Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) and
Local Search Marketing
Executive Summary
Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) comprise a large sub-set of local search, and both are excellent opportunities for small, local business, because they are very
cost-effective marketing channels. Of course they are excellent for large corporations too, but most big businesses are aware of that already, while small businesses still have plenty
of chairs left before the music stops and all competitors scramble for a seat. When that tipping point comes, "there's always room at the top" by using excellence in selection,
tracking, and optimization of these channels.
IYP, like SuperPages.com, are rapidly gaining traction and can deliver superb ROI. Much of the ROI comes from the fact that the top search engines use IYP
databases to populate their rapidly growing and improving local search results. DISC has set-up and tracked advertising in all of the top IYPs, so that we can choose the program best
suited for your business. Some are free, while others cost a little but try to up-sell you to programs with laughably negative ROI. As in all things DISC does, we apply our years of
ROI analysis to the selection and management of your IYP channels.
Most local search channels charge no click costs and so are a no-brainer for all brick and mortar businesses, both national and local (DISC’s local PPC is covered in our standard PPC Service). The top search engines want to take market share from
print yellow pages and from competing search engines, and they know that to do so they must have a reasonably complete database. So they have set up ways to submit your business to
third-party databases, some of which existed before the web -- for free. The labor required to submit to all of these databases is relatively small -- a few hundred dollars at DISC.
Further optimization and reporting requires a few hundred more dollars, but compared to any other web marketing -- never mind print yellow page advertising -- the total costs are very
low.
For DISC's options and pricing, please see the table at the bottom of the Explanation and Details section below.
Explanation and Details
Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)
Internet Yellow Page marketing, or IYP, is growing rapidly, and the providers are making it highly cost-effective to get in so that their IYP databases are
better than the competitions' and are poised to dominate in the future. This means that the ROI of IYP is very high . . . at least until more people catch on and the providers
jack prices.
Local search, of which IYP is a substantial sub-set, is accelerating its trend of replacing the print yellow pages (and other local advertising). In late
2005, research by The Kelsey Group and ConStat indicated that 70% of U.S. households use the internet when shopping locally for products and services. Findings also suggest
the internet is poised to surpass newspapers as a local shopping information resource. The Kelsey Group also indicates that the combined business of IYP and local Web search
is expected to grow 50 percent a year, from about $670 million in 2004 to $5.1 billion in 2009. Small- and medium-sized businesses planned to spend more money on IYP
advertising in the coming year. 8 percent planned to spend more on IYP in 2006, which is a fourfold increase from 2005, when just 2 percent said they intended to increase
their IYP spending. The study was based on a survey of 300 small and mid-size business owners.
Optimizing your listings in the top IYPs will optimize your ranking in the top local search engines, because nearly all local search engines take their results from
IYP databases. After optimizing your listing, maintenance is simple: one or twice per year, you (or DISC) checks that all information in the IYPs are up-to-date.
Choosing the best IYPs for your business requires some research, in part because the landscape is evolving so rapidly. Yahoo Yellow Pages, AOL Yellow
Pages, MSN Yellow Pages, SwitchBoard.com, SuperPages.com, and YellowPages.com are all used nationally, so you can submit to these sites without worrying too much about
regional targeting. For more regionally based services, such as RealPages and SmartPages, a number of criteria needs to be weighed, including relevance to your business, how
much competition exists within your business category, how dominant the provider is in your region, and which other web sites are in the IYP's network.
As with all web marketing, some form of conversion tracking must be in place. Most IYPs offer a range of differently sized and placed ads at different
prices. Tracking referrals, conversions, and ROI over time indicates which, if any, IYP ads are worth purchasing.
Local Search Engine Marketing
Once you have an IYP listing, then you'll be found in most local search engines, like Google's and Yahoo's. However, even if your site is listed, your
business information may be incomplete or inaccurate and you should update and improve your listing. Also there are several tactics for optimizing your positions in the local
search engines.
Local search marketing is one of those "get ahead of your competitors" opportunities that brick and mortar retail or service businesses should take
advantage of now. It is way less expensive than the print yellow pages, which are devolving into dynasours -- big, heavy, and eats way too much green. Soon most buisness will
have moved into local search, so that costs will rise and competitive andvantage will sink.
There major local search engines worth considering are Google Local, Yahoo Local, MSN Local, Ask Jeeves Local, AOL Local, and perhaps CitySearch.com and
A9.com’s IYP and local search.
A good IYP presence is important for local search. Google’s local listings come partly from their organic index (and DISC’s SEO Services optimize local rankings) and partly from IYPs. Thus, if you want to optimize your business for Google Local,
it helps greatly to have your IYP listings accurate and consistent. The same is true for most other local search engines, since IYP and local search results are so closely
related.
Simply being listed in these local search engines isn’t enough. There are several optimization techniques one should use to boost rankings. Each
engine has its own methods of assembling local listings, and by knowing these methods one can influence them. For instance, since you never know which page on your website
Google will use to create your local listing, it's important to list your business contact and location information on every page. By putting it all together in one place on
the page, such as in a header or footer, Google can find the information easily and recognize it as your business address. Google doesn't accept user-submitted reviews like
Yahoo does, but they do pull some of their reviews from user-submitted reviews on Yahoo Local and Yahoo Travel. So, having good reviews on Yahoo helps your Google Local
presence. These are a couple of examples of a variety of optimization tactics for local search, which DISC will do for you.
These optimization techniques are especially important with engines that don’t accept paid listings. Others, like AOL, provide the option of paying
for a higher position. Any local search engine that offers paid listings will at least be worth trying out, since the fees are mostly low and flat monthly.
Regarding tracking results, DISC uses a special query string to identify each of these campaigns, so that your team or DISC can easily track all clicks and
subsequent behavior on your web site.
DISC's Prices for Local & IYP SEM
DISC combines doing both local SEM and IYP in one job, because they reinforce each other, and local SEM derives much of its results from IYP listings.
Research your best options, set-up, and deliver a report on all set-up and rationales: $1650.
Optional but recommended quarterly, bi-annual, or at least annual ROI tracking & optimizing: $1200 for the first, $900 for each subsequent
round.
Compare those prices with print yellow page advertising!
DISC's proposals and phone conversations will provide more details and answer all your questions.
DISC offers rock-solid proof of our years of superb results in all of our services, in the form of detailed ROI reports delivered to actual clients. We need a signed NDA in most cases, so we offer this proof only to people who have received a proposal and remain interested in DISC’s services.
DISC's estimates in our proposals are firm. We do not exceed them unless you add more work. If you have us do work that is not specified in
contracts, it is billed at these hourly rates:
- $75 per hour for HTML programming
- $100 per hour for graphic design
- $150 per hour for database work and non-HTML programming
- $150 per hour for SEO, PPC, and other SEM
- $150 per hour for general consulting and training
- To learn about DISC’s pricing philosophy and practice, and our account management structure and workflow, please see our Prices and Procedures page.
For a list of all of DISC's service prices, without descriptions, please our "Sell Sheet."
Please click here to request a proposal. The RFP form takes less than 3 minutes to fill out. Thank you!
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