Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lloyd Gulley on February 18, 2011 at 20:08

I think its dead.

When you need to find a company do you go to google or go to yell? I bet most people would say they go to google.

Also its not very environmentally friendly is it, producing millions of those books when it could be done online!

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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Phil Voice on February 18, 2011 at 20:19

I think you've hit the nail on the head here Gary.

 

Yell have a lot of cash so they are not going to dissapear but I think mobile will be the biggest part of its future business and if anything is going to save it, mobile apps will be the biggest part of it in my opinion.

 

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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Phil Voice on February 18, 2011 at 20:27

Yes;)

 

It's touch expensive at the moment. Although you can access LJN on iPhone OK

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Permalink Reply by John on February 18, 2011 at 21:07

I have an attachment for my racing bike that enables me to train inside during the winter months, but it tilts the bike downwards and requires something placed under the front wheel to level the bike.

 The yellow pages fits perfectly. Toaday spotted another bike today in a conservatory in a garden that we work in with a similar atachment, with, You guessed it !  the yellow pages, under the front wheel  lol !!!!!

 

I am personally pissed off with Y. P  with all their changes over the last few years. The marketing boys possibly thought that it was clever to make listing changes that possibly brought in extra revenue, even if it confused the general purchasing client.

 Alphabetic listings were discarded possibly to confuse the public, coloured listings were alledegly moved to the front, and joined by those businesses with numbers added to the front of their business names. Ist whatever, 1st dreamy time, 1st job, 1st YP payment, may have been a part of this. 

 Ethics nowdays is easy to track and check, regardless of alphabetical listings.

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Trevor @ Lawnmower World on February 19, 2011 at 8:54

I totally agree with you phil,

 

The only people that use the book are the older generations that have not learnt to use (and will probably never use) a pc / laptop / mobile device.  If this is your target customer - you need to be in the book no matter how defunct it is.

 

The new Yell advert on TV if you have not seen it yet, is a remake of the good old "J R Hartley" add featuring a deadbeat DJ by the name of "Day V Lately" and his daughters iphone.  A clear indication of Yell's future if you ask me.

 

I can not justify dropping advertising with Yell.com as it has now generated over 1250 "Backlinks" to our website which is essential to my own websites placement on Google.  Basically if I dropped my yell advertising and lost these links, my website would drop from 1st or 4th place on target keywords to possibly second page or further.  Even though the leads yell generates are not fantastic, the positioning it give my website is well worth the money.

 

The trouble I have with yellow pages is that we are located on the fringe of THREE territories..... Newcastle Upon Tyne, County Durham and Sunderland.  That's 3 sets of adverts to obtain a standard 45 mile radius of advertising!  You do the maths!

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Permalink Reply by Classic Gardens on February 19, 2011 at 9:20

Ouch!!!

Trevor @ Lawnmower World said:

I totally agree with you phil,

 

The only people that use the book are the older generations that have not learnt to use (and will probably never use) a pc / laptop / mobile device.  If this is your target customer - you need to be in the book no matter how defunct it is.

 

The new Yell advert on TV if you have not seen it yet, is a remake of the good old "J R Hartley" add featuring a deadbeat DJ by the name of "Day V Lately" and his daughters iphone.  A clear indication of Yell's future if you ask me.

 

I can not justify dropping advertising with Yell.com as it has now generated over 1250 "Backlinks" to our website which is essential to my own websites placement on Google.  Basically if I dropped my yell advertising and lost these links, my website would drop from 1st or 4th place on target keywords to possibly second page or further.  Even though the leads yell generates are not fantastic, the positioning it give my website is well worth the money.

 

The trouble I have with yellow pages is that we are located on the fringe of THREE territories..... Newcastle Upon Tyne, County Durham and Sunderland.  That's 3 sets of adverts to obtain a standard 45 mile radius of advertising!  You do the maths!

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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Steve Sonic Grounds Maintenance on February 19, 2011 at 9:41

Hi Phil

Just want to change the conversation direction a bit.

You say that advertising on here (£52 per year) is a low risk view to advertising. And that the content is dedicated etc.

And yes that is a very cheap form of advertising.But surely the only people who are going to view the adverts are fellow proffesionals?

How do we know that potential customers view the site?

Philip Voice said:

Yell realised, if they were to compete in the digital world (perhaps too late in the day?) they would have to base their online directory around content - relying on just a listings section (regardless of how sophisticated it was) was not going to work on its own - there are just too many other sites to compete with.

 

Some of you might remember, I had an exchange of views with Yell's head of content a while ago - http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/08/yellcom-head-of-content-respo... after I wrote a bit about Yell's blogs: http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/08/yellcom-gardening-blogs.html

 

I think Yell will eventually ditch paper and become a pure digital play with specialist spin-offs in the future and at some stage they will find a floor with which to build from.

