Townsville Yellow Pages

After my last posts about Sensis Yellow Pages Print Edition, one of the first things I did when the new books arrived this week was to look at the page number on the final advert in the new book – and compared it to last years.

Last year the Townsville Yellow Pages had 905 advertising pages.   This new book has only 805.  A decrease of 11%.

This might be an interesting exercise to do with the Yellow Pages for our major cities as they are rolled out this year.  I am expecting even more dramatic size reductions in the bigger books [or multi-books].  I am also looking forward to having a far more flexible relationship with YP reps in the future as they are repositioned to be in the same boat as other publishing reps – as their dominance of local search marketing fades.

The new monster on the block is obviously what is called “local internet search” which is presided over by Google.  Late last year Google altered the way it sorted and displayed search results to include a majority of  “local” results for the person doing the search.  This is just like in the brutal movies where the assassin twists the knife in the victims chest to sever the vital arteries before removing it, which ensures the death of the unfortunate “stabee”.

Once that change happened in Google last year, a bunch of maps (called Places listings) for local businesses appeared on the first page of results for any search term that Google thought looked like a “geographic” search.   This was the completion of the assassination of printed local search – ie the Yellow Pages books.

You can pay Google to appear in the “Adwords” advertisements that appear on every Google search results page – but to get on the first page of the “Places” listings – which is where the gold is – you need to talk with someone who knows about “Local Search Optimisation”.   This is a person who has studied and tested and learned what Google likes enough to reward you with a high position in Places for your keywords.

In fact – you need a geeky dweeb guy/gal (sort of like me – but maybe even more attractive?) even to figure what your “keywords” are.  They are the terms that your prospective customer might enter into the Google search box.

Once you know your best search terms to optimise for – you then must develop a multi-pronged strategy to reach the top.  This includes but is not limited to the way you complete the “places form” for your business, the on page optimisation of your main website (the one you list in your Places Listing), the “off-page optimising” of your main website (including all the backlinks to your main site from other sites and Social Media sites (Yes – you do need them), the design and wording of the specific videos on your Youtube Channels and the amount of views they get, and a variety of other tactics including doing unusual pagan dances in the moonlight and being mentally prepared for Google to delist your Places listing for no obvious reason, and then take months to review it.

In other words – you can do the basics yourself – but as time passes you will need to outsource this role or recruit someone to keep your presence alive for your keywords and to develop more keywords that bring your business.  It simply takes too much time to learn it all then apply it for yourself.

The cost of this will be offset over time as the investment required in Yellow Pages adverts reduces as their market power fades.

You should also get used to the new paradigm where “being on the web” no longer means you have “a website”.  It means you may have a dozen sites, plus social media sites, plus video channels at different carriers, plus stuff that is not completely obvious yet.  You will become familiar with terms like RSS feeds and “pinging”.  You will see a wave of sites designed for “smart phones” with technologies that can do things like offer you a MacDonald’s Deal as you drive anywhere near a MacDonald’s store.

Just thought I would give you the good news…

I believe that the sheer dynamism of the local search marketing is brilliantly exciting.  There has never been a time of more rapid change in marketing and the technology of communication.  It is those who embrace the changes and carve out their own local areas that will thrive.  This includes the crossover from web into SMS (text) marketing – which is brilliant for those willing to think about “tribe building” rather than “flogging stuff”.  If you are not applying SMS marketing in your business – you are in for a shock in the coming 18 months.

Regards to all

James Hooper

Business Coach Townsville

Copyright James Hooper – All Rights Reserved