household tool. What easier way could there be to find local sources of essential products and services? Need an exterminator? An accountant? A doctor? A rental car? Just let your fingers do the walking!

However, over the past few years Yellow Pages usage has declined dramatically. Why?

As more and more families need two breadwinners to maintain their standard of living, people find themselves having to find and call that exterminator from the office instead of from home. Try to find a copy of the Yellow Pages in your office. Unless you're a secretary or administrative assistant, chances are you don't have a copy at your desk. Tracking down a copy of the Yellow Pages can consume your entire lunch hour, leaving no time to call that exterminator.

While you may not have a copy of the Yellow Pages at your desk, I'll bet you have a computer. And in all likelihood, that computer is connected to the Internet. How easy is it to search the web for an exterminator in your town or county? Very easy. And fast, too.

A Yellow Pages Ad Is No Longer Enough

As more people move from the Yellow Pages to the search engines on the Internet, there are two important lessons for your business.

Lesson One

First, you need a web site. There are still some small businesses that don't have a web site. But having your own web site is no longer optional. If you get business from the Yellow Pages (or used to) that source of leads is drying up. People are looking for you on the Internet. And if you don't have a web site, you're just not there! That becomes especially serious, for obvious reasons, if your competitor has a web site.

Your web site doesn't have to cost a fortune. You should be able to have a one-page "brochure type" web site created (that says far more about your business than an newspaper or Yellow pages ad) for just a few hundred dollars. Registering your web site name like ExterminatorBob.com costs at most $35/year. And the cost of having your site hosted on the Internet often runs under $20/month. Chances are that cost is less than the annual cost of a Yellow Pages ad that says less than your web site would.

Don't eliminate your Yellow Pages ad just yet, though. There are still people clinging to old habits. As long as you're still getting customers who call based on your Yellow Pages ad, it's a worthwhile marketing tool for you, too.

Lesson Two

Now that you have a web site, future customers have to be able to find it on the Internet.

Sound simple? Try it!

Pretend you're a customer looking for your most profitable product or service, but who doesn't know the name of your business. Try to find your web site in any of the search engines. Check Google, Yahoo, AOL Search, Bing ... whichever one you normally use. If your own web site doesn't show up in the first couple of pages of search engine results, then people are giving up before they find you.

And if your biggest competitor does show up in the first three pages, you're abandoning your future customers to them.

Once your web site is on the Internet, you need to make sure it can be found when people search for what you offer. Here are a few essential tips:

* Make sure the words people will search for to find your products or services actually appear on your web site. If some people search for "exterminator" and others search for "pest control", be sure both terms appear on your site.

* Get other web sites to link to yours. Search engines often won't list a web site that doesn't have any links from other sites.

* If those two steps don't get you the search engine rankings you need, learn how to do "search engine optimization" or hire someone to help you. After all, it doesn't help to just get listed by the search engines if you end up on page 72 of the results!

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Article Tags: accountant, breadwinners, competitor, demise, desk, essential products, exterminator, fingers, fortune, household, likelihood, lunch hour, page brochure, rental car, search engines, small business, small businesses, treloar, type web, yellow pages



Related Forum Posts
Do the Yellow Pages still work? - People are increasingly turning online to find suppliers and research solutions to the problems they are having. Is it still worth taking out an ad in the Yellow Pages? Could there be a better way to use that money? Do you still use the Yellow Pages?
Re: Facebook Advertising? - Hi Mal, I just added you to my circles. It'll be interesting to know how you think the two services, Facebook Pages and Google+, compare.
Re: Facebook Fan Pages - What will always draw me to something valuable in Facebook Fan Pages is how they are giving information on a regular basis so that's what I could recommend. Generate more interesting contents on a regular basis and yes, giving freebies to those active followers could even motivate the others more. Good luck!
Re: Tactics for Blog Traffic - some more tips to drive traffic to blog or to promote a blog. Squidoo Lens Creation Hub Pages Creation Social Bookmarking (Digg, Delicious, Stumble, Reddit etc.) Be helpful in forums Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn etc.) syndication blog commenting (other blogs) Guest post
Re: Should the TTC install guard doors for customer safety? - tough question... You have to weigh the "Cost" side of things to "public concern". your right? what has been the probability of the occurrence. I think I can remember more times people jumping onto the tracks themselves rather than being pushed. The TTC does a good job of reminding you over and over again via the intercom with their public announcements to stay clear of the "Yellow line". I can see it being an issue during rush-hour when there are so many people on the platform (being quite narrow in quite a few stations that one tends to more closer and closer to the tracks as it gets busier. Personally I think it's not necessary and the money can be spent wisely on improving bus frequency and training "some" of the staff in being more polite (especially to tourists and me).


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