Internet Marketing by Yellow Pages
Did your telephone directory salesman offer you a great deal on internet advertising?
Some of my local business clients reported that when their ad came up for renewal in the most popular telephone directory (think yellow), that they were offered various internet marketing packages. They were told that its great that they are getting good organic positions on the search engines, but that they need to be in the paid ad sections for their chosen keywords. (I’ll explain what all that means in a minute)
To accomplish getting ad positions in the “sponsored ad” sections (ie. paid ads) on the google search engine, my local business clients were offered an advertising campaign for $500 per month. For this $500 per month, the telephone directory, who claims to have partnered with Google, will ensure that your business appears in those sponsored ad spots. Now, understand this $500 per month is in addition to the $600 – $1500 per month for their print ad in the directory.
First off… anyone can open an Google Adwords account and get placed in those spots. You can likely do it for far less than $500 per month, especially for local search results, but that aside… Google itself has admitted that those ads are not getting clicked!
The image below shows search results for Car Insurance, just as a random example. The listings on the top and down the right hand side are “Sponsored Links”, also known as pay per click (PPC), or Adwords. The percentages show the conversion rates – in other words, how many potential customers who see the listing actually click on it.
Clearly, the organic listings get FAR better conversions. And the listing in the top position takes the majority of “hits”. The local business owner who takes those top 3 positions, will virtually get all the traffic for that keyword term. (click on the image for a larger view)
Do You Really Want to PAY for Less Traffic?
I can almost hear the salesman trying to sell you on Sponsored Listings saying, “well sure, but do you want to miss out on that 1% to 3%” My response to that would depend on my industry, but mostly what that 1%-3% translates to in numbers. It all depends on the number of searches being done daily. Quite honestly, if I had an extra $500 per month to invest in my advertising online, I’d put those dollars into Facebook Advertising where the conversions are better.
Alberta Local Internet Marketing Flyer
Karen Weir makes her home in Alberta Canada near Edmonton, but the internet is her playground. She has been marketing on the internet since 2004 and is one of the founders of the CrazyFoxes Marketing Group.