Local Ad Advice » Paid Options

Paid Local Online Advertising Options

skhot — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:12:36 +0000

There are a multitude of paid options when it comes to paid advertising for you local site.
Options range from hiring a third party service to do everything for you and make all of
the advertising decisions to running the show yourself.

What category do you fit into?

“I have a large budget and I want someone to run my entire online advertising campaign for me.”

Going with a full service provider is probably your best option

“I have basic computer skills and I would rather pay a fixed amount every month.”

The flat monthly fee services typically require only a one time set up on your part.
The costs range from $50 to more than $200 per month.
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“I have computer skills and I have time to manage my own campaign.”

Pay per click is your best option
With that being said you could also benefit from one of the flat monthly fee
services as well.

Paid Options	Brief Description
Pay Per Click	You pay for each visitor who clicks on your ad.
Flat Monthly Fees	You pay a flat monthly fee. With many of the services your advertisement will show up prominently above other listings similarly to the full page ads in the printed yellow pages. Many of these services will also manage pay per click campaigns for you.
Submission Services	You Pay a flat fee for someone else to submit your site to the major local search engines and internet yellow pages
Full Service Providers	They will walk you through the entire process. Beginning with a building a landing page or website and ending with your phone ringing.

Full Service Providers

skhot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:03:19 +0000

Also known as local aggregators these companies do everything for you.

Name:	Reach Local
Website URL:	http://www.reachlocal.com/
BBB Rating:	F
Google Pagerank:	3/10
Alexa Pagerank:	5021
Price:	Prices starting around $500 and up for initial setup. Then you pay monthly. Monthly price is variable, but it is typically at least a few hundred a month.
What You Get:	They set up and run locally targeted pay per click campaigns Ability to track ROI, Ability to record phone calls generated from website. Their software can actually determine which ads generated the phone calls
How to Submit:	Click Here for more information
Contact Info:	866-500-1692
My comments:	Most popular full service provide. They currently have an F rating with the better business bureau. There have been multiple complaints filed with no response from the company. With that being said I know a few people personally who use this service and are satisfied with it. Nice back office with detailed reports. Very good job at managing keyword cost.

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Name:	Yodle
Website URL:	http://www.yodle.com/
BBB Rating:	A-
Google Pagerank:	3/10
Alexa Pagerank:	27869
Price:	Prices starting around $500 and up for initial setup. Then you pay monthly. Monthly price is variable, but it is typically at least a few hundred a month.
What You Get:	They set up and run locally targeted pay per click campaigns They start with a Free website analysis. They will suggest changes to your website. They can also build websites
How to Submit:	Click Here for more information
Contact Info:	877-276-5104
My comments:	Very nice back office that provides detailed tracking. Also has ability to track and record number of phone calls generated from website. They also do a good job of managing your keyword costs.

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Name:	AdReady
Website URL:	http://www.adready.com/
BBB Rating:	F
Google Pagerank:	6/10
Alexa Pagerank:	28116
Price:	$20 minimum daily budget
What You Get:	Online software that walks you through creating a visual ad. Ads are content ads placed on thousands of websites such as MSN. They are not pay per click ads, so you are paying for impressions.
How to Submit:	Click Here for more information
Contact Info:	866-400-2160
My comments:	They only do banner advertising. If your business is more consumer oriented and you are in a fairly competitive area this might be a good option for you.

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Name:	Jivox
Website URL:	http://www.jivox.com/
BBB Rating:
Google Pagerank:	4/10
Alexa Pagerank:	47464
Price:	Starting at $250/month
What You Get:	They specialize in creating video advertisements for your local business. You pay only for videos viewed. The ads appear on Google Local, news websites, local.com, and weather websites
How to Submit:	Click Here for more information
Contact Info:	866-935-4869
My comments:	Fairly new company with a novel concept. If you have a business in a very competitive marketplace this might be an option for you. Most business owners will get more bang for their buck with regular pay per click

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Name:	WPromote
Website URL:	http://www.wpromote.com/
BBB Rating:	B+
Google Pagerank:	5/10
Alexa Pagerank:	37472
Price:	Starting at $99/month
What You Get:	They offer lots of different services. For $99/month you get a fully managed pay per click campaign. They also will do website creation and search engine optimization.
How to Submit:	Click Here for more information
Contact Info:	866-500-1692
My comments:	They are a viable option, but local businesses are not their main focus like Yodle and reachlocal. Nice back office and affordable introductory rate.

