Again, it is a matter of testing the service and tracking ROI to determine if this is a worthwhile avenue for your business. The YP online listings do tend to rank well because YP has high authority. Users turn to it for local listings they have immediate intent to pursue. There is also the Yellow Pages website, which, as Local Fresh points out, is used much like the original print book. You can then rely on that data to decide if your business has a future with YP ads. Be sure to measure their ROI by hiring a third-party provider like Blue Corona to track and tag the calls from the YP number. If this sounds like your target audience, it may be worth putting out a few print ads. Why elderly, and why rural? Those in rural areas are less likely to have reliable internet access, and older folks are more comfortable with (and more accustomed to) using the Yellow Pages directory to find a local service. When Could You Use Yellow Pages Ads?Īccording to the surveys that point to more popular use of the Yellow Pages, the primary audience is rather niche: elderly people in rural areas. Naturally, whichever result has the most thorough, helpful reviews will win. Google, along with the rest of the world, has recognized how much research consumers do before making a choice in product, and, therefore, how much value a suite of positive reviews holds.

Surveys say as many as 92% of consumers read online reviews, and 40% of consumers form an opinion after reading just 1–3 reviews. Reviews have become so important that Google often places them in a rich snippet within your results so that searchers can easily see a business’s average rating and number of reviews. YP online does have a review function, but as expected, they are not nearly as robust as what one can find on Yelp. Google may bring up something more relevant like Yelp, which has a similar premise to YP with the added bonus of reviews. Google is the predominant search engine globally, and is utilized for any and every query. While Yellow Pages’ website certainly has a place and could serve as a great search engine, it’s simply not where people think to look nowadays. Most articles on the matter, however, treat the topic as complete nonsense, because, well, when’s the last time you even saw a Yellow Pages book? Have you been on the Yellow Pages site recently? No? A few sources are adamant that people, particularly older folks and those in more rural areas, still reach for the big yellow book. Now, nearly four years later - where do we stand? A quick Google search of “do people still use the yellow pages” turns up surprisingly mixed results.

This leaves you and your customers with outdated Yellow Pages out in the dust with a non-working phone number. Worst of all, they felt stuck because YP provides call tracking (sometimes for free, making it all the more enticing), but can’t accurately qualify leads, and will cancel the number as soon as you cancel the ad. We started to see many of our clients who remained in the Yellow Pages were paying too much for their ads and not seeing solid ROI all the way back in 2008. Our most recent blog post on Yellow Pages advertising was in 2013, and while we acknowledged that a handful of markets still benefitted from the traditional print book, the Blue Corona train had long departed the Yellow Pages station. Do people still buy the print book? Is their online search engine productive? What is the ROI on either?

But in 2017, it’s not immediately obvious whether YP remains an effective marketing strategy. In fact, if you’re a long-time business owner, chances are, you’ve placed an ad (or many) in the Yellow Pages at one time or another. Even if you’ve never used a phone book, chances are you’re familiar with the Yellow Pages.

Yellow pages people