SearchInfluence

The Pets.com Sock Puppet

I was having a conversation today with one of our clients for whom we do Yellow Pages SEO, and I swear I was transported back to the year 2000. It’s amazing to me that more than a decade after Yellow Pages companies first started getting their feet wet on the internet, they still don’t quite get it.

“Trading print dollars for Internet dimes,” they say.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The online opportunities are immense for well established brands like the Yellow Pages for SEO, websites, paid search advertising, social media. With feet on the street combined with the power of SEO, the Yellow Pages, if they could ever get their act together, would eat our lunch.

Last week I was asked by one of my client’s about her yellow pages ad which was up for renewal.  Hmmm … my response was half-hearted and I waffled a little.

Yes, the yellow pages industry is dying, some would argue it’s dead.

Unused and unwanted.

But a part of me hesitates at completely dropping out of the book.

In conversation one day, I mentioned to Will that for what we charge some of our clients, I can put a real value on it when I compare it to yellow pages spending.  And what I mean by that is for what a plastic surgeon or a dentist or a wedding photographer might pay for a large display ad in their local yellow pages, they could be spending the same or less in search engine optimization (SEO – Organic Search) / search engine marketing (SEM – Paid Search) and getting so much more return on investment for their marketing budget.

The Yellow Pages Association has launched a blog .

I added it to my feed reader under Local Search. I put it there because I don’t have a category for Dinosaur or Dead Trees or Dying industry

I kid — I think the Yellow Pages has 5-10 years of life left in it.

There may be some consolidation and there will certainly be heroic efforts to save it, but ultimately it will completely lose relevance in a world of ubiquitous connection.

Of course, it may all turn around. Who knows?

Trust: to have confidence or faith in
Authority: the power or right to give orders or make decisions
Yellow Pages: a telephone directory listing businesses by category

Often as Search Marketers we use words which have been redefined by our industry without thinking about how they’ll be understood by customers.

“Trust” however has the same meaning to marketers and customers. We just need to understand the differences in how trust is measured by our customers and the search engines.

When talking with clients I often slip into SEO-speak and use the term “authority” differently than above.

I placed a comment on Greg Sterling’s writeup of the Yelp issue pointing him to my post.

In a reply to my comment Greg Sterling says , and I totally agree:

“There also need to be clear rules at these sites to that SMBs understand the “Hows” and the “Whys” of these systems and they’re not surprised by something they thought was OK.”

This triggered a thought process which reminds me of a discussion I often have with prospective clients and other interested parties.

I believe in links! In fact I believe links are often more important than content.

I got this link by email from one of our clients (for Botox, San Francisco folks can’t go wrong with Dr. Roy Kim – yes, it’s a blatant link-drop) and it got me going on a pet peeve of mine:

Small Business owners giving up control over their own online destiny.

From the SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle Online): Merchants angry over getting yanked by Yelp

This article brings to a head a few issues of significance from professionals like us and from the service providers.

This post is in response to a request for Business How Tos at Sparkplugging.com in response to the question “How can I increase the profitability of my business?”

A little background

Way back toward the end of my time punching someone else’s clock I had an idea for a service I was calling “Outsource My Brain”.

The concept went something like this:

You’re a middle-manager or executive with more work than you feel like doing. So instead of pulling an all-nighter, or even foregoing American Idol with the kids, you drop that outline for a PowerPoint presentation to the board into you email.

At the risk of repeating myself, Miriam of Solas Web Design in her SEO Igloo blog has been engaged for a few weeks in an investigation of Local SEO culminating with a series of interviews. Miriam was nice to include me and most recently asked me to respond to some questions from the comments on one of her recent posts.

This is an answer both to Miriam and to current and future clients wondering about our process.

What this post will not cover:

• Managing offline conversion (I’m working on a case study for this)

My friends at Solas Web Design are doing a great interview series on “Local SEO”.

These interviews are a little technical in some cases but still make a great read regardless of your level of knowledge. How do I know so much? One of them is with me

Among the other usual suspects so far are:

• David Mihm – a small business website designer and SEO consultant off to find fame and fortune as a Portland SEO
• Mike Blumenthal – who devotes way to much time to Understanding Google Maps