For decades now, businesses both small and large have spent a significant portion of their marketing budget on listings in print directories like the Yellow Pages. Over the years,  it has proven to be an effective method of advertising as many consumers turned to phone book directories to get in touch with service providers.

Over the past few years however, many business have stopped renewing advertising in the directories due to lack of effectiveness, and it’s really quite easy to understand why when you take a look at how Yellow Pages advertising stacks up in terms of effectiveness vs. online marketing via paid search or organic search engine optimization.

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3 Reasons Why The Yellow Pages Stink Compared To Search Marketing

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1.  Consumers are flooded with info.

Take a look at your local Yellow Pages and search for an attorney, chiropractor, lawn service, etc. and you will find several pages of ads… many times with the total number of ads into the hundreds.  Think about this…. people are paying to be in a directory listed right next to all of their local competitors.  Not only do you have to bank to on potential customers picking up the Yellow Pages, you have to bank on the small chance that your little ad will stand out amongst the dozens/hundreds of competitors.

With search marketing, websites that are optimized for local search terms can easily dominate the results on major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing.  This works well for companies due to the fact that more and more consumers are utilizing search engines for information instead of print directories.  Plus, if your site is ranked at the top of the search engine results, you (and you alone) stand out as the “authority” business… you don’t have to worry about consumers comparing your “ad” to dozens of other ads, research clearly shows that searchers favor the site that is at the top in the organic search engine rankings.

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2.   The Number Of Print Directories Continues To Grow

It seems that each year, another print directory enters the market.  Many companies feel they are forced into purchasing advertising simply because their competition is doing it.  This is causing companies to throw a larger percentage of their marketing budget at a medium that is slowly suffocating.  Do yourself a favor, don’t fall for these new directories… put the cash towards some optimization for a couple targeted local keywords.

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3.  You Are Stuck With Your Ad For A Year

Another real disadvantage of advertising in print directories is the fact that once your ad is submitted, it cannot be edited.  You get once chance each year to update your listing, and if something changes, or if you would like to add some additional messaging, you are S.O.L.

When marketing via online search, your ad (which can be a landing page on a website, a paid ad, a banner, etc.) has the ability to be edited at any point in time, with the changes takign effect immediately.  Not only does this provide more flexibility for advertisers, it allows for much more targeted advertising as messages can be varied towards time of year, location of the site visitor, etc.

Hundreds of thousands of small business owners are once again finding themselves at a crossroad and are questioning the effectiveness of having a website.  10 years ago (or 5 years ago if you are here in South Dakota) many small businesses decided to establish an online presence primarily because everyone was doing it.

Unfortunately, 99% of businesses simply posted an online version of a promotional brochure and haven’t touched the site in years.

These small business owners still tend to question the effectiveness of online marketing due to the lack or performance in their “web 1.0″ website.  In the current economic climate, it’s unfortunate that more companies don’t understand the value of online marketing due to it’s low cost and high potential returns.

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When used effectively, a company website can do the work of dozens of sales people…. dozens of sales people that work 24 hours a day / 7 days a week, don’t require insurance, don’t require workspace and don’t pring the post-it notes home with them.

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Here are 3 Methods that Small Businesses Should Consider To Put Their Website To Work:

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1. Search Engine Optimization

Before you can put your company website to work for you, you need to make it easy for people to find.  Without receiving a steady stream of targeted traffic, a website is nothing more than a liability.

SEO is best way to boost your online visibility.  Simply optimizing your website for a few targeted keywords can result in a flood of site visitors… visitors that searched for exactly what your business has to offer.

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2. Capturing Leads Online

More and more businesses are finding that their website can be a huge source of lead generation.  In a lot of cases, the small investment it takes to add the functionality to a company website is easily made up for with the first sale attributed to the site.

There are several ways companies can capture a site visitor’s phone number or e-mail address without being invasive at all.  By simply offering a “free price quote” or the ability to download a “free report”, a company can accumulate hundreds of targeted leads pretty quickly.  These leads can be followed up with a phone call from your sales team or e-mail communication.

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3. Placement Targeted Ads

One method of online advertising that is slowly gaining popularity is utilizing Google Adwords placement targeted ads.  These are ads on the Google content network that allow you to determine the exact location on an exact page of a site that participates in the Google content network.  Also, rather than paying per ad impression, you only pay if somebody clicks the ad and goes to your website… and you only pay what you want to pay.

This is an excellent way to increase your site visibility on authority websites like New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CBS Sports Line and hundreds of thousands more.   In many instances you can pay pennies per click… and all other impressions cost nothing.

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