For years I worked as a Yellow Pages sales rep for Verizon Information Services which later became Idearc Media/SuperMedia . Out of all of Texas and Florida sales, and from what I knew the entire country, I was the only sales rep in the state of Texas who knew jack squat about SEO and/or Pay Per Click advertising. Most sales reps had little experience actually building and managing pay per click campaigns. I was the exception. I avidly studied search engine marketing strategies and applied them since early 2002. I was once one of the Highest Ranked Sales Representatives at Verizon/Idearc.
I left the company when I finally realized that they didn’t have a clue what small business owners really wanted or needed in a search engine marketing strategy. The company provided horrible pay per click campaigns that had management fees starting at $250.oo per month for basic acct management (mostly just a build and lots of bologna “web event” reporting) and the price went up as high as 1000.00 per month for a 12 month contract. What was so bad about this was the fact that they didn’t spend as much as an hour per month on a clients campaign and initially used the “taxonomy” or categories for SuperPages.com as keyword research! Crazy I tell you! What was even worse was that the Yellow Pages Publisher had a mandatory “burn rate” of ( a requirement to spend) 85% regardless of value. Of course you can’t justify a bill for these outrageous management fees if the client has no click charges. I recall at one-time a campaign manager told me he was on “gag order” not to tell clients he was actually required to “manage” over 100 campaigns! Can you believe that?
So, what do you do? You get involved. You find out why the client is not getting the value the so-called product managers told you about. I know why it doesn’t work! Search is a verb… not a noun. It is not a product. It is an approach. It takes service and a holistic approach to recognize that search is more than just local, or social, or web. Search marketing is Facebook, Twitter, blogs, videos, links, keywords, websites, search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com and much much more. Consider this:
Google has over 147 million unique visitors, or different computers (IP Addresses) that visit it’s site every single month…. and growing!
Yahoo.com has over 130 million unique visitors.
CitySearch.com has 20.8 million unique visitors.
YellowPages.com has over 14.7 million, it used to be around 20 million on average.
and coming in last is what once was the industry leader, www.SuperPages.com with only 8.2 million unique visitors and dropping like a rock. The site used to have over 25 million unique visitors. So while traffic is on the rise for Google and other local search sites, it is declining rapidly for SuperPages.
Why you may ask? They lost Briggs Ferguson the former CEO of CitySearch recently as the Vice President of Internet. They also lost a few key SEO folks. (not including Chris Silver Smith who did an amazing job in the early days and left sometime ago.)
Do you really want to know what hurt the yellow pages companies so bad? Besides the fact that urban American’s with iPhones, Droid phones, smartphones, office computers no longer want the limited amount of information contained in a phone book……. the real problem is fragmentation! Local search is extremely fragmented. There are so many sites now that do a better job of organizing the web, such as not A-Z for starters, and many of the Internet Yellow Pages sites just didn’t keep up. When it comes to organizing local information, sites like Kudzu.com, Yelp.com, Local.com, Facebook, and many others are simply doing a better job. It isn’t just about organizing information, it is about things like breadcrumb navigation and something Chris Smith spoke about at the DFWSEM.org meeting regarding local search, USABILITY. You have go to be willing to change. You have go to be creative. Copying a gimmick, like the one created by ServiceMagic.com called the ServiceGuarantee and relabeling it the SuperGuarantee is not going to get you millions of subscribers…. well maybe a million or two… but that really isn’t allot these days! Remember, Google has 147 MILLION Unique Visitors. What do all the successful sites have in common? Their results pages show up on Google. Not so much in urban areas as it is rural markets with limited competition. It is easy to rank in Dunn Tx…. but to rank high on Google for Dallas Tx takes a bit more search (remember, it is a verb!)
So what is wrong with buying advertising from a local directory site? Why sign a contract when Google Maps Page Place Listing Optimization is less expensive and guaranteed to generate more traffic for your advertising investment! Unless your Internet Yellow Pages site is ranking high on Google for your particular keywords, I would not recommend signing a contract for an “Identity Bundle” or for so-called click guarantees or “web events”.
