Advertising has taken a more aggressive stance via the internet. It can now solicit direct and proactive responses from its target market by encouraging them to post comments on a certain product, write product reviews, or interface online via chat messaging regarding a product or service. Advertising online, unlike the Yellow Pages phonebook, delivers measurable results at once, more appeal at less cost.

This is the woe of Yellow Pages ® Directory advertising. It appears recent years have seen its steady decline – it is possible that it is it heading for the worst, now that the more prominent search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and America-On-Line (AOL) have started to touch base with the local market? Advertisers can now connect with their local market by city, or by a specific locality just like the Phonebook through the emergence of advertising products that deliver streams of higher revenue via a website. Google’s Adwords for one, as the forerunner in this new era of clickable and location-targeted advertising has taken internet marketing by “leaps and bounds”.

The apparent demise of Yellow Pages ® Directory advertising is caused by the following handicaps:

1.) The phonebook requires an immediate cash outlay, regardless of results;

2.) Your ad is placed under a category where your product or service belongs; imagine the number of competitors you have on the yellow page. A prospect who runs his finger up and down the list ends up in a comparison shopping-spree;

3.) Your ad cramped on a 2×3 size in order to save on cost will get you unnoticed;

4.) Lots of competitors vying for the same attention; to get noticed your ad has to come out in a bigger size and in a more prominent design – this can be costly;

5.) You cannot effect a change on your printed ad at anytime;

6.) Advertisements on the Yellow pages look similar; it will cost you more to look different and unique;

7.) If you want your ads to appear in all states or cities, you have to advertise in different phonebooks – imagine how much it would cost;

8.) Regardless of the number of people actually using the phonebook, which continues to decline, you are still paying the same advertising cost.

A few years after its inception, Adwords has positioned itself as one of the primary revenue-generating programs of Google Inc. It has gained widespread acclaim and recognition from several online communities; the blogging industry, as well as marketing and advertising companies worldwide. Google Adwords presents a flexible marketing flagship, wherein advertisers are given the ability to promote their products and services on the Google Search Engine, as well as millions of websites signed up under the Google Adsense program. Google Adwords primarily target advertisers, while Adsense caters to different ad publishers. Publishers get a percentage from the clicks made on the ads posted on their website(s).

Viral marketing has taken a strong footing these past few years as well. With the rise of Search Engine Marketing, people have seen the potential of gaining revenue, in a much faster pace, from different online activities. Google Adwords, as well as other revenue generating programs like Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter, contribute a great deal to the success of online viral marketing.

As the success of online marketing progresses, it appears the existence and popularity of the Yellow Pages ® wanes, pushing people and companies to seek the cheaper, yet more versatile offers of PPC’s and other online marketing ventures. A large percentage of global companies use the internet everyday. Advertisers, as well as publishers are seeing the big picture; taking hold of a flexible and affordable marketing program like Google Adwords assures them more exposure at a lesser cost.

What does the future hold for Yellow Pages ® Directory Advertising? Unless it reinvents itself, it could not collide with the giants and eventually might just sign up the pages of advertising history as a “has been”. What a waste of something that was once very useful.

Has Phone Book Advertising, commonly known as the “Yellow Pages ®”, finally stepped aside to give way to recent trends in online advertising? Recent years have witnessed a major decline in Yellow Pages ® Advertising in favor of the Pay Per Click (PPC) and organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Did the “fingers that do the walking” finally grow tired?

Pros of Yellow Pages ® Directory Advertising

Advertising through the yellow pages has its advantages: it was thought to have the farthest reach since every home has a copy of the Phonebook. When an advertiser places his ads on the yellow pages, marketing becomes the least of his worries for the next 12 months – the phonebook takes care of it, 365 days of rain and shine, snow included. When a customer finds your business on the yellow page of his phonebook and dials your number, you have on the other end of the line a potential customer who has an immediate need for your product or service. This cuts the chase for you – from traffic to revenue.

For a newbie in business, advertising on the yellow pages guarantees him stray customers here and there, even if nobody realizes his business exists! Customers, when they happen to see the ad placement on the phonebook may dial the number, on happenstance.

