Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

patrick murphy — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:20:10 GMT

for the first time in my life I realised a dream and cancelled the yellow pages. what a treat.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Bob Russell — Thu, 31 May 2012 18:03:37 GMT

[quote user="Cat Henstridge"]

[quote user="Bob Russell"]An extra sting in the tail was a client of ours praised us 'especially good with difficult dogs'. We have seen an upswing in the number of difficult dogs being registered at the practice - marvelous![/quote]

But does this not tell you the power of reviews on the internet? When you research anything; a hotel; a new dishwasher; a seller on ebay, do you not read reviews to make up your mind about what to do? Positive reviews can be a great advertising tool for your practice and there are loads of ways to encourage your clients to leave them. There is a 'recommendation' tab on FaceBook that is easily added to your page and some sites will give you a tab to upload to your practice website asking people to review you. (ask Susie about this one ) You will find your clients can, and probably have, leave reviews about you on Google and other directory sites. You cannot control what they write (on most sites) but you can claim your listing and respond, which gives you a chance to counter negative reviews and thank those who leave positive ones.

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Pardon me for being cynical but on a certain veterinary 'helpline' website all the practice reviews are 5 star and all the reviewed practices are from the same group.[/quote]

Probably because they have realised the power of good reviews and deliberately gone out of their way to get them!

[quote user="Bob Russell"]I don't trust review websites[/quote]

But your clients will and do!

[/quote]

These are all reasons why I don't like or trust review sites. A very small number of malicious reviews can do a lot of damage. I didn't say they are unimportant nor did I say clients didn't take notice of them.

For a business to place reviews of their own on a website seems pretty unethical and 'arranging' for clients to place their reviews not much better. I cannot remember which website I was looking at as I went off on a tangent having found I have forgotten our log in details for any-uk-vet! As always I was curious about reviews, checked our practice (no reviews!) and looked to see which practices had reviews. They pretty much all belonged to one group of practices.

I don't trust review websites because they are too open to abuse. They can have immense power and I cannot check everyone to check for malice! perhaps I am getting paranoid in my old age!

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Thu, 31 May 2012 02:14:29 GMT

[quote user="Julie Innes"]Thomson Local were really horrible when they came to "talk " to me about my "advertising needs". The woman who came along was pushy and wanted me to take the "full" package, which would allow me to advertise my practice on the side of a bus!! When I tried to say I didn't really feel that was in keeping with the image of our practice, she got really nasty! I asked her politely about her own vet, and she ranted on about how great he was. I then asked if she would change to someone else, just because they were advertised on the side of a bus. She got red and huffy, accused me of wasting her time, and left...with nothing (as Ann Robinson would say ) Oh- she also tried to tell me that if I didn't register with Thomson, tere was no other way to be in the google top page. I told her I had registered with google (FOC) and she told me I couldn't have, and I was wrong! Er, well, I didn't pay you anything, love, and yet there I am...[/quote]

Unfortunately there are people who think this is good salesmanship. Often they are scammers. I'll lay that woman was on commission only, or anyway on some performance-related bonus.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Thu, 31 May 2012 02:06:21 GMT

[quote user="Michael Coe"]Over the next few years Mobile Media is going to take off as advances in technology means that everyone carriers their mobile phone at least 90% of their time.[/quote]

Everyone?

PS "media" is a plural word.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Julie Innes — Wed, 30 May 2012 22:08:57 GMT

When I opened last year, as a new practice with zero clients, I was bombarded with all sorts of people wanting me to advertise with them.

I did list on Yell.com (which cost half the price for a year as the price of a half page "story" which ran for 1 week in the local paper!!) and it is possibly the only form of advertising that I am keeping on this year, as we are now building nicely by word of mouth I did get a few clients via Yell- mainly because if you google "vets in XXX", Yell is one of the top options to come up, and links directly to our website (which I wrote myself, under duress, but which seems to give people a good "feel" for our practice) We also have a couple of good reviews on Yell (which are entirely genuine!!)

I sometimes ask new clients what made them come to us, and those that haven't come to us via word of mouth have usually come to us via our website, so I feel it's worthwhile keeping a decent online profile. Decided against the video,though- if I wanted to I could add a video to my own website, for a fraction of the cost!!

