The world of online yellow pages advertising can be a pretty intimidating place to those new to the medium, or who are just busy with the business or running their business. Weeding through the various offerings to find the best deal can be overwhelming, but if you know what questions to ask, you ll have a head start.
1. How often can you update or change your listing?
The problem with paper phone books is living with your ad for a year or more. Internet yellow page directories should be more accommodating, so if you find a provider that can t or won t allow you as many updates as you want, look elsewhere. You should be able to change your ad every day if that s what you want to do. It s just pixels on a screen, not stone tablets.
2. What is the length of the contract?
Similar to updating your ad as frequently as you like, you should also be able to get out of your contract. It makes no sense for you to be locked into a one year (or more!) contract with a yellow pages directory. Just like with updating your listing, you should be able to delete it whenever you choose.
3. How much space will I get for my ad?
Once upon a time, when the Internet was new, storage space was expensive. Servers were small and slow, and kilobytes of space were selling for real money. Now that technology has advanced, for less than $10 per month you can host an entire website, so it doesn t make sense that your ad space should be limited to a few lines of text.
Remember, too, that unlike printed phone books, an online listing is far more flexible in terms of graphics. Don t settle for a directory that only offers a cut and paste job of your current display ad. The Internet is dynamic and interactive, and your online advertising should be no different.
4. What does the yellow page provider do to encourage search engine placement?
The greatest ad copy in the world won t matter a bit if your ad can t be found by the search engines. Find out what your yellow page provider does to promote the site and their advertisers, whether they follow good SEO practices, how the site is structured, and what type of marketing they use to bring visitors to the site.
5. Will you be able to link out from the directory to your own site?
Backlinks are an important part of SEO, and if you want your company s website to be found, they are a useful tool. All backlinks are not created equally, though. Be sure to ask if links are tagged as nofollow. It doesn t make a link bad, but it does make it somewhat less valuable to your overall link building campaign.
Don t get confused by all the offers out there for yellow page listings. Take a step back, ask some questions, and make sure you know exactly what you re getting for your money, and you ll be in a better position to make good decisions regarding your advertising dollar.
Author Resource:
The http://InAreaCode.com family of sites offers the best of all advertising worlds, combining online yellow pages advertising with an interactive site where business owners can post unlimited ads, press releases, and other valuable information for their customers.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")