Search vs. Yellow Pages – 4 Secrets

Why Search Engines Beat Yellow Pages in Local Advertising By Phil Reifenberg I was recently looking for a phone number in my kitchen drawer. As usual the drawer was packed and I had to pull all the contents out to find the 15 page school directory I was looking for. As I was trying to stuff the pile back in, I realized the source of the problem, the 4 inch thick yellow pages book. Although I don't use the yellow pages very often, I usually keep them and throw them out when the new edition comes. I work with numerous law firms and I ...

Is Your Business Ready for Local Online Searchers?

An intriguing press release from comScore.com provides some excellent insight into local search use, and its rapid growth... Here are some of the findings that the recent comScore Search Satisfaction Study reveals about local search statistics: 59 percent were searching for something in their home area 52 percent were searching specifically for a business phone number or address. Two out of five local searchers (41 percent) were looking for information on a local service in their home area, including car rental office, dry cleaner or lawyer. "The comScore study also found that performing ...

A New Direction: Help For Small Businesses?

Small businesses have a struggle with their time, their money and their resources. Most small businesses don't even have a presence online. It's a sad truth. They are so enthralled with the day to day running of their business, they lack the time and know-how of putting their business online. I'd like to help. I was recently approached by a business consultant about building and maintaining blogs for his clients who are busy professionals that want an online presence, but lack the skill and time necessary to get that done themselves. It got me to thinking hard about what I've learned, and ...

Why Should You Syndicate Your Blog Content?

Every morning when I get up, I have a decision to make: What am I going to blog about today that will be valuable content that can help others? It's not as difficult to figure out as it used to be when I got started, because I keep a list of blog topics that come to me throughout the day. Once the blog post is written, then it's time to write an autoresponder message that points to that specific blog post. Again, this was not as difficult as it used to be. Back then it was a matter of spending the ...

What Is The Most Critical Element of Your Business?

What is the most critical element of your business? How well you communicate will determine the success of your business. Communication is the key. Think for a moment about this. Years ago, before the Internet, how did businesses communicate with their existing customers, and what did they do to obtain new customers? They used the telephone, postal mail, newspapers, radio and television. Of these, which was the most expensive form of communication? The answer is television, without question, right? Television is still the most expensive form of communication, and out of reach of most small business owners, but why is it ...

7 Essential Tools for Online Marketing

I've been thinking about writing this blog post for quite some time. I know what it's like to start out trying to figure out how to build a business online. When I first started marketing online, I was eager to learn anything and everything I could to do a great job and make some money. However, I was resistant, to purchase all the tools that were recommended to me. I wanted to make some money first, I thought, and then I would invest in those tools. Big mistake! If you are just getting started, you need to get your tools in ...

I Think I’m In Love…

Have you ever run across a really cool marketing tool and absolutely fell in love with it? For me, it doesn't happen very often, hardly ever, really... until now. I've been playing around with the WowWe video tool and have been so impressed with how easy it is to use. For example, you can record a little video to introduce yourself, then upload a presentation video that you have stored on your computer that does the "selling" of your product or service and send both in an email to your list of prospects. When they receive your video and open ...

Are You Getting What You Want?

You are where you are in your life right now because of what you thought about in the past. If you’ll give that some serious thought, you’ll realize it is true. What you think about you bring about in your life. The power of thought is the one thing you can control, that can totally change your destiny, for either good or bad. When I was first introduced to this concept, I admit I was quite skeptical. I had been through “some stuff” that I didn’t think I had any part in creating or bringing into my life. Those things, I ...

Personal Development

Who Is Dani Johnson?

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I’m not sure if you know who Dani Johnson is but she is one of the most sought after trainers in the world. The success her clients are seeing is absolutely mind blowing.

She has shown tens of thousands of people how to make six figures in a home based business.

She’s giving away three free downloads right now that basically give you a blueprint on how to make six figures from home. I’m not sure how long these are going to be available but I thought you might want to get your copies while they are still around.