SuperPages.com is no longer as important as it once was because the site has to buy more clicks from Google since it is no longer ranking as well for those local keyword terms…… but if I recall, it still ranks #1 or #2 for Plumbers in Dallas Tx though! Superpages gave up on good SEO. They used to do a pretty good job at it. Not so much anymore. They still don’t offer SEO to small business clients. Why? You think they have churn now, wait til you ask them to invest 10-15 hours per month on a clients program….. yeah right! That will never happen. Especially considering how fast they are laying off to reduce expenses for investors!
Local Search is changing. Sites like Gowalla and FourSquare are making a big impact. So is image search, real-time search, and social media. I bet Facebook is going to be a very big player in Local Search soon.
My advice is for local small and medium-sized business owners to stay clear of yellow pages sales reps who try to sell internet advertising. They don’t know what it really takes to get a great ROI from Internet advertising. I was one of the few. But hey, I was the guy who was not old enough to drive a company car and thus was not able to get promoted! I was also the only guy in Texas Sales to receive 3 President’s Awards!
If you choose to advertise with smbSEO instead of the yellow pages, we will save you 20% off our normal rates. Why? Well, most sales reps earn a 20% commission just for “making the sale.” So if we don’t have to sell you, you save us and our existing clients money! This is worth money and a penny saved is a penny earned!
Oh yeah, what are some of my other concerns with “Yellow Pages Advertising”:
-Clients never own the campaign
-Campaign manager changes daily
-A/B ad testing never takes place
-You cancel your campaign, your information is used for a competitor
-Going direct to the engines allows for faster changes, they don’t do it like that!
-You pay for some 10.00 per hour rookie to experiment and learn on your click budget!
-THEY DO NOT HAVE A CLUE HOW GREAT A VALUE BEING RANKED HIGH ON GOOGLE IS WORTH. The clicks are FREE! The only cost is the service performed to get you ranked at the Top of Google and other search engines.
One reason for the cluelessness…… they have never seen an analytics report!
Let’s see… what else?
-The try to spend all your money on “The YellowCrook Internet Directory Network” which is barely in the “TOP 50″ or all websites and is now less popular than CitySearch.com!
So, beyond the fake “Google AdWords Sales Certifications” the Google Partner Program offered them, the same program the Google is looking to end due to the churn from these so-called partners, there are many reasons not to advertise with sites like SuperPages.com….
Your business deserves special treatment. You deserve a local Dallas Google Guru!
At smbSEO we don’t require 12 month contracts like the Yellow Pages companies do for internet advertising. We also don’t have attorneys and collection agents on retainer to hound our clients. We are a boutique search marketing agency for local small business owners in Dallas Fort Worth Tx. Give us a call to schedule a consultation at your office. We provide our services face to face. We look forward to meeting you!
My qualifications:
7 years local search engine optimization study
Google AdWords Seminars for Success 301/302 Course:
I have also had training at:
I am on the Board of Directors for:
and I am Google AdWords Certified in Pay Per Click Campaign Management:
and if you want to read more about YellowCrooks, visit www.YellowCrooks.com, a discussion forum about Yellow Pages CEO Fraud and Reviews.
And investors wonder why the stock declined 15% Q1 of 2009 and then 21% more in Q1 of 2010…. at that pace they will be a 1.6 billion dollar company by 2013. Just think…. in 2004 the company had 3.5 billion in earnings! Talk about the Death of the Phone Book!
Tagged with: dallas google guru • dallas seo expert • google adwords • internet • local • reach • small business advertising • smlocal • sucks • supermedia • supermedia reviews • yellow pages advertising • yellow pages listing • yellowcrooks
It’s horrible what many of these yellowpage companies are doing. SuperPages is not alone; they’re just one of the biggest and most hated. I work for a phonebook company in the so-called “Web Department” and my boss doesn’t even know what A/B testing is… or HTML, or Photoshop, or how to install a network printer… He doesn’t need to, because the customers don’t, and all that matters is selling them something. Doesn’t really matter if it works- there’s a “we’ll figure that out when it comes time for renewal” attitude towards everything. No one seems to care about helping the business owner or making a quality product, it’s just SELL SELL SELL. What exactly is our company selling? Who knows! The customers don’t understand it, the sales team doesn’t understand it, and management doesn’t understand it- just convince the customers they need it and send them a bill… promises? We’ll worry about that if a customer gets irate. JUST SELL STUFF!