The disadvantages in advertising on the Yellow Pages ® however, far outweigh the good:

 Phone book advertising requires a year-long advance payment for the ads;
 Your ads are placed side by side with your competitors’; level of competition is high;
 The smaller your ad, the less noticeable it becomes; the bigger it gets, the more expensive;
 Corrections will wait until the next directory sees print; nonflexible.

Then came along the internet; technology sparked a new beginning for different industries to promote their products and services. The internet paved the way for different businesses and groups to find an alternative advertising medium that will quickly and easily target different online consumers. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) became one of the rapidly growing advertising models in the online scenario.

Then came SEO

Online advertising also took a major advance due to the initiatives of the different search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) to allow Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to thrive online. With the online competition driving different companies to seek out PPC platforms, companies struggle to bid for higher positioning on the search engines and gain more sales from the different advertising campaigns.

Looking back, we could say that proponents of the Yellow pages might have unwittingly inspired the brains behind search engines to integrate PPC campaigns in online advertising. Through the Pay-Per-Click programs, search engines supplied to advertisers, publishers and consumers what the Yellow pages lacked.

What PPCs Offered

Firstly, PPC campaigns can target a wider scope of advertisers, publishers and consumers than a local copy of the Yellow Pages ever could.

Secondly, unlike Yellow Pages ® ads which advertisers must pay for regularly, without the assurance that the ads will be effective in reaching consumers, PPC offers an effective online platform upon which thousands of advertisers and publishers can generate revenues from.

PPC Advertisers can also monitor properly, which ads work and which do not. Since they only pay for the number of clicks on their ads, money can be put to good use. Advertisers can put ads on hold and show only those that are giving good results. Yellow Pages can’t do that.

PPC over Yellow Pages ®

With Yellow Pages, you get to show only a number of ads per page. Pay-Per-Click gives you maximum exposure at a fraction of the cost you would regularly pay for advertising on the Yellow Pages ®. An advertiser could rotate a few hundred ads, and at 10 to 15 cents initial bid per click. Although you need to bid for a specific keyword, your ads will still be shown even though you pay only a small amount. PPC also allows you to maintain and change ads as often as you want thereby giving you flexibility in your marketing campaigns;

And lastly, if you have proper Search Engine Optimization on your website, as well as PPC campaigns, you can improve your overall exposure, and gain better sales. These are the unbeatable duo in internet marketing today.

No matter which type of industry you are in, you can definitely take advantage of the huge opportunities provided by search engine marketing. Nowadays, even small-scale business owners feel the need to build web sites because it is the easiest, cheapest and most convenient way for them to advertise, get in touch with customers and let online users know about the services that they provide. So where does search engine marketing fall into all of this? How can it improve your web site and your business operations as a whole?

To have a deeper understanding of how search engine marketing provides big opportunities for sole web sites and small businesses, it is good to have a background of the term first. Basically, search engine marketing is a type of advertising over the Internet which aims to promote web sites. The goal is to place your web site on top of the results page of search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Alta Vista and other search engines.

To do this, there are several methods that you can do yourself, or you can hire a professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultant to do it for you. SEO is one of the ways to improve traffic to your web site, and it is one of the methods used in search engine marketing – along with paid inclusion and paid placement. With paid inclusion, search engine companies like Google charges fees so that your web site can be included with their search results list when an online user types in a keyword. On the other hand, paid placements – which are also known as sponsored ads – are actual links that online users can click so that they can visit your web site, and the search engine company will be paid on a pay-per-click basis.

The Advantages of Search Engine Marketing

Now that you know about the basics of search engine marketing, here is a list of its advantages:

1. Traffic to your site will increase if you choose to apply SEO as a search engine marketing method.
There is a virtual rat race when it comes to emerging on top of the list of the results on search engines. Sometimes, no matter which type of industry your business is involved in, or whatever type of web site you have – there are keywords that will be commonly searched by online users. So what are the chances of your emerging on even the top ten list if you do not employ search engine marketing techniques? Thus, SEO is really a must if you want to drive traffic to your site and achieve a higher search engine ranking.

