Yell sponsored link: worth it?

[LondonPrintBrokers]

Hi all,

We've been approached by (a sales person from) Yell, offering us a sponsored listing on Yell.com / .co.uk

Were we to follow such a route, we'd want a listing in the central London section but all (three) of the top sponsored links are taken (have been sold).

So, we're looking at a "weighted" sponsored link to appear on the front page of a search for, say "London printers" on Yell's site. They're asking for £960, payable over 10 months, interest free. They also say that a sponsored ad will improve our organic search results, which I believe as more people will hopefully click through to our site and increase its relevance. In addition, they're claiming to give us SEO for Google, Yahoo! Ask and Bing.

I'd trust Yell over any of the third-party agency SEO companies, so my question is: is it worth it? £110 a month inc. VAT seems a no-brainer, as we should recoup the cost easily but I'm looking for prior experience from you boarders before I commit.

Many thanks in advance,

Steve Laker

London Print Brokers

 

[Postforce]

Hi Steve

Always seems to lots of negative vibes on here about Yell - although I have no personal experience of them - but it generally seems to come down to the fact that if you are dealing with Jo public then its worth a go - but if you are dealing with businesses then money can be better spent. Would you use yell to find a business - I wouldn't.

 

[eventdomain]

interest free

Does that come with a mortgage?

As a directory operator myself, I can say that there's no such thing as 'interest free' sponsored adverts - the term is nonsense. You must be careful with sales staff, they use the bs factor when selling.

£110 a month inc. VAT is a crazy amount to pay, and as a YP user in the past all we got for our listing was a bunch of cold calls - waste of time.

"London printers" heck, Eventdomain.co.uk will do that for you for £40 for an entire year! £900 indeed, Yell and YP are for trades people, not other b2b businesses.

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

In a word, No. Yell sponsored listings are not worth it. Spend the money on some good SEO or a PPC campaign

 

[Galway]

I would gauge this in the same way that I used to do with yellow pages offline, what would be the networth of my average sale, how many would i need to cover my subscription, if its one or two then maybe its worth a punt but it means one year before you knew whether it was worth the money.

I never use yell myself.

 

[QVA - Emma]

Put it this way - a client with 8 listings on Yell has had 6 clickthroughs from them and zero sales in 4 months....

I had a company try and sell me listings for 7 pubs on a business directory the other day of which "we will plough all the money into PPC campaigns and bring you targeted traffic" for £249 per pub or £900 for the lot you can imagine my response......

 

[An Oasis]

If in doubt go to the mother ship (take a peak at Yell on the market to see where they are going). Bargains to be had me thinks, you just need to have the balls to call their bluff and then set your own price.

 

[e-Strategy]

Sounds like a silly price for one link, you could better invest the money in some artical marketing, link building or on-site SEO.

All the best,
Kyle

 

[Rienne]

It was possible at one time to just put up a free listing with a url, assume that is still available?

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

It was possible at one time to just put up a free listing with a url, assume that is still available?

I don't think the free backlink is available anymore.

 

[cmcp]

I would avoid Yell and take Boxbys advice.

 

[North Wales Inks]

Hi

The free listing for yell.com you need to phone up this phone number
0800 555 444 then Press 2

As their are trying to hide the free listing on the web site. I hope it helps you out

 

[streetslocal]

Yell has a place for many types of business owners.
Tradesmen,restraunts,take aways etc.
Its a case of horses for causes and trial and error.

 

[JElder]

The good thing we find with Yell is that there are relatively few telemarketing companies with sponsored links, and people tend to search wider areas - the county, or country. So our listing has a change of being visible on Yell UK wide for around £800 a year.

We have had 62 click through, plus some calls - and as the ad shows exactly what we do, these should be pretty targeted. However, the cost per lead on this is very high.

It's hard to quantify the effect on SEO, but google webmaster tools is showing a link from a page called Advertisting-and-Marketing/Telemarketing/UK/Hampshire (spot the spelling mistake!), so not bad for being specific, but the PageRank is 'unranked'.

I suspect next year we will not renew, as there are cheaper options.

 

[eventdomain]

Put it this way - a client with 8 listings on Yell has had 6 clickthroughs from them and zero sales in 4 months....

I had a company try and sell me listings for 7 pubs on a business directory the other day of which "we will plough all the money into PPC campaigns and bring you targeted traffic" for £249 per pub or £900 for the lot you can imagine my response......

Doesn't surprise me Emma

 

[eventdomain]

We have had 62 click throughs

Is that all? - we could send you at least 100, no trouble whatsoever. We have clients that have had 400 clickthroughs from us and some over 1000 - examples are on the site...

I keep telling folks that YP and Yell are for Tradespeople, not for B2b companies.

 

[BdTS]

I keep telling folks that YP and Yell are for Tradespeople, not for B2b companies.

You might want to have a word with the Fire Risk Assessor in the North-East I put on their site in April who has had 20 leads already despite taking scant coverage against my advice.

When you are done there, have a chat with the Energy Assessor I placed with Yell.com a few weeks ago who got two Commercial EPC customers within a fortnight of being on there, despite a fault in his ad meaning some of his keywords weren't working properly!

I could name you a multitude of companies who I've placed on there with great success who deal exclusively in the B2B market.

