Is AT&T YellowPages.com worth using

Hi,

I've been receiving very persistant calls from 2 different AT&T YellowPages.com sales people to the two different businesses I own trying to sell me on yellowpages.com advertising.

I still can't get either of them to provide an explanation I can understand regarding exactly what they do and why I should pay $1,500 for 750 clicks. The second salesperson says I can start with $80 for 30 clicks.

Though it's very fuzzy to me, it sounds like they sell enhanced directory ads on yellowpages.com, but both say that they also will create better organic results through Google and Yahoo, but neither can explain how this will be accomplished.

Does anyone know whether AT&T YellowPages.com is worth trying out or looking into? Why or why not?

Thanks
Steve

It's a huge massive rip off is what it is. Yellow pages have hardly any applications for SEO. They do, however, offer a good way for local businesses to get business. Fact is, if you're the drycleaner down the road you do yellow pages not SEO.

You're better off updating your profile at all of the internet yellow pages sites - which you can usually do for free - they are desperate to get up to date data on businesses. Make sure you add all of your key seo terms to your profiles and make sure they all link back to your site. I wouldn't buy any of their ad packages except the basic profile updates.

Perhaps, but I suspect even this is changing over time. Yellow pages was a multi billion dollar industry just a few years back, and now they are running scared.

More and more average folk are turning to Google when they want to know the number of the pizza joint 2 blocks down the street. It's just easier and you get better info. In the yellow pages I get just a number for the place (because an ad the size of a business card costs about $4000.00 per year) after going through 2 pages of ads. With the net I immediately get the right result and I get the whole darn menu at my finger tips before I even have to pick up the phone.

So while I agree that the yellow pages still holds value for local retailers, I see that value steadily shrinking as the masses become progressively more comfortable with 'Googling' everything. Hell, even my dad who thinks that betamax will still catch on as a movie format uses Google for these types of queries now. It's scary...

All the best...

Ian C

Thanks for the replies.

I'm always skeptical of new things, but then again I remember when I paid a penny a keyword listing for goto.com back when nobody had ever heard of it and the idea of paying for clicks seemed stupid. My real estate business got a real jump as it took competitors years to catch on.

So I always wonder if something might be the next good place to invest in internet ads. YellowPages.com, though the salespeople seem like idiots, is owned by AT&T and I figure they're going to try hard to get a foothold.

Steve

Dont waste any time or money on Yellowpages.com advertising, and don't let AT&T trick you into signing any print advertising agreements which require you to buy space on Yellowpages.com as a condition of getting into the print directory.

Yellowpages.com is hopelessly polluted with ads that are irrelevant to most people who do online searches. Your money is far better spent on Google or Yahoo, tell AT&T to take a hike--in addition to acting fraudulently to trick customers into buying advertising that they don't need and didn't request on Yellowpages.com, their employees are dull, dim, bureacratic idiots who are living in the 19th century. That's why companies like Google and Comcast are eating their lunch!

Most of the online Yellow Pages actually offer very high conversion ratios to both traditional businesses as well as web based businesses.

The logic for those sites is pretty much the same as the logic for the printed Yellow Pages...who reads the Yellow Pages for enjoyment or just to pass the time? Same for their sites, nobody goes to an online Yellow Pages unless they have a very high propensity to buy what they are looking for.

That said, it can be tough to find somebody to speak with at an online YP that really knows what they are talking about.

The short story is that online YP's usually offer a good return on the money for the right program with direct to you business. If you are a lead aggregator or a reseller/affiliate probably not so much.

In a 4 month period period my listing on yellowpages.com generated 9 visitors to my website. and I was charge $164(42 a month) for this or about $18.22 per click. At this same times my Google adwords brought in 700 visitors for $612, thats .85 a click.

Yellowpages.com charges more money for less results and once you sign the contract you are stuck with it, you cannot cancel or they will sue you and mess up your credit.

Google Adword is more service, pay as you go, bid for what keywords you like and you message is delivered to your targeted market and you can cancel at anytime.

Now I am stuck with a yellowpages.com advertising contact that is under performing but cannot be canceled without damage to my credit. I heard there may be a class action lawsuit against yellowpages.com, if anyone knows how to sign up for this lawsuit please leave a message in this forum.

I'm not sure which package one of our old clients bought, but they called us when they got a letter from another company that they were bidding on their name ( a generic phrase). They thought we had started up their AdWords account again. It wasn't us. They had started using Yellowpages and they had neglected to tell them they use AdWords as well using direct landing pages for certain companies (probably not for everyone, depends on the package).

The point is YellowPages also buys ads on Google as a part of their click packages. I'm not really sure if you get a good deal because of bulk buying or a bad deal because you are paying retail for clicks you could buy wholesale direct. My guess is the latter, but
it depending on pricing and breakdown, which I'm not familiar with.
If they didn't mention that they use AdWords as one of their strategies I would find it unscrupulous, but possibly the client didn't read the fine print.