2. Your Return of Investment is assured.
No matter which type of the three methods of search engine marketing you decide to use, your Return of Investment or ROI is assured. If you use SEO, for example, then traffic to your web site will be higher. This will easily equate to more clicks, and will result to a return of investment and assured profits for your web site. This is the reason why web sites are clamoring to get on top of the search engine results because the higher your search engine ranking, the more cash flow you will have.

3. Search engine marketing methods prove to be less costly and maintenance-free.
Finally, search engine marketing methods will cost you less in the long run – and will actually serve as an investment in the future. A well-designed and search engine optimized web site will continually drive traffic to your site, not just for the present but will continue as long as online users are searching for the keywords which relate to the text posted on your site. Also, a well-optimized web site will cover not just top search engines like Google or Yahoo, but their affiliates as well, which means more coverage for you.

Should I Go for Search Engine Marketing?

All in all, search engine marketing is an effective way of putting yourself out there – in the sense that you are getting the most traffic, your web site will not just be search engine optimized but also visually pleasing and user-friendly to your visitors – and most importantly, you are increasing your profit while reaching your business goals at the same time.

So what are you waiting for?

 Take advantage of the big opportunities provided by search engine marketing and secure a top position now!

          “All is fair in love and war.” So says one of the most famous statements in the world. Some heartbroken souls may disagree. But in today’s time, all’s fair in the market, too. After all, the modern time has given rise to so many changes. If, in the past, big multinational companies have maintained dominance for decades with no questions, smaller businesses are now beginning to challenge their ranks.

What are SMEs?

SMEs refer to small and medium enterprises. These are businesses or companies whose headcount or turnover is below given limitations. In some countries, the term small or medium sized business (SMB) is more commonly used.  In the United States, a small business as defined by the number of employees is that with no more than 100 workers, and a medium-sized business is that with 500 employees or less. But the most commonly used American definition of a micro-business based on the number of workers is the same as that of the European Union: an enterprise with no greater than 10 employees.

Internet Marketing for SMEs

In the majority of countries, smaller businesses are much greater in number than bigger ones. In the entire European Union, for example, SMEs account for roughly 99% of all firms and hire around 65 million people. Therefore, in many fields of the economy, SMEs are reliable for compelling innovation and improving competition. However, it is not easy for SMEs to increase their market share, especially not within a short period of time. Fortunately, there’s the Internet. The Internet has provided a low-cost yet effective means of marketing an SME: through Internet marketing.

The benefits of SEO for SMEs

There are many benefits of SEO for small- and medium- sized businesses. First is the low cost. At a minimal investment, the Internet allows SMEs to make their presence be felt in the World Wide Web. With only a few clicks and several skilled men on the side, an SME can introduce itself and provide information about its services. Through these, customers are drawn to its products and services. Less expense as a result of SEO will be apparent when an SME no longer employs the handful of people required in doing a commercial (whether in TV or radio), a print advertisement, or door-to-door sales pitch. At the same time, an SME not only reduces costs but also widens its audience, because eMarketing through SEO is not limited unlike these traditional marketing methods. But since the Web is too vast, the probability of an SME maximizing its presence in the online world is low. That is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes handy. SEO is a vital and effective tool for SMEs to further increase their online visibility. SEO works to make an SME’s website to rank high in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Even ground

When you optimize your website and its pages, more surfers can access your pages. Being a smaller and less known enterprise, consumers are not expected to know your URL by heart. Thus, SEO paves out a more even ground between you and the bigger companies. When your website is optimized for search engines, consumers who type for a certain need (e.g. computer repair shop) can see both TheBigComputerShop’s site and yoursmallcomputershop in one page. SEO for SMEs allows healthier competition and a fairer share of the market. Because the Internet is a fast medium of communication, its users (your target customers) are often hurrying, too. After all, we’re all living in a fast-paced world. When your SME’s website is optimized, you don’t end up in the 20th SERP, where it is impossible to get a single customer. No, using SEO, you can be displayed right up there in the first page. Being on the first page puts you on the same page as the bigger players. And, like them, you get the chance of being visited by surfers-turned-buyers, too. Finally, applying SEO to your site makes the whole world your audience. Virtually every country (even third world ones) has access to Internet now. Because of this, whatever your services or products are, when your site is optimized, you can have the world as your market base.  As you see, with Internet Marketing and SEO, all is fair in business.