So I have been using Yelp! for about nine months. It just keeps getting better. I first heard about Yelp! last November when I attended a Google workshop. At the time, Google was catering to small business and trying to get these business to spend some cash on ad words and ad sense (Google’s online marketing and advertising).
One of the biggest issues with small business is marketing. So many options and no real tracking. In addition, if you are running a small business (especially a retail store or restaurant) you know how precious your time is. You’re busy spending your days on the day-to-day operations and fighting for every dollar. You don’t always have time to research this new thing or that new service.
That brings me to Yellow-Book (aka the Yellow Pages). These guys have been around for quite a while. But they totally missed the boat when it comes to the Internet. But that’s ok because small business owners (the majority) still drop thousands a year on a outdated, antiquated, and dying ‘technology’. In fact, a lot of small businesses use the yellow pages as their primary source of advertising. Do you know how many people you are missing? If you are under the age of thirty-five, you most likely have not opened up a phone book in a long time.
When you want something, you turn to the Internet. You want to know the following items:
- Where is it
- When is it open
- What do other people think about it
- What can I expect when I visit, call, etc.
This type of feedback can not be found on an outdated piece of yellow paper. The yellow pages do not and did not look to present this information to you online. They sat on their asses and continued to milk the small business owner. Now their time has passed and Yelp! has created a market online that should be dominated by YellowBook but is not.
What – you want an example…fine.
- Restaurants in Culver City as found on Yelp!:
235 locations and several thousand reviews - Restaurants in Culver City as found on YellowBook.com:
202 locations and ZERO reviews
Where are you going to start your food search?
If you are a small business owner, check out Modern Gorilla dot com. They can assist you in your small business marketing package. The web is a great marketing tool, but it’s just a single tool. There are hundreds of opportunities you can be taking advantage of in the new digital era.
try to look up locksmith, towing, bailbond, carpet cleaning, plumber, guttercleaning, etc. The point is that if you are under 35, you most likely live in an apartment and your most expensive possession is you laptop. When you own a house and have kids, see how helpful Yelp is compared to the yellowpages like yelllowbook.
I do live in an apartment – but by the time I do have some kids and a house Yelp! will have changed to accomidate my online needs. I am on the edge of the YellowBook – Yelp! transition. I also checked all those terms and they have some ratings and reviews. Yelp! and the Yelp! Community is rating and reviewing all needed services – Yellowbook is pretty much dead.