SEO Fun Friday: Yellow Pages or Web Pages?

This is probably going to be the shortest post I've ever done, but I'm doing it for effect. The right people reading this will have a lot to reflect on despite my brevity. Basically, I want to take a moment and reflect on the ramifications of a picture I've been carrying around on my cell phone for quite some time now. As you have undoubtedly seen prior to reading this very sentence, it's a stack of phone books (click the image to see a larger version if you'd like):

"Ooo, wow! A stack of phone books, Stephen! What a revelation!" I know, I know; I promise there's a point to this (some of you marketing-savvy folks already know what it is, I'm sure). Long story short, get your butt on the Web if you're still relying on the Yellow Pages to advertise yourself! Do you know how long that stack of Yellow Pages books sat there just like that? At *least* a month and then, one day, it was gone. Poof! 1 out of 8 people thought enough to actually take one but what are the odds that that one person will have a need for your product/services?

The point here is to get away from the Yellow Pages and start looking into advertising your services on the Internet. The perfect convergence of local search and mobile connectivity draws closer-and-closer day-by-day. That means that instead of looking for a phone book, people are looking for their phone, laptop, or desktop to search for a product/service they are interested in.

I have a local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) post in the works which will help you get started with ranking locally and absolutely DESTROY your competition!!! (Just kidding about that whole "destroying" thing -- I don't believe in false advertisement and let's face it; some niches/industries are unbelievably competitive. Despite that, I *will* show you how to get well on your way to ranking locally). In the mean time, if you're advertising in the Yellow Pages and you're not seeing a very good ROI, the picture above should serve as a great example as to why.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everyone!