Yellow Pages Losses Lead to Attempt at Local Search

The Yellow Pages Income Fund announced continued losses in the third quarter due to continued drops in revenue from print advertising. This has prompted the company to move outside their expertise and water-down the SEO industry further by offering advertising packages that would do more to target local search.

To give you an idea of how far removed the Yellow Pages are from being Search Marketers, CEO Mark Tellier was reported as saying, "I think we're going to see a trend in the Internet, broadly speaking, to go more local." Going to see? Has Mr. Tellier ever done a search in his local market for anything before?

For example, if you type in "Winnipeg SEO Expert" on Google.ca, one of the primary search results you receive are Google Maps results. Duh? These are local search results! Not to mention that Google has been geo-targeting a users IP address since 2005, providing users search results relative to their geographic location.

If you are a Winnipeg business, and are still one of dinosaurs that thinks the Yellow Pages are used by your common consumer - WAKE UP! The Yellow Pages are out of their realm moving into this market, and are being driven by their revenue losses. They're old, they're dated. And, members of the Winnipeg agency that is responsible for selling Yellow Pages advertising in the city openly admit the company does not know how to SEO.

If you want to be top of the search engines, hire an SEO company, not a print company.

It's your turn Winnipeg.