Thomson Local were really horrible when they came to "talk " to me about my "advertising needs". The woman who came along was pushy and wanted me to take the "full" package, which would allow me to advertise my practice on the side of a bus!! When I tried to say I didn't really feel that was in keeping with the image of our practice, she got really nasty! I asked her politely about her own vet, and she ranted on about how great he was. I then asked if she would change to someone else, just because they were advertised on the side of a bus. She got red and huffy, accused me of wasting her time, and left...with nothing (as Ann Robinson would say ) Oh- she also tried to tell me that if I didn't register with Thomson, tere was no other way to be in the google top page. I told her I had registered with google (FOC) and she told me I couldn't have, and I was wrong! Er, well, I didn't pay you anything, love, and yet there I am...

Our facebook page has surprised me with its popularity with the clients (although it CAN be a bit of a pain when people post about wanting an appointment for wed 3rd when I am at home on the Sunday night...)

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Susie Samuel — Wed, 30 May 2012 20:17:40 GMT

Bob, are you talking about VetHelpDirect?

If so we have a rigorous process of checking that reviews are genuine. If we are in any doubt and for randomly selected reviews we ask the reviewers to provide evidence that they are a client at the vets. Although we will not publish anything defamatory we will always publish the score and non-defamatory comments on a bad review. I am not saying that a review from the bosses aunt couldn't slip through the net but tripadvisor we are not, humans are involved not just spam robots!

[quote user="Bob Russell"] all the practice reviews are 5 star and all the reviewed practices are from the same group.[/quote]

We have several practices and some groups that have promoted the reviewing facility by using a review widget on their website, and asking clients to leave a review when they visit the practice - these practices have got lots of reviews.

[quote user="Bob Russell"] An extra sting in the tail was a client of ours praised us 'especially good with difficult dogs'. We have seen an upswing in the number of difficult dogs being registered at the practice - marvelous![/quote]

Maybe you should solicit reviews from clients that are happy with other aspects of your practice that you are trying to promote, the review about the difficult dogs has obviously had a powerful effect.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Susie Samuel — Wed, 30 May 2012 19:14:21 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"].

This is an intermediate link used for counting how many people click through to your website. Google 'sees' this, not your practice url, and therefore it does not help towards your search engine marketing.

The ideal link would:

be from a high page rank page
link DIRECT to your website (ie when you mouse over the link, you see your own website address, not some strange intermediate tracking url)
link from search friendly words, like this: Link to veterinary practice

[/quote]

Agreed, and all planned for the next website. We have done the best we can with this version, it was genuinely ground breaking for its time but is now creaking slightly. What we do have is a very strong page rank, lots of visitors and search engine positioning which we will ensure is carried through to the new version.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Michael Coe — Wed, 30 May 2012 19:08:32 GMT

Looking at the Yellow Pages it has certainly become smaller!

In todays business environment it is essential to have a website presence and attached to the site some forms of social media. Social media is taking over traditional forms of advertising such as Yellow Pages and Yell.com. In my opinion Yellow Pages and Yell.com are expensive and as a marketing tool, as with all marketing there needs to be some form of monitoring to assess where clients are finding a Veterinary Practice.

The majority of people now tend to go online at home or at work to find out information about Veterinary Practices when deciding where to take their Pet for treatment. The design of the website is essential and must be user friendly. Once the website is up and running then links to other social media sites such as You Tube, Twitter,Face book and so on help to build your on line presence.

Social media is the new form of advertising as generation Y( who are the teenagers of today) mainly look on the web and social media sites to make informed choices of where to purchase goods and services. Over the next few years Mobile Media is going to take off as advances in technology means that everyone carriers their mobile phone at least 90% of their time.

Social media and websites should also be supported by other traditional forms of advertising. However some past advertising techniques are becoming less effective and their uses should be investigated into the return on investment (ROI).

To ensure social media is positive for the Practcice ensure that you have a social Media policy in place for all employees and terms and conditions for Clients. Also make sure that sites can be managed by the business so that unappropriate posts cannot be posted by aggrieved clients and staff.

