Small Business Commando News

A brief news release announced that LiveDeal.com is incorporating the infoUSA database into its platform.

infoUSA is one of the top suppliers of national directory listings to the Internet Yellow Pages publishers.

This move signifies that LiveDeal is branching out beyond the classified ad business and into the firecotry business.  I can tell you from personal experience, an IYP can be a VERY profitable business.

Note that I didn’t call it an EASY business.

THis data can be useful in SEOing their site and becoming more relevant.

Chatanooga has a new Yellow Pages targeted at seniors over 55.

Years ago, the Silver Pages attempted to target seniors. That project ultimately failed, but it’s possible that the world has changed enough to support a taargeted directory.

Maybe that’s the future of the printed directories.

A savvy independent publisher could be successful by keeping the ovehead low and by developing a high quality publication.

Here’s a video of a TV interview

I sure wouldn’t want to publish a directory targeted at anyone under 50.

Peter Krasilovsky popped by the other day to share a double-double from In-N-Out Burger.

He showed me some cool upgrades on CanPages.com, the turbo-charged Canadian independent Yellow Pages (and now Internet Yellow Pages) publisher.

In my first run throughs, I am impressed with the integration with maps a la Google maps.

It’s all about driving quality customers to the advertisers, so only time will tell if it is a successful strategy.

I had a great conversation with Paul Youlten, founder of Yellowikis.org.

Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages what Wikipedia is to encyclopedias and what craigslist is to classified advertising.

It has the power to change the game forever, and to bring the open source movement to small business information.

 Small Business Commandos conversation with Paul Youlten, founder of Yellowikis: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

read the article

It’s heating up down under with Google and Sensis locked in an all out battle to control local search dominance in Australia.

My bet is on the team with the local sales channel, and that would be Sensis.

See, it comes down to human nature. Small businesses that advertise in the Yellow Pages do not BUY advertising. They are SOLD advertising, and there is a big difference.

Until Google has a way to reach the local advertisers and to sell them on the concept of local online advertising, the game will go to the sales team.

Here’s the deal.

As long as the Sensis product is good enough (and I understand that it is quite good), a better mousetrap won’t change the outcome.

You don’t need a better mousetrap if the first trap killed the mouse.

The Orange County (California) Register had a nice article on Irvine, CA Based, Local.com.

I’m a big fan of Local.com, and their approach to aggregating as much relevant information as they can into one single spot.

Local.com’s purchase of marketing firm soUno (so YOU know) shows that they understand the basics of the local advertising market.

Small businesses do not BUY advertising, small businesses are SOLD advertising.

Ignore this rule at your own peril.

Bravo to Businessweek for once again delivering an insightful piece on the growth of the local Internet and the firms making it happen.

Their story takes about surfing the internet on a television to find local information.  This concept is not new, and perhaps the technology will work this time.

However, they do casually note that the company does not have a well developed local sales plan for attracting advertisers.

One this is for certain.  When it comes to capturing local advertising dollars, if you build it, they will NOT come, you need to go and get them.

Special thanks to Randall Hilton for his recent series on Yellow Pages advertising for plumbers. Randall is a plumber’s plumber.

He has become a mouthpiece for the industry offering solid advice in a home-spun way.

I’ve learned a helluva lot about plumbing and the issues facing plumbers reading his newsletter, and I do a much better job for my plumber clients becuse of it.

He recently ran a series about Yellow Pages advertising that comes from the advertiser’s perspective.

Check it out at www.plumb-biz.com

Traditional Yellow Pages ad design holds that the advertiser’s number should be in the lower third of the print ad.

A shopper will read the headline, scan the ad looking at the graphical images and cometo rest on the business name, address and telephone number.

Notice the phone number in the lower right of the ad. I might add that this is a very high performing Yellow Pages ad.
Well, if you apply the same design principles to a website, particularly a small business website, you will miss business. Quite often, the lost business is staggering.

On a website, the contact information should be front and center. Top of the page, above the fold.

This small business website shows not only the phone number front and center, they reinforce the concept of making a call by putting a photo of an employee on the phone.

The website visitor does not need to scroll or navigate around the page in order to call.

In this instance, a plumbing / HVAC contractor, the phone is their primary customer contact.

It’s important to understand the difference in various media to generate the highest number of calls for each.

Recently, and without fanfare, craigslist added a field requiring licensing information for ads posted under the “Skilled Trades” section.So what are the implications?

1. craigslist is maturing as a serious advertising platform for the skilled trades, for one. They don’t make changes to their site without a strong reason, and the reason here has probably been initiated by several state licensing boards responding to complaints.

2. craigslist is following the lead of the print Yellow Pages publishers in requesting the informaiton, but not being the police. If a poster is in violation of the state licensing board, that’s between the state and the poster.

3. Posting ads on craigslist can be an effective method for driving highly qualified customers to local businesses. I know that this isn’t a newsflash to the folks who read blogs like this, but you’d be surprised at how many local businesses have no idea what’s going on.

Hey, let me know if you like the podcast. ok?

 Craigslist adds licensing information requirement: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download