I suspect the Yell of the future will be somewhat far removed from what we've all grown up with though and I expect acquisition to be a big part of their future success.

 

I know I'm biased but if I wanted to advertise a garden or landscape service, I'd pick a place where the content is dedicated to landscaping and horticulture and at just £52 per week, it's a very low risk approach to advertising, in my view.

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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Phil Voice on February 19, 2011 at 10:06

Hi

Steve


That's a fair question.

I know from analytics that (currently) 42% of LJN traffic comes via search engines and not through the front page.



Steve Wilkinson said:

Hi Phil

Just want to change the conversation direction a bit.

You say that advertising on here (£52 per year) is a low risk view to advertising. And that the content is dedicated etc.

And yes that is a very cheap form of advertising.But surely the only people who are going to view the adverts are fellow proffesionals?

How do we know that potential customers view the site?

Philip Voice said:

Yell realised, if they were to compete in the digital world (perhaps too late in the day?) they would have to base their online directory around content - relying on just a listings section (regardless of how sophisticated it was) was not going to work on its own - there are just too many other sites to compete with.

 

Some of you might remember, I had an exchange of views with Yell's head of content a while ago - http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/08/yellcom-head-of-content-respo... after I wrote a bit about Yell's blogs: http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/08/yellcom-gardening-blogs.html

 

I think Yell will eventually ditch paper and become a pure digital play with specialist spin-offs in the future and at some stage they will find a floor with which to build from.

I suspect the Yell of the future will be somewhat far removed from what we've all grown up with though and I expect acquisition to be a big part of their future success.

 

I know I'm biased but if I wanted to advertise a garden or landscape service, I'd pick a place where the content is dedicated to landscaping and horticulture and at just £52 per week, it's a very low risk approach to advertising, in my view.

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Permalink Reply by Trevor @ Lawnmower World on February 19, 2011 at 11:20

I think it would depend on which one of the two is true!

 

The search results for LJN on many keywords (in both the landscape sector and the machinery sector) are very positive and will only get better with the more people that advertise on it and expand the keyword database with text and company name from there own adverts.  For many of you that have websites that are not ranking as high as you would like in google - an LJN advert for yourself will rank higher than were you currently are within a month or so (most certainly on the top page I would imagine) and will also raise your own websites profile with google and bump your actual site higher so it should be a win win situation for many of you.

 

I dont think many of you will actually sit here in your spare time and browse each others adverts unless your looking for ideas to change your own advert / website or your looking for something different (like me!) so the traffic your LJN advert will generate should primarily be from people searching for your profession.

Steve Wilkinson said:

You say that advertising on here (£52 per year) is a low risk view to advertising. And that the content is dedicated etc.

And yes that is a very cheap form of advertising.

Philip Voice said:

I know I'm biased but if I wanted to advertise a garden or landscape service, I'd pick a place where the content is dedicated to landscaping and horticulture and at just £52 per week, it's a very low risk approach to advertising, in my view.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Valentine on February 19, 2011 at 11:55

I advertised in Yellow Pages and it did cover my costs - got a good few customers through it but yell.com was a complete waste of time.  Sales rep came out last year and told me that they are now designing web sites and getting you on the first or second page of google.

 

I spent out far too much money on advertising last year and this year want to keep it by word of mouth and referrals.  I do have a local magazine that I can advertise in if it gets quiet.  However, I want to focus on existing customers as I feel that I've let them down focusing on getting new customers too much and not giving my existing customers more of my time and energy.  

 

I spent roughly around £800 - £1000 on advertising and I think wow, that could have really gone on something more useful for the business!!!

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Permalink Reply by Fenlandphil on February 19, 2011 at 13:14

Yellow pages used to be very cost effective but about ten years ago it started to be for us to be far less so, I kicked it into touch completely about five or six years ago. The only difference I noticed, was that doing so saved me a lot of money.

When about ten years ago people like me told Yell that they needed to change their approach and alter the way people on line could find advertisers, they wouldn't listen their offering was overpriced and they were totally inflexible.

No doubt at some stage Yell will recreate itself, probably by, as Phil suggested via relevant aquisitions, until then and until they offer a really cost effective, responsive means of generating business, I will continue to sit on my hands.

Some compensation for all the money I have wasted in the past might help encourage me.

  

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Russell on February 19, 2011 at 13:19

lol.. I pointed that out to a Yellow pages salesman who made the huge mistake of trying to sell me advertising.... it didnt go down too well.  But it is absolutely true!  My home page is google. Not yell.com!

Lloyd Gulley said:

I think its dead.

When you need to find a company do you go to google or go to yell? I bet most people would say they go to google.

Also its not very environmentally friendly is it, producing millions of those books when it could be done online!

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