Why Yellow Pages Don’t Work



Even in rural towns and regardless of what products or services you sell, people are increasingly looking to the Internet to search for things they need and want.

If you look at the image to the right, you’ll see that even the Yellow Pages are trying to send people to a website. In other words, even they know that their mode of listing businesses is outmoded and on the decline.

Are you losing business? If you advertise in the Yellow Pages instead of on the Internet, the answer is yes.

How businesses can continue to throw their money away with Yellow Pages ads is beyond us. They simply don’t work. That’s why they are now trying to up-sell you to pay for another ad on their online version of the Yellow Pages. The problem with that is that no one goes to the online version of the Yellow Pages to search for businesses. Instead, they all go to Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

Guess what? We know how to put your business online and position you to get found by the people looking for what you sell and the services you offer. Are you going to let your competitor down the street beat you to the punch? Maybe he already has. Call us. We can get you started today.

Yellow Pages won’t admit what’s happening. You know the yellow book that dropped through your letterbox the other week … the one that’s smaller and thinner than in previous years? The publisher will have you know that it’s a new handy size, pocket size, more manageable, more convenient to use – when in fact the simple truth is that it gets smaller every year because more and more businesses realise that it’s just not worth their money any more.

See, people who have computers don’t tend to use the Yellow Pages any more. They don’t even really use the online version, Yell. When they want a service they google for “web designer yorkshire” or “bookkeeper doncaster” or cake shop selby” and see what comes up.

Those businesses that have a website and are reasonably high on Google will get a shot at the gig. If they’re listed in Google Places, so much the better, because they’ll get a listing further up the screen.

The Yell page for those types of business might come up and you might give it a cursory glance and perhaps follow a link to someone’s website from there – but businesses that don’t have web links are likely to be ignored. Which means it is really important these days to have a website, however basic.

You could build your own site – However, your site is likely to look fairly amateurish and certainly won’t show your professional products or services in a good light. Better still, speak to someone like us, who specialise in low cost webdesign.

The offline directories are losing out on business … don’t let your business lose out too!

Website Design is an art form and we can tell you why no small business should never ever have one.

Why Yell.com

• Do they get found?
  The short answer is not really. Yell.com websites have a habbit of not being found on the first few search results pages. Also, ask yourself how many people use Yell.com to search for a business online, the answer isn’t many – most people use Google or Bing!
  Oh and despite what they may claim, Yell.com nor anyone else has a “special relationship” with Google, its a load of hoot!
• Are they well designed?
  Again, No. Almost all of the websites rolled out by the, so called, Designers at Yell.com are templates – most look exactly the same minus a few colour changes. To be asked to pay huge amounts of cash for this kind of service is ridiculous. Yell.com may have a big name, a big reputation as the Yellow Pages but they certainly don’t have a big reputation for good design or customer service at Yell.com
• Are they well coded?
  Once again, No. Sites from Yell.com are pretty much all the same, crap when it comes to coding. Unless maybe you get lucky and don’t have a template… but this means you’ve probably paid thousands of pounds … but other than a tatty website I doubt you’d get very much for your pennies. Bad coding means unreliable behaviour in web browsers and certainly unreliable search results.
• Website Tailored to the Business?
  Yell.com like many other companies that cold call people who sign up for their Free Basic Listing upselling them don’t ever find out enough detail from their clients. Their websites are at best generic and at worst … well suffice to say if the websites they “show off” on their website aren’t with Yell.com any more, it tells its own story.
• What about content?
  Well a quick sweep through businesses in the same industry will find the same content reworded, bad enough. Take a look at the keywords and key phrases they target and they are ALWAYS the same for an industry. They claim to research your competitors, but they don’t they copy your competitors who use Yell websites. It’s duplicate content and your website will suffer for it.
• But Yell.com know what they are talking about?
  No. Yell.com like many other companies who sell websites again via cold calling are paying their staff on a commission basis. This is why when you get a phone call you are told you must have a website that does this and we can offer it to you for this price. If you say No, they ask to call back or don’t but call back anyway, they operate sly selling tactics at the best of times – simply remember the person on the phone is a salesman and knows nothing about website design.