Yellowpages.ca is increasing online Yellow Pages advertising rates between 10-25% depending on the type of yellowpages.ca ad you are purchasing.

The substantial increase in rates further indicates that YPG may have held on to the golden ticket a little too long. In an article I wrote on print Yellow Pages advertising last week, I mentioned that YPG had expertly handled the transition from print to online advertising till now, however, I believe that they have underestimated the velocity at which advertisers will move to internet products, like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Yellowpages.ca (YPG) has managed to hold off the exodus from print for a number of reasons that include their bundling of print and internet products, their feet on the ground in Canada and the fact that we are just too small a market for anyone to care. Otherwise, they would be getting hammered as most major US Yellow Pages publishers are right now.

This latest price increase leads me to believe that YPG now understands that when the print takes a hit, it won’t be a 1-2% drop. We will be looking at more serious numbers. The fact that the economy is in the dumpster will only add fuel to the fire.

Then there is the elephant in the room. Google has the band width and determination to develop the killer app that could make Yellow Pages advertising an afterthought at any given time. It is not what we know Google is doing, its what we don’t know.

As for the small business owners who are constantly being bombarded with the multitude of options; There may be a learning curve when it comes to search engine marketing but you need to get on board or get run over by their competitors.

Defibrillators anyone….??????

Sitting on a patio Sunday, the first real spring day in the Toronto-area, I was telling my friends how great my new job as copywriter for a dynamic local SEO firm is. Then I pulled Sunday’s New York Times out of my satchel….Smack dab on Page One, right below the fold, sat an article by Matt Richtel describing how some type-A blog writers are apparently dropping dead at their keyboards, futilely trying to keep ahead of the relentless 24 hour news cycle – and one step ahead of the competition on their heels. (Talk about dying with your boots on!)

Never mind….No second thoughts! No matter how obsessive or compulsive paid-by-the-word bloggers hammering out content late into the night might be, they cannot possibly be any more driven than the business lawyers in the office tower law firm I once toiled for. As relentless as keeping up with the news cycle is, it can’t be more relentless than an eager, Cheshire-smiling associate lawyer with a view to partnership and a corner office in a blue-chip law firm.

I must admit, though, that pro blogger Matt Buchanan’s gambit of blending a protein supplement into his coffee to stay fueled up while avoiding meal breaks is one that is worthy of even the most driven investment bankers, mergers & acquisitions or securities specialists I worked with. Why hasn’t Starbucks gotten wind of this?

On Day 5, sitting through a search engine optimization seminar put on by my boss in conjunction with John Alexander of Search Engine Workshops, I am guardedly relieved that SEO copywriting may be a somewhat different breed of cat than the pay- per-article bloggers who were the focus of the New York Times article. The mantra in SEO copywriting seems to be that new and relevant is what drives page ranking. While fresh and current content is important. It is not necessarily the writer who is first on the web with comments on breaking news, so long as the content on the client’s page is new, relevant and interesting.

If I’m wrong about this….defibrillators anyone….??????

(For the sake of my health and well-being, if not his business, I am trusting that my new boss is, in fact, reading the copy I’m churning out on his behalf….)

Search Engine Land’s Grant Crowell reviews Internet Yellow Pages video in a recent post. Grant discusses how IYPs like Superpages.com and Yellowpages.com aren’t getting the SEO thing among many more deficiencies.

The fact is that Yellow Pages publishers still think and react in print time. Get an idea, put it on the drawing board, discuss for a few months and then in six to eight months they will do an in-depth study. A year later, they are “testing” the product. How fast do you think Google would do it? Oops!, it’s done already.

My background is in Yellow Pages advertising and I can tell you that I had no idea what work was till I got involved in search engine optimization. SEM is a advanced marketing. Search engines work at light speed in comparison to IYPs.

Still, it is not the Yellow Pages products that continue to keep clients holding on to old technology, it is the terrific sales force. Pretty tough to keep up to them with little or no feet on the ground, knocking on doors. As long as they have that advantage, they will continue to be heard from in the online marketing world.

AT&T ’s YellowPages.com is now offering online yellow pages video advertising. Superpages.com has been offering the product for about 5 years now but it hasn’t seemed to catch on. I watched a flower shop video on SuperPages. It was very professional and brought a feeling of trust along with it.

Still, how many people will take the time to watch a video of a flowershop and how many of those will actually make a purchase? When I buy flowers, I am looking for speed and price, simple as that.

Google is following the Yellow Page road by soliciting “Business Referral Representatives”, in an effort to put feet on the ground in the local business marketing sector.

At $10.00 for each approved referral, Google won’t be on the same playing field a Yellow Page Publishers who can afford to be enourmous fees of 30-50% to their sales reps for renewal or new customers. But it is a start and sure to get the attention of Idearc and AT&T.

Print Yellow Pages advertising is still the choice for a majority of small businesses mainly due to the relationships built up ovr time with local yellow page sales reps.

82% of online local searchers follow up offline via an in-store visit, phone call or purchase according to a recent survey by TMP and Comscore.

Search Engine Land has more on the findings.

The Wall Street Journal reports that R.H. Donnelley Corp has purchased Business.com for approximately $340 million and $360 million.

Business.com is basically an online yellow pages directory and is used for search engine optimization purposes by many small and medium sized businesses.

eBay’s Kijiji classified service is quietly growing across North America. Kijiji is a cool advertising media for local products and services and analysts predict it will take a toll on the newspaper industry.

In the first quarter of 2007, according to MediaDailyNews:

Automotive classified revenues fell 20.1%, real estate fell 14.2% and employment fell 14.3% compared to the same period last year.

The continual addition of online alternatives and the demographics of print readers, not to mention the push towards a “Green economy”, will affect most forms of print media. Bill Gates predicts that in 5 years, the print yellow pages advertising will be obsolete.

I attended a 30 minute session on driving traffic to your website last week.

The entire presentation was built around Google adwords. In fairness to the presenter, 30 minutes is barely enough time for introductions, never mind a detailed presentation on Google, Yahoo and MSN. And the fact is that Google dominates the pay per click (PPC) market, so if you are going to talk aboout PPC, you have to talk about Google.

I was , however, suprised at how the presenter blew off yellow pages advertising and search engine optimization in the Q and A session.

The facts are that approximately approximatley 70% of search engine clicks are made on organic listings. Even if you don’t want to spend the money on SEO (search engine optimization), you should at least do the basics. Basic SEO info can be found all over the internet, just search for free SEO tips.

Print yellow pages is still the main resource for local searches. That’s right , print yellow pages. Keep in mind that results are industry specific. You may need a full page ad if you are an attorney but if you are renting computers, all you need is a listing or small space ad.

Don’t be fooled by someone who only sells only PPC or only SEO or only Yellow Pages. Chances are they are looking out for themselves and not for you. Do your homework, take responsibility for your own business.

Idearc Media (Superpages.com) can now put its advertisers content on a local search service provided by IllumiCell. You can view the IllumiCell’s corporate presentation in PDF format here for an understanding of what they do.

In Canada, you can go to yellowpages.ca. Check out: New on Yellowpages.ca, IM: Poynt@yellowpages.ca