I just listened to them and the information is amazing.

Click here to get your free copy!

Now go and prosper wildly.

~Nancy

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Blogging

Why Should You Syndicate Your Blog Content?

Every morning when I get up, I have a decision to make: What am I going to blog about today that will be valuable content that can help others? It’s not as difficult to figure out as it used to be when I got started, because I keep a list of blog topics that come to me throughout the day.

Once the blog post is written, then it’s time to write an autoresponder message that points to that specific blog post. Again, this was not as difficult as it used to be. Back then it was a matter of spending the next couple hours, posting comments on blogs, forums, social media sites, etc.

It became more time consuming to post to all those other sites, than the time it took for me to write the post.

Not any more.

I found out that the successful marketers hire an assistant to do all that posting of their content on various sites. Ok, well for me, that was not an option. I had not found the kind of success (yet) to be able to afford to do that, but it sure sounded like something I would do at some point in the future.

Afterall, it made perfect sense to me to have someone else do the time-consuming tasks that are necessary to get targeted traffic to my site, which would give me more time to connect with folks on social media sites, write more content, and manage the day to day stuff that every business owner must do.

I mean, if I could hire a couple hundred assistants to post my content all over the Internet, that would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it? Well, I found a couple hundred assistants that are now doing that stuff for me, and it isn’t costing me an arm and a leg, either!

So, why should you syndicate your blog traffic?

1. It increases traffic to your blog (this one is obvious, but I had to put it in here anyway). The more eyeballs that see your links, the more eyeballs will see your blog.

2. It increases the number of back links. Back links are gold!

3. It improves your SEO. Search engines love to see back links and rankings by both social media and social bookmarking sites.

If I haven’t yet convinced you that you should syndicate your blog content, then perhaps going here will. You can find out all about how you can get a couple hundred assistants to syndicate your blog content just like I now have.

I can tell you now, after using this for just a couple of weeks, that it truly works. Traffic to my blog has more than doubled in only 10 days! I’m very excited to see what the long terms affects will be.

As long as I keep blogging and have my army of soldiers posting my content, that traffic will continue to increase. My gift to you for reading this post: you can try it for yourself for just $1 and start driving traffic to your blog by clicking here.

Now, you have no excuse not to drive great, targeted traffic to your blog. You’ll have the time freedom to create more relevant, valuable content, and still have time to do the things you enjoy with your family and friends.

~Nancy

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Nancy's Blog

Search vs. Yellow Pages – 4 Secrets

Why Search Engines Beat Yellow Pages in Local Advertising

By Phil Reifenberg

I was recently looking for a phone number in my kitchen drawer. As usual the drawer was packed and I had to pull all the contents out to find the 15 page school directory I was looking for.

As I was trying to stuff the pile back in, I realized the source of the problem, the 4 inch thick yellow pages book. Although I don’t use the yellow pages very often, I usually keep them and throw them out when the new edition comes.

I work with numerous law firms and I realized that many of my clients were spending a significant portion of their marketing budgets on the yellow pages. So I decided to do some research.

Opening the 2,000+ page book, I was amazed to see that there were almost 100 pages of advertising just for lawyers. At about 15 pages into it I was overwhelmed – too much information and too many choices.

The yellow pages book in question wasn’t from New York or Chicago, it was from Cincinnati. So why would anyone spend thousands of dollars a month to be part of this process? Well, I asked my clients, and the most popular answer was… because everyone else is doing it.

I didn’t like that answer and I also don’t like wasting money.

I looked closer at the Yellow Pages vs. Search Engine models and identified four trends that will impact how local companies advertise.

Ease of Use – People do what is easy. Access to the Internet via work, home or mobile device have truly made getting online easy. According to Jupiter Media, over 64% of people who are looking for information online, use search engines. If I can type my problem or what I want into a search engine and find what I need, I don’t need to go through the 100 pages of ads in the yellow pages. Search engines are getting more precise down to an industry specialty and geographic focus, while also continuing to be easier to use.
Cost Model of Yellow Pages vs. Search Engine – In reviewing these two models we need to compare the traits and cost basis of each media.

