This is an email our President, Ken Lapp, wrote to a prospective client recently about Yellow Pages online:

Actually, John, I know something about this issue.  I was in advertising and marketing for 20 years before the Internet started, including managing an in-house advertising agency for a large local retailer. After that, I moved into internet marketing which I’ve been doing successfully for 12 years. I remember when Pink Pages gave it a try and when Canpages first started, and I remember when Yellow Pages bought Canpages. My company designed Yellow Pages and Canpages ads for clients and bought their many books throughout the Lower Mainland.

Just One Of Many

Dominion Directories is highly skilled at presenting their services. In recent years, they have started promoting their website as if it’s the whole Internet. They give you the impression that all the internet advertising you need is to be on their website. They say ‘Google recognizes our website as a credible source of business information’ and they say it, as if it’s all you need to know in order to make the decision to buy their advertising. Although the statement is true, the question that needs to be asked is “So what?” Google recognizes many websites as credible sources of business information.

They have overlooked two important points:

1. The first is that the only business they could possibly bring you is people who are searching on their website for your services. If you spend your internet budget on your own, if you compete your website head to head with theirs for your keyword phrases using a recognized independent SEO firm like Standard Marketing, we can make it so Google sees your website as a credible source of information about your services. Your website will rank higher than the Yellow Pages website for your services. You’ll get website traffic from anybody in the Lower Mainland who’s searching for your services, not just from those who go to the Yellow Pages website.

I’m not sure if I’m made this point clear. An appropriate metaphor might be – if there was a small strip mall on Main Street, wouldn’t you rather have an opportunity to be found by everybody walking on Main Street rather than just by the people who go into the strip mall?

1. The second point here is that your website should always be the foundation of any internet advertising you do. The goal is always to get people to your website. That’s where you can qualify them, educate them, and get them to contact you. When you engage the services of a proven internet marketing agency, they will coach you on making your website a powerful conversion tool; so, when qualified prospects come to your website, they contact you. That’s what we do best and we’ve been doing it successfully for 12 years. This is a skill that Yellow Pages has no background in at all.

John, I’m not saying you won’t get any return from an expenditure with Yellow Pages online. What I’m saying is that you will get many times the return by spending your Internet Marketing budget independently.

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