-_-
Grrrrrrrr
Thanks for agreeing with me. I believe it is time that they realize that the business model does not work and fails to provide the type of consulting small businesses need these days. I created a forum that discusses Yellow Pages Sales Fraud Complaints Scams and Employee Life at http://www.YellowCrooks.com. The lack of transparency that exists for both employees (those that sell advertising) and clients (those that buy advertising) is ridiculous. What is worse is the CEO bonuses and payouts after a very questionable bankruptcy. Worse than AIG and Wall Street broker bonuses. Time for a change in leadership.
It was announced the DexOne (the former R.H. Donnelley company) CEO Swanson is stepping down. So it the CEO of YELL, the foreign owned publisher of Yellow Book and http://www.YellowBook.com, is stepping down as well. You can read more about it here: http://www.yellgroup.com/english/media-pressreleases-2010-announcementoffutureboardchanges
Like I have been saying, time for big changes at those old companies. They need new blood!
Also,
According to Kevin at DrivenLocal.com a New York Search Engine Marketing Pay Per Click Management Service:
Of those surveyed, 73% would prefer to find products and services using search engines than have an advertisement sent to them. 73% feel they are over-exposed to advertising.
When finding a local business today, do you use the following sources more, less, or the same as you did two years ago?
The Internet
Use it more now 78%
Use it the same now 19%
Use it less now 2%
Telephone Directories
Use it more now 6%
Use it the same now 43%
Use it less now 52%
81% find what they need when shopping on the Internet. 63% have used the Internet to find coupons for local businesses. 49% are more comfortable shopping on the Internet than in person.
*Source: A Webvisible and Nielson/Netratings survey, September 2007.
Mike, can you share with me more info on a typical Idearc Media/SuperMedia sales compensation plan? I am putting together an SMS marketing company in the D.C. area and I will be hiring people for a sales role similar to that at Yellow Pages businesses. What is a typical base? What rate is paid on new accounts? What is paid on residuals? How much do the top sellers earn? What are typical sales goals?
My thanks for anything you can share.
InWDC
$30k base with benefits plus commission. earnings in the 80k to 150k range. Hard to do that with the low margins of a service oriented internet marketing company vs the fat margins from print yellowpages and low cost of doing business. Internet Marketers speak to clients daily, yellow pages folks do it about 3-5 times per year.
A straight commission plan works, and I see every internet marketing sales person also taking a roll of franchisee.
Mike,
You make some interesting points.
One question that comes up is what happens once Yellow Page companies get SEO and SEM right? In other words what happens once they begin to do what your company does, and like you, they do SEO and SEM really well with measurable and transparent results.
I have one anecdote that you may find interesting. One of our clients decided to invest a substantial amount of money with us as a Yellow Pages company into SEM Adwords. What is interesting with this case study is that the advertiser does not, even today, have a website until we built him a landing page with a high quality score as determined by Google. The fascinating thing is that he received enough phone calls from his online Google advertising to pay for his entire year of advertising with us. Of course all his clicks, calls and actions on his landing page are being tracked by us for him to see.
Like I said what happens once Yellow Pages gets this right and does it as well or better than you can, plus they can also build high quality SEO’d websites in house, do HD SEO’d videos and do mobile phone advertising? No to mention the fact that Google would have a hard time filling their map listings and getting the updated all the time were it not for us. Just saying….
My Yellow Pages company is well down that path. My face to face meetings with advertisers are resulting in substantial sales increases of online products. Of course it helps to have the foot in the door when I need to discuss his print ad with them. Even if he decreases his print ad size he is still growing overall.
One other point of interest is that we optimize most of our headings from our IYP on Google to make sure our IYP results come up on the first page of search results. We can easily out optimize a small web site from the first page with more relevant results.
Lets wait and see. I predict that the Yellow Pages will be around for many years to come.
All the best and I wish you well.
You obviously have figured out service. Sales models that service. Yellow Pages companies, specifically SuperMedia, have yet to INVEST in a service-based model. Still set it and forget it with high profit margins. I am sure your margins are tighter on the .com side. You can’t really mark up clicks in the auction unless companies mark up the cost of doing business. Then again, that money goes back into the pocket of the “search engine” who provides the traffic and sells the clicks!
