Archive for the ‘yellow pages’ Category

3 out of 5 Search Influence Employees Don’t Even Own a Print Phone Book

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

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.

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YPA Blog – File Under D

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

The Yellow Pages Association has launched a blog The Game Plan movie full .

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?

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Authority, Trust and Yellow Pages Advertising

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

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.

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Quick Followup to Yelp / Scream

Saturday, July 5th, 2008
.!.

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.

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Yelp Makes Small Businesses Scream

Friday, July 4th, 2008

In 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.
Yelp logo

Businesses like those in the article have come to rely on Yelp for the connection to buyers. If only it were just Yelp…

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How to Outsource Your Brain for Fun AND Profit

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

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.

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Miriam Ellis Asks A Lot of Questions

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

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)
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SEO Igloo puts us on the hot seat

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

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:

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