Social media is essential to the practice and should be embraced to promote business in our technological age.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Cat Henstridge — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:25:41 GMT

Probably because they have realised the power of good reviews and deliberately gone out of their way to get them!

[quote user="Bob Russell"]I don't trust review websites[/quote]

But your clients will and do!

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:53:43 GMT

[quote user="Laurence Webb"][quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]. As regards any-vet, I see that their links are not direct to practice websites[/quote]I just checked our practice and there is a link in the top left hand side to our website[/quote]

Yes, there is a link to your website, but it isn't a direct one, so Google can't 'see' it and factor it into its search engine rankings.

If you hover your mouse over the link (in internet explorer) and look in the bottom left of your browser, you'll see it actually links to http://www.any-uk-vet.co.uk/cgi-bin/counter/link.pl?id=5148

The ideal link would:

be from a high page rank page
link DIRECT to your website (ie when you mouse over the link, you see your own website address, not some strange intermediate tracking url)
link from search friendly words, like this: Link to veterinary practice

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Bob Russell — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:28:50 GMT

Pardon me for being cynical but on a certain veterinary 'helpline' website all the practice reviews are 5 star and all the reviewed practices are from the same group.

I don't trust review websites as they are too easily influenced by a small number of reviews - good or bad. I would hate to think that any of the reviews are not independent!

We had a minor Facebook spat started by a bad debtor and someone who had not been offered a job here so it worries me when clients are offered the chance to review a practice. An extra sting in the tail was a client of ours praised us 'especially good with difficult dogs'. We have seen an upswing in the number of difficult dogs being registered at the practice - marvelous!

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Laurence Webb — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:09:50 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]. As regards any-vet, I see that their links are not direct to practice websites[/quote]I just checked our practice and there is a link in the top left hand side to our website

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:15:32 GMT

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]I can't repeat the top 10 searches but the point I was making was that everyone feels the web is the way forward, but I thought this was an interesting illustration of who was using the site. Whilst I accept that there may be 10000 PDSA searches and 9999 for a non charity clinic, having 8 in the top 10 was very revealing.[/quote]

Neil, I'm struggling to keep up here. You say that the top searches on http://www.any-uk-vet.co.uk/ were for pdsa practices. But how do you know that? I can't see anywhere on the site where it says which are the most searched for practices.

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]How many clients do use sites like this to find a vet? Not as many as you might think in my opinion, hence the reply to this post.[/quote]

I too believe that the number of people that search directories for a business is very low. Most people cut out the middleman and search directly through google. But that doesn't lessen the importance of directories like any-vet. Three other reasons why it is or could be adviseable to be listed with a directory:

a) Seach engine marketing. A link from a well established website to your website will help push your website up the google rankings, sometimes markedly so. As regards any-vet, I see that their links are not direct to practice websites, so they are of no value in this regard. But other directories can be good.

b) To give potential customers a little added confidence. When you search for something online and find there is only one reference to it in the google results, it has considerably less 'cred' than something you see which has tens, or hundreds, or thousands of references. So a listing on a third party directory helps give your customers a little added confidence about your business.

c) To increase your online visibility if you don't have a website, or it is very new (I would expect a page on any-vet to climb the charts faster than a new practice website).

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Neil Wheadon — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:17:52 GMT

[quote user="Susie Samuel"]Which site? I believe that all demographics use the internet, pdsa and non pdsa![/quote]

It was yours Any UK Vet Ltd as I was trying to find a surgery

I can't repeat the top 10 searches but the point I was making was that everyone feels the web is the way forward, but I thought this was an interesting illustration of who was using the site. Whilst I accept that there may be 10000 PDSA searches and 9999 for a non charity clinic, having 8 in the top 10 was very revealing.

How many clients do use sites like this to find a vet? Not as many as you might think in my opinion, hence the reply to this post.

Neil

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 30 May 2012 00:30:04 GMT

[quote user="Susie Samuel"]As for the paper yellow pages, I have no idea how many people use that.[/quote]

LOTS of people but the BT phonebook is taking over.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Susie Samuel — Tue, 29 May 2012 19:33:47 GMT

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]the most searched for veterinary surgeries. 8 of the top 10 were PDSA hospitals which says a little about who's using these sites. [/quote]

Which site? I believe that all demographics use the internet, pdsa and non pdsa! Sorry if I've misunderstood. I agree about word of mouth recommendations and also think that the internet is a perfect forum for eliciting and nurturing them. Once made the recommendations can spread much faster than on the dog walking circuit and reach far more people... scary and exciting all at the same time!

