Switchfast Blog - The Future of IT

SEO vs. Yellow Pages: Times are Changing

Friday, September 04, 2009 by Michael Holley

"Yellow Page usage amongst people in their, say below 50, will drop to near zero over the next five years." - Bill Gates (Seattle Times, 2007)

There was a time when the phone book, specifically the "yellow pages," was the premiere directory listing for businesses. Thanks to the world-changing advent of the internet, this is no longer the case. Over the past decade, usage of the traditional and online versions of the yellow pages has declined sharply, showing no signs of a comeback. But how are people finding businesses if they aren't using the yellow pages? The answer is internet search.

According to an annual study by ComScore, yellow pages usage dropped 3% from 2007 to 2008 alone, a number that's very substantial considering usage already dropped 6.8% in 2006. In fact, 2008 marks the first year yeah internet search has eclipsed all forms of the yellow pages in usage, claiming a massive 31% of all local business search queries and trending upward.

Predictably, this is bad news for the future of the yellow pages. Wachovia expects print and online ad spending on yellow pages to decline 6.3% next year, and a devastating 39% over the next four years. If the trend continues, the yellow pages won't be around much longer at all. Search engine marketing spending, on the other hand, is expected to continue growing from 17.7% of budgets to 20.3% over the next five years, reaching $23.4 billion by 2013, according to eMarketer.

All this, and the average national cost of a half page ad in the yellow pages remains $17,100, a figure that increases greatly in larger markets. By comparison, search engine optimization (SEO) pricing varies greatly depending upon your business's size and industry, but the cost to get started in most situations is a fraction of $17,100.

So if you haven't already, it's probably time to move the yellow pages budget somewhere else - like SEO.

Best,

Michael Holley

Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support & Consulting
Rochester IT Support & Consulting