What is today’s equivalent of Yellow Pages? SEO Company Bristol Explains
From almost the day it was launched in 1966, until the end of the “Noughties” the Yellow Pages was the tool that most business’s used to get leads for their business. With the decline in size, advertisers, and users many businesses may be looking for the modern day equivalent of the Yellow Pages for generating leads for their business. What is today’s equivalent of Yellow Pages?
Yellow Pages Alternatives
As the author of this article, I offer my opinion on the Yellow Pages from a base of having worked for the company for almost a decade between 2006 and 2015. When I joined the company many Sales Staff would tell me of the “glory days” where business owners would welcome you with open arms and listen to virtually any proposal put in front of them. The business owner was pleased to see the Yellow Pages representative as the product was delivering such fantastic results in terms of ‘return on investment’ for their business. In my experience, the businesses I was spending time with still, even in 2006, were getting great returns from the “yellow book”.
Is It Still Worth Advertising In The Yellow Pages?
Having left the company over a year and a half ago it is difficult for me to say. However, very rarely did I meet a stupid business owner and the decreasing number of advertisers probably indicates that they are not seeing the same business or leads generated from the Yellow Pages.
Yellow Pages 2005/2006 Vs 2016 /2017
What is the modern day equivalent of the Yellow Pages?
What was it that made the Yellow Pages so successful? Ease of use was a significant factor. Every home and office had a Yellow Pages somewhere convenient. It was easy to find a business to supply a product or service by simply looking in the relevant section or “classification” and choosing from the 100’s of companies adverts to find a company that sold or offered exactly what you were after. Convenience, choice and ease of use.
Today, convenience is “at your fingertips”, not in a book somewhere nearby. Choice of 100’s of relevant companies in each classification is also a thing of the past. In terms of ease of use the Yellow pages remains the same, find the book, find the classification and choose a company. The difference is the general public’s view of ‘ease of use’. Today, having to put down your phone to find and pick up a book could be considered less than convenient.
Today, the young and the old alike use Google find the services or products of local companies. Whether it be a mobile phone, tablet or laptop people will use Google as the easy and convenient tool to find products or services. Whatever is hand, and usually one of these items is nearby and convenient.
Like a “full page” in Yellow Pages, smart businesses owners need to dominate their market on Google. This means having a website that is easy to find for those “word of mouth” referrals, but also a website that dominates the search results when a potential customer, who has not heard of your company, searches for a product or service.
But Google is Complicated, isn’t it?
Another advantage that Yellow Pages had were its sales force. Yes, many businesses owners would say, “they always want me to spend more money”. Well, to dominate a classification normally meant having a larger advert than your competitor and that meant spending more money. But Yellow Pages staff were experts in how the book worked and how to get the most from it. They could explain this in simple terms that business owners could understand. The business owner chose how much to spend, what messages to add to the advert and the rest was completed by Yellow Pages.
The difficulty with Google, and how to get the most from it, means is that the average business owner has to either spend time on it or trust an expert and those experts can often lose the average business owner with jargon.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Dominating the search results in Google can be simple and jargon free.
Making Google Easy For Business Owners
SEO Company Bristol offer a number of solutions for businesses to make sure they dominate the local market. This is done in two ways:
- Getting your website “Google friendly” so when searches are done on a phone or computer your website is found. This is called ‘search engine optimisation” or SEO.
- Like Yellow Pages, you can buy dominance of the local market. The old way was to buy a full page advert in Yellow Pages so that everyone looking in that section would see your advert. Google has adverts too, and you can buy the top positions on the Google search results and be ahead of the competition. This is called Google Adwords.
The smart business owner does both to make sure they get the best of all advertising.
If you would like to know more about the services offered by SEO Company Bristol then please telephone 0117 325 1099.
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