WARNING: CONSIDER THESE FACTS BEFORE
                    YOU ADVERTISE IN THE YELLOW PAGES...

  Yellow Page Useage Is Declining Significantly And Rapidly (*see Yellow Pages Association data below).  

Why?  Rather than digging out their phone books, people are simply searching online for local businesses to work with.  They use their favorite search engines like Google and Yahoo to make these local searches and this is being called the "New Yellow Pages".  The useage of the New Yellow Pages (NYP) has proliferated for 3 main reasons:   1) It's more convenient.  Most people are at their computers and have Google or Yahoo as their home page anyway so it's simple and easy to search for local businesses.     2) It's more practical by providing more information to help in decision- making.  In addition to contact information, a local search on Google and Yahoo also often provides a website with more in depth information, reviews about the business, and a map to conveniently locate the business.    3) It's environmentally friendly.  The amount of energy (and the pollutant by-products of this energy use) and paper being consumed to print Yellow Page books for every household is significant.  The amount of energy and paper used to search on search engines like Google and Yahoo?  Much less. *According to the Yellow Pages Assocition, the number of U.S. references (the number of times someone searches in the Yellow Pages for information) declined by over 2 billion from 2005 to 2008.

How does a business "advertise" in the New Yellow Pages?
In the Old Yellow Pages (OYP) you advertise by paying to have your ad placement
under a certain heading in the directory.  In the New Yellow Pages you can hire
a local SEO company to help you achieve the placement you want in the search
engine directory - a first page listing on major search engines for your keywords
(heading).

What are the advantages of advertsing in the New Yellow Pages?
1) There is no work or cost to "create" an ad.  That's because there is no ad to create-
    it's simply a listing with the business contact information.

2) Rather than paying a U.S. national average of $1425-$2850 per month for a half to full-
    page ad in the Old Yellow Pages, you can pay an average of $199-$299 per month for
    a first page listing on the major search engines with the help of a local SEO company.

3) Because local searches online continue to grow while Old Yellow Page useage
    continues to decline, the New Yellow Pages is a safer advertising investment
    because the ROI that once was for the Old Yellow Pages can no longer be assured.

4) With the NYP, you don't have to wait for that one time a year when the OYP is
    published.  You can get your business listed any time.

5) If your business has any changes in address, telephone or other contact information,
    you can change it at anytime versus the OYP where you are stuck for a year with the
    content of the ad.  And if an error is made in your ad with the OYP, again you are stuck
    with it for the year.

How does the New Yellow Pages compare to the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)
like superpages.com, yellowpages.com, yelp, citysearch, local.com etc?

The most important fact that you need to know is this: The top 3 search engines for which you can
have 1st page rankings in the New Yellow Pages account for 89.8% of the total online searches
versus only .4% (notice the decimal point) for all of the Internet Yellow Pages combined.  Of the
89.8% of searches in the big 3 search engines, 35% (Microsoft data)  are people searching for
local businesses.  In sum, 35% of 89.8% = 31% which means 31% of local searches for businesses
are made on the big 3 search engines (New Yellow Pages) vs..4% on all the other IYP's combined.
 
Top 10 Search Providers for May 2009 (U.S.)