As I've said on here many times, and as StreetsLocal pointed out earlier in the thread, if you are going to advertise with Yell, Touch or anyone else, get STATS.

How many people in your area advertise?

Do any of them have Call Counters on their ad? Find out their response!

How many searches do they receive in the areas YOU cover on a monthly basis.

Based upon the above factors, do you believe you could get enough to convert the amount of work necessary to justify the cost of the ad campaign proposed to you?

The answer will differ for many people and many, not all, of the people who complain about Yell will not have done the above research.

Comparing Yell to Google in terms of clicks is totally flawed. 92% of customer contacts from Yell ads, even on .com, come from phone-calls.

 

[BdTS]

I would avoid Yell and take Boxbys advice.

As above, have you got the stats necessary to make a solid decision either way?

 

[bigmedia]

I had a first page sponsored add on google for 8 search terms for £100 a month. I got a basic yell advert with web link and got nothing from it. B2B aint worth it. I used to think a lot of people used yell, but I'd hazard a guess that most people are just ploughing the same search terms into google nowadays.

 

[BdTS]

I had a first page sponsored add on google for 8 search terms for £100 a month. I got a basic yell advert with web link and got nothing from it. B2B aint worth it. I used to think a lot of people used yell, but I'd hazard a guess that most people are just ploughing the same search terms into google nowadays.

If it's a Value Listing your on about mate, honest to god, they are quite simply about as effective as a one liner, only difference being there is a weblink on it.

Look where your ad is on that page if you search "Graphic Designers" in Stoke, then think about where it appears on expanded and wider area searches.

Prominence is now just as important on Yell.com as it is on Google. One of my clients is in the same field as you and although he spends a fair bit more on there, he is doing very well out of it. It's got him about 10 leads a month on average.

 

[BdTS]

Incidentally, I should add when I say "he's spending a fair bit more", I mean he's got an ad-listing, which is the step up from Value Listings and what all of your other competitors there have.

 

[eventdomain]

You cited a few companies that aren't true B2b services, not in a regular services sense eg: not an office supplies co, that supplies pure B2b products....

Fire Assessors aren't your normal type of company, needed yes, but not a natural B2b service. Although, Yell.com probably works okayish bcos I doubt there are many targeted websites out there for Fire/Energy services - I could be wrong, but I doubt it, knowing the directory sector as I do.

But the main point most people make, is that YP was originally a 'Free for all' directory, but then got known for the Trades element, bcos it works well for that sector. Eg: So, you want a plumber, and what's the first place people look for that, probably their local Yellow Pages.

But now, Yell.com is here, and although it caters more for B2b, it's still a transfer of the old paper directory -- online! I've used the paper directory myself and yes, got a few clients out of it, but every business could say similar things, but those 3 or 4 clients isn't 300 or 1000 clients is it.

Secondly, do Yell & Touch offer private stats to clients? I've not read abut this on Yell's website, so I'm uncertain about this. So these stats may not be available at all...

Do any of them have Call Counters on their ad? Find out their response!

But don't people know this response rate by now? Mine was 'out of 35 enquiries, I got about 3 paying clients' - not great.

How many searches do they receive in the areas YOU cover on a monthly basis.

See, that sounds like a pitch from a Yell sales rep I had once. Businesses want to see clickthroughs to websites, even pageviews are better than nothing at all, at least an advertiser can see some kind of result and know their page/advert is being looked at.

Based upon the above factors, do you believe you could get enough to convert the amount of work necessary to justify the cost of the ad campaign proposed to you?

A big NO to that one, bcos it's just not the right publication for my business or former businesses. So I wouldn't be using it anyway.

See, any business can't list themselves and expect the same results as say: a plumber gets - and reason is bcos Yell is still a directory for the trades. You try advertising a techy company and see what happens - it doesn't work well.

Nobody needs to do much research, it's just a directory, and the only true test is to use it and see.

 

[webpromoterservice]

i have used Yell before and seems to be too much competition.i would rather use that money on google adwords.
And sponsored links do not help in SEO,whether its with Google,Yell or any other PPc company

 

[iyereoboite]

Personally i think its a nonsense amount to pay to have your listing on an online directory. To be frank if you saved your £105 a mnth and then wait a year you would have £1000+ to pay a web developer to make you a really good site giving you the online presece you want. Then use some more money to buy some sponsored google ads and overall you will generate more online presence that way.

Bottom line .... to expensive.

I run my own online directory and its 100% free

 

[BdTS]

Personally i think its a nonsense amount to pay to have your listing on an online directory. To be frank if you saved your £105 a mnth and then wait a year you would have £1000+ to pay a web developer to make you a really good site giving you the online presece you want. Then use some more money to buy some sponsored google ads and overall you will generate more online presence that way.

Bottom line .... to expensive.

I run my own online directory and its 100% free

....and do you have 10 million unique monthly users?

 

[eventdomain]

....and do you have 10 million unique monthly users?

I doubt even the almighty Yell.com gets that. I would have thought about 4 million maybe, maybe a bit less...

 

[BdTS]

I doubt even the almighty Yell.com gets that. I would have thought about 4 million maybe, maybe a bit less...

Sorry to disappoint you, but they do.

Unique users jumped quite dramatically last year, as did the revenue generated by it.

Not bad for a company that's going bust and all that. :redface: