4. Back to the Yellow Pages for Local Business Advertising

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant
Web Marketing Today Premium, Issue 86, Winter 2005 Print Yellow Pages are arguably the most important form of advertising for local businesses. Now it's important to look for print/web Yellow Pages packages, with particular focus on SBC SMARTpages.com and Verizon SuperPages.com. A chart indicates the relative importance of Yellow Page websites.

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Local Yellow Pages ads have long been a staple for advertising local businesses. Now those same yellow page ads can be important for advertising a local business on the Internet.

Nearly all US Yellow Pages directories now have websites. In and of itself, this isn't too important, but a handful of Yellow Pages sites get a great deal of traffic and feed Yellow Pages directories on the major portal sites.

In the table below I've listed all the Yellow Pages sites I could find (though there are doubtless many smaller ones I haven't listed). For each I've listed its Google PageRank (which reflects largely the number of links to the site) and its Alexa Ranking, which gives you a relative idea of how much traffic it gets (determined by data culled from Internet users who have installed the Alexa toolbar).

When you study this table you rapidly see that two companies dominate in providing Yellow Pages data feeds -- SBC SMARTpages.com and Verizon SuperPages.com. (Other business data typically comes from Axiom or InfoUSA.)

Online Yellow Pages	Source	Google PageRank	Alexa Ranking
Yahoo! Local Yellow Pages Powered by SMARTpages.com	SBC	8/10 Yahoo site is 10/10	1
MSN Yellow Pages with Verizon SuperPages.com	Verizon	7/10	2
Google Local -- not really a Yellow Pages directory		9/10	3
WhoWhere.com Lycos People Search, powered by Verizon SuperPages.com	Verizon	8/10	79
InfoSpace Yellow Pages powered by Verizon SuperPages.com, data by Axiom	Verizon	7/10	277
SuperPages.com Verizon. Verizon provides local telephone services in 29 states and DC.	Verizon	8/10	305
WhitePages.com Powered by SMARTpages.com	SBC	-	377
Switchboard.com InfoSpace, data by Axiom	Switch	8/10	601
SMARTpages.com SBC	SBC	8/10	705
DexOnline.com Quest Communications	Quest	8/10	1,040
RealPages.com BellSouth. Powered by Switchboard	Switch	7/10	1,258
YellowPages.com acquired by SBC SMARTpages.com and BellSouth RealPages.com	SBC and BellSouth	8/10	1,383
AnyWho.com AT&T, from SuperPages.com, detail page from InfoSpace	Verizon	8/10	1,577
AreaConnect.com Allows searches of several Yellow Pages		7/10	7,826
Yellow.com Pike St. Industries, Inc.		7/10	9,931
YellowBook.com YellowBook USA		-	13,096
YP.com Onramp Access, Inc.		7/10	17,367
Bigfoot.com Powered by Verizon SuperPages.com	Verizon	8/10	19,688
WorldPages.com TransWestern Publishing		8/10	31,420
555-1212.com Paid residential, business, reverse searches		5/10	48,826
SureWest.com Serving the Sacrament area only, but feeds the Sacramento Bee site.		7/10	67,902
411Locate.com Powered by Verizon SuperPages.com	Verizon	4/10	68,225
SBN.com Superior Business Network Yellow Pages		6/10	161,428
Feist Online search for only four states: KS, MS, OK, TX		5/10	206,281
BusinessYellowPages.com Yellow Pages of America (no search currently)		4/10	1,726,345

My recommendation to local businesses: get the largest print Yellow Pages ad that you can reasonably afford, since lots of people use the phone book to find local businesses. But also consider getting an enhanced listing in your Yellow Pages directory's website -- especially if it is SBC's SMARTpages.com or Verizon's SuperPages.com, since they feed many other online Yellow Pages directories. My local directory is published by SBC. While they don't give any discount on the $21/month "Enhanced Placement Listing with Logo," a SMARTpages ad qualifies an advertiser for substantial discounts on ads in the local directory. Look for attractive discounts with your Yellow Pages directory.

However, if your Yellow Pages directory doesn't get much online traffic based on the chart above, it may not be much of a bargain. In that case consider upgrading the free basic listing your business has with the two leaders -- SBC SMARTpages.com (for its valuable alliance with Yahoo Local) and Verizon SuperPages.com (for its wide distribution with other directories).

In my case, the largest local search site is the Sacramento Bee newspaper and its search site Sacramento.com. Their Yellow Pages is fed by SureWest.com, a small player nationally, but important since they power the most important regional search sites for my area. Lesson: don't count out the smaller Yellow Pages players that serve portal sites in your area.

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Other articles from Web Marketing Today Premium, Issue 86, Winter 2005