I agree with optimizing for a larger directory. One of the reasons I am a reseller for http://www.LeadMaverick.com by Ecordia! Great directory that is much more effective from a content perspective vs online yellow pages…. but most wouldn’t understand since they are programmed to love online yellow pages sites like SuperPages.com…….
@Yellow Rep,
As far as the Google filling the map listings comment, have you read this yet? http://www.localseoguide.com/dead-fingers-walking/
Great discussion on how Google takes what it wants for maps/places and then tells IYP to buy sponsored links from Google AdWords.
Yes, margins are smaller but I figure if we do SEM and SEO right for them the first time then it is highly probable that the advertiser will continue to spend with us for a long time. After all, if you have a relationship with someone who has been serving you for a number of years on the print side then it is probable that you will stay with something that in comfortable.
We do indeed have a small margin on our SEM sales so that the bulk of the advertiser spend goes towards driving them leads, clicks and calls. What can you do about that – it is what it is.
One other thing I have noticed is that we still have an advantage over pure internet only companies like yours and that is that there are still a number of people who like to see their names in print somewhere. I guess it’s like having something akin to clicks and bricks. It creates a sense of stability.
I read the Google map listing and IYP directory article link. Hard to say how that would pan out. If anything, Google is becoming more and more of a monopoly and they will be headed to anti-trust court some day if they continue along this path. Just my humble opinion. No-one likes a bully.
I have to say… if I were to work with a Yellow Page rep… it would likely be someone with a not so “Crony Capitalist” business model.
Take a look at a company like the one Dick Larkin works at called HomePages, Ethical Yellow Pages Publisher offers internet marketing
Something interesting is happening. I just closed on several SEM deals and have a couple more in the funnel from my meetings with local advertisers last week. It’s an easy sell, isn’t it? Like you say, low margins and transparency is the key.
What was interesting is that they all kept print their going as well. OK, some of them took a little from print and moved it into SEM, but that’s OK. (We both know that print will continue for many years still. It will shrink but it will still work for some businesses. Right?)
All the best to you.
Still, you can’t claim that you can make everyone number one on google. SEO is more art than science. You can do all the LINK BUILDING, BUT YOU CAN’T GUARANTEE ANYTHING.
It is unethical to make a SEO guarantee. Too many factors come into play, such as budget, competition, and content. SEO is equally art and science. When you take into account conversion optimization, it really become more art than science. CHEERS, MIKE
RIGHT. Hyper local books that are not so bulky will own the print market. Folks also no longer need white pages, but a localized yellow pages book that adheres to a strict opt in / opt out strategy will be the winner, not telephone company book publishers or those with gimmicks.
Invested in a Ipad a couple weeks ago. The yellowpages app is incredible. We are now selling “broadcasters” that autopopulate the Google Places info for SMB’s. We are also moving into website hosting and design, from your basic website to a completely customized websites. We are also getting into Facebook ad sales. Things sure move fast in yellowpages world now. I am servicing a small town in the middle of nowhere right now and all my accounts are renewing their print plus are adding in mobile and internet advertising as well. One ATV/Motorcyle store is wanting their website to be redisigned by us plus wants video and SEO and paid search marketing. What an awesome thing the internet is. He is also keeping his print ads.
I have always said that populations over 200k are night and day vs those under. I have sold ads in Sherman, Sulphur Springs, and Bryan College Station Tx. I can tell you that print usage is still over 50% in most rural markets. It is around 10-20% in urban markets and these urban markets also have increased print competition which results in fragmentation.
Cheers,
Mike
I had a feeling they were shady. I just cancelled my whole internet campaign I worked on for a year. Yes I said YEAR..It was so horrible, I went on godaddy and realized I can do better with no experience!
I have 1 Question for you though…We are trying to decide whether or not to cut our full page ads down to half. We have an appliance repair company, and are afraid our older customers who dont use internet may not be targeted. Ofcourse when we mentioned our thoughts to the sales rep, she assured us none of our competitors were cutting their ads (sshhhhh shes not supposed to tell me lol!) We just may take the chance and just cut them in half! We are definately on the same page when it comes to those other websites. I noticed since I optimized on Google Maps alone, I increased my business ( uh free) Now Im chipping away at the rest