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Neil Wheadon — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:15:21 GMT

Crikey, my spelling was awful in the post above, apologees

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Neil Wheadon — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:13:58 GMT

I found this site a few weeks ago and the most interesting part was the most searched for veterinary surgeries. 8 of the top 10 were PDSA hospitals which says a little about who's using these sites. A marketting friend discussing vets last month said that vets were the classic word of mouth business, so is their too much reliance on the web and paper advertising may be a better way.

Neil

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Susie Samuel — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:58:03 GMT

A fairly recent thing Arlo! Acquired almost exactly a year ago. We will be relaunching soon with a new spangly version. Thanks for your comments :)

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Arlo Guthrie — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:26:19 GMT

[quote user="Susie Samuel"]We own any-uk-vet [/quote]

Oh, it's YOU that owns that one!

I've often looked for a practice and found their details on any-uk-vet (i.e. it ranks well on Google). If I owned a practice I would certainly make sure it was listed on any-uk-vet with up to date details and a link to my website for search engine marketing purposes.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Susie Samuel — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:59:51 GMT

Takes alot of shredding though!

We own any-uk-vet and vethelpdirect.com, we get around 155,000 unique visitors a month, so those are actual people 96.5% from the UK. That is more than the readership of many national magazines the only difference being they are all looking for a vet. I suspect yell.com are similar as they rank similarly in search engines, of couse they will give you some massive figure that includes plumbers, florists and restaurants!

Unlike yell.com any-uk-vet is free to update so make sure you have taken advantage of this. You can add description, opening hours, website link etc etc. This is an antique website, beautifully written and very fast for its time, we are currently redeveloping.

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Laurence Webb — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:37:17 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Yell.com worries me a bit as more people use on-line directories but there are a hundred other sites doing the same job[/quote]Yes that's one of my concerns. If Yell.com has some sort of brand loyalty then fine, but I suspect many people just use whichever search engine their browser uses as default.

Great advice Susie. I'll see if we can get the page view stats etc from Yell.com. My Yellow Pages sits on a shelf for a year until the new one arrives and I throw the old one away. Perhaps it could be used more productively as cat litter!!

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Susie Samuel — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:27:08 GMT

We recommend the minimum entry in Yell.com with a link to your website from the entry. All inbound links help to maintain your position in the search engines, Yell.com has a good page rank (level of importance in googles algorithm) so a link from there and other highly ranked directories are well worth having. CEOs of the top performing companies in the UK rate spending on Search engine optimisation as the best return on investment for any internet marketing activity. To work out if a directory is likely to have a high level of importance in google see how it performs itself for searches. There are also a significant number of real people that use internet directories, it is still easier to get a comprehensive list on a directory than google search in many cases. The audience should be highly targeted too, you don't browse yell.com for fun unless you are seriously bored!!

Ask them for unique page views of your entry and time spent on the page (dont' listen to hits/ page views or anyother statistic), check for yourself how relevant these page views are, eg are they showing them to people who are not from your area/ not looking for a vet and counting that as a page view or are all the appearances of your entry reasonable. Take this into consideration when looking at the page views. Its easy to be bowled over by high numbers of internet statistics when actually a far smaller number of real people looking for a vet in your area seeing the entry can be very cost effective way to spend your marketing budget.

As for the paper yellow pages, I have no idea how many people use that. Some suggestions on our facebook page recently for uses included a step to operate on, flower press and cat litter!!

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Bob Russell — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:10:14 GMT

We keep a presence in both but the ads get smaller and smaller. Yell.com worries me a bit as more people use on-line directories but there are a hundred other sites doing the same job and we cannot afford to pay them all!!!

Re: Are Yellow Pages and Yell.com worth it?

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 29 May 2012 10:35:17 GMT

We just have a single line listing in the BT Phonebook. I think Yellow Pages is dead in the water except maybe for the older generation, my grandparents don't have computers.