	Yellow pages	Search Engine
a. Printing Costs	Yes	No
b. Mailing/Distribution Costs	Yes	No
c. Sales rep Cost Model	Yes	No
d. Per click or Per Action Model	No	Yes
e. Commitment level	1 year	None
f. Flexibility of Ad	once/yr.	anytime

Clearly, the Yellow Pages model is more expensive while also being significantly less flexible and scalable than online search engines.

Differentiation vs. Directory – As a business owner, the last thing I would do is give my prospects a detailed list of my competitors, including addresses and phone numbers. But that is exactly what the Yellow Pages do. Using search engines, you can differentiate yourself from everyone else. So when the ideal client is looking for what you do, they find you, not all your competitors.The Yellow Pages industry is over 100 years old and according to the Direct Marketing Association is a 12 Billion plus market. It is not going away. Yellow Pages Online and many industry specific directories are now being aggressively marketed. In our studies, we have seen very little traffic or lead generation coming from these online directories. If you are approached to be in an online directory, ask if you can pay for it by the number of visitors and/or leads to your site. You won’t get many takers on that offer.
The Future Big Winner in Search … Local Business! The traditional success model for winning online has been the ability to sell your product or service nationally or internationally. However, local or regional businesses could not leverage the national and international traffic that search engines brought because they were only licensed or had services available in a specific city, state or region.Good news … the search engines now have the ability to determine where the search is coming from. What that means to you is you can target all the way down to a city, zip or area code. If you have a firm that has a defined geographic area, you have an incredible opportunity to be the top firm that comes up when people use a search engine for services in your area.

Wow! can this be true? If so, where do I begin? Based on these trends there are five things you need to do today to differentiate you from your competition. We suggest that you change your strategy and reallocate your budget as follows:

Look at your Yellow Page investment. What did it cost you last year and what business came directly from it? If the numbers work, keep doing it. However if the answer to this question is “I don’t know”, we have a suggestion. Keep the yellow pages ad, just make it smaller. Take the 50% you save on your budgeted yellow page fees and use it to directly drive online prospects to your firm. If you are satisfied with your results with yellow pages, take 20-30% of your current budget to be online. As phone books and directories continue to diminish in value, you will be ahead of the curve.
Have your own site – If you are in a directory and it has created a simple site for you, don’t worry about tracking traffic, you probably aren’t getting any. Make sure you have your site set up as your own, and that people can find you through normal search engines, not just through the directory. Also, remember that if clients find you through directories, you are introducing them to all your competitors. Be careful.
Measure – Look at your site. You should know how many people come to your site. If you are signed up with an online or directory service, get your numbers from them. You will probably be surprised with the low amount of visitors and leads you get. If the directory provider can’t (or doesn’t want to) get you your performance numbers, fire them!
Add Relevant Location Text to your Site – People today are using search engines to find what you do in your city. Make sure that the search engines can easily know your address, city, state, zip and area code. If you have areas that you specialize in, make sure location info are on those pages too.
Start Using the Online Model Now

Realize that yellow page books and yellow page online directories do not differentiate you from everyone else. Make sure your site tells what you do, where you are located and invites the client to take action with your business.

Welcome to search, the killer application that is leapfrogging the current directory model. Search is the future: the question is – are you are going to be a player or a spectator?

Free Small Business Marketing Analysis Report

Let us uncover the “exact” numbers and the exact opportunities that are available by placing your business in front of an ever growing audience of prospects that are using the Internet to search for your services (in your local area) right now.

Send an email now to specialoffer@nancylanda.com to request your free, no obligation small business marketing analysis…

You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive and cost effective online placement is compared to traditional forms of advertising such as Yellow Pages, Radio, Television and Classifieds.

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