How Can The World Wide Web … Save Advertising Dollars and Grow My Local Small Business?
Compare an expensive yellow pages ad with your own locally-optimized website:
| Yellow Pages Advertisement |
Projects Plus Locally Optimized Web Site |
|
| Content | Minimal — There’s very little you can say about your business in a tiny little rectangle. And don’t even try to update your content during the year. | Unlimited — Show off your local business to its best advantage. No size, color, or media limitations. Update anytime — make special offers, let visitors know about new products or services, sign up for a newsletter, contact you via email, and capture new leads, etc. |
| Grabbing Prospects Attention | Near zero — Eyes scanning listings. | Total — Once your prospective customers are on your site, you have 100% of their attention. |
| Visitor Mindset |
Suspicious, Doubtful — Yellow Pages is advertising. We’ve all experienced poor quality or integrity from advertised products or services … Almost Zero Credibility. | Interested, open-to-buy, PRE-qualified — A website that provides the information your prospects want, along with friendly/useful content, some testimonials, and even photos allows the prospective client to know and trust you … High credibility. |
| Exposure / Traffic | Near-zero — It may generate a few calls per week (per month)? Do you really even know? |
Substantial — Attract targeted visitors to your site every single day, 24/7. |
| Measurable | No — Do you have any idea how many prospective customers look at your ad? Or how many contact you due to your ad? Can you accurately measure your ROI (Return on Investment)? |
Yes — You will know exactly how many visitors arrive to your site, every day, every hour … how they found you online so you can continuously tweak to increase traffic. |
| Build Customer Loyalty |
N/A — not applicable | Yes – You can reach customers and prospective customers, FREE, with an online newsletter, special discounts and more via email. |
| Competitive Advantage | Low – You probably have a yellow pages ad because everyone else does, because your competitors are in there, because it used to be very effective. We’re not saying you shouldn’t have one – but it isn’t what it used to be. To really stand out, you need a BIG, EXPENSIVE ad that drains your budget month after month after month … |
High — Your website, properly done, can both build new local business and pull your competition’s past customers toward you. In fact, in most industries, more than 50% of your competitors don’t even have a website or much of an online presence at all! |
| New Revenue Streams |
No — Yellow Pages just advertises that you have a business. | Yes – A websites’ content can establish you as an authority in your field. And since a website is always building new and repeat traffic, the potential for multiple streams of income is huge. |
| Expandable Market Area |
No — Yellow Pages is a local directory. And it’s totally non-interactive. Users either find you… or not. If you did not buy a listing for a particular locale, they won’t. | Yes – Projects Plus specializes in optimizing your website to target the geographical locations of your choice, as far beyond your physical location as you desire. |
| Expandable Categories or Search Keywords |
No — You buy a listing for a single category. If prospects search in a different-but-related category, they won’t find you. And you don’t know where they are looking. |
Yes – Extensive keyword research is done to discover the most common words and phrases your customers type in the search engines. They are then used in a variety of ways to rank your website in the top of the search results. The performance of keywords can be thoroughly tracked and tweaked as needed. |
| Cost | Expensive — Hundreds of dollars per year, per listing, per geographic area, per category, for each ad. | Inexpensive – A Projects Plus locally-optimized website starts at only $497 |