Everyone knows the YellowPages isn’t as popular as it once was, but most people don’t realize how bad the situation really is. Not only do their print ads do absolutely nothing for your business now, but even their online ads and canned websites that they try to sell everyone don’t really do much.

The image below is from a small business whose thousands of dollars in YellowPages advertising costs brought in a whopping 21 visitors for the entire year of 2009. Not only that, but not one single person of those 21 actually contacted this particular business, thus no conversions were made – zero new customers. Needless to say, this business no longer pays for YellowPages advertising.

yellowpages-vs-google-image

This raises a noteworthy question:  Why does anyone still pay for YellowPages advertising, whether in print or online? The answer to this seems to be consistent across the board, as I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to business owners sadly say “We’re just not sure if it brings in any new customers or not, so we’re too afraid to cancel the subscription.”

Also keep in mind that the image is from 2009. Prospective buyers, clients, and customers are even more geared toward online search now, and this trend will continue to grow with every passing year. Check out the video below.

There are several lessons to be learned here:

  • Don’t pay for anything the YellowPages sales reps try to sell you, no matter what sort of bogus figures and stats they throw at you.
  • Your business desperately needs to be on the first page of Google. If you’re not on the first page, you have a very slim chance of ever being found.
  • Know where your prospects are coming from. This means employing Analytics tracking, knowing how to analyze the data, and actually understanding what you’re looking at.
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