Submission Services

skhot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:02:00 +0000

There are many services that offer search engine submission, but relatively few that offer submission specifically to local search engines and local search directories. AddLocal will do this, but I recommend submitted yourself.

No one knows your business and cares about how the listing will appear to your customers like you. As an aside note I strongly recommend against paying anyone to submit your website to the search engines as this is a complete waste of your time and money. The search engines will find your website on their own.

Name:	Universal Business Listing
Website URL:	http://www.universalbusinesslisting.org/
Price:	$30 / year
Google Pagerank:	4/10
Alexa Pagerank:	133,697
What You Get:	Automated submission to:* Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN * Online Yellow Pages such as Superpages, Yellowpages.com * Portals and Guides such as AOL, CitySearch * Cell Phones and Mobile devices such as BlackBerry and iPhone * 411 Directory Assistance * In-Car GPS Navigation * Telematics such as OnStar
How to Submit:	Click Here to Submit
My comments:	This company has been around for a few years now. They definitely save you some time and trouble, especially with submitting to the smaller local search engines and portals. I would still make sure to manually claim your listing for some of the more popular websites.

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Name:	Add Local
Website URL:	http://www.addlocal.com
Price:	$247 initial fee, then $247/month
Google Pagerank:
Alexa Pagerank:	1,198,346
What You Get:	Website optimization for 20 keywords.Guaranteed first page placement on Google for at least 1 keyword within first 30 days.
How to Submit:	Click Here for more information
My comments:	They are fairly expensive, but they do have the guarantee. I do not have any firsthand experience with this company.

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Name:	LocalAdAdvice
Website URL:	http://www.localadadvice.com
Price:	$199 one time fee, then $69/month
Google Pagerank:
Alexa Pagerank:	952,678
What You Get:	Website optimization for 10 keywords.Guaranteed first page placement on Google local search for at least 4 keywords within the first 90 days or your money back.
How to Submit:	Click Here to Submit
My comments:	I am obviously a little bit biased as this is a service I provide. However, my price is much lower than my competitors and I offer the money back guarantee.Also most local businesses do not need their website optimized for more than a handful of keywords.

Flat Monthly Fees

skhot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:00:34 +0000

The following companies charge a flat monthly fee for their services. They typically offer the following services

Preferred ad placement. Usually you can have your banner ad placed prominently above the other listings in your category.
Pay Per Click Management. You pick the keywords and they do the rest of the work of setting up the campaign and managing it for you. LocalAdLink is very good at this
Placement of your ad to their partner sites such as Facebook, myspace, youtube.

Some companies offer all three of these services, while others specialize in only one.

Site Name	Site Popularity (As determined by Alexa.com)	Price	What you Get	My comments	Submission Link
Yellowpages.com	652	Variable depending on your zip code. In a mid-sized city the price started at $50 – $200 per month.	You get a banner ad placed above the free results. The more you pay the higher up in the results you’re listing is placed.	I recommend using services such as local.com and localadlink.com that provide you with exposure to pay per click searches rather than just getting preferred placement on one site.	Submit Now
Local.com	2064	$49.95/month *Is an introductory offer. I do not know what the regular rate is	Preferred ad placement on local.com Your add in sponsored results with Google, yahoo, Superpages, YellowPages	The introductory price is not bad for what you get. They do not list what the regular price is. They also do the work of getting your site placed on the sponsored results for Google and yahoo.	Submit Now
Manta.com	2534	$49.95/month * First month is FREE	Preferred ad placement with graphic	Their site is more B2B (Business to business) directed. If you run a B2B it is probably worth trying out the free 30 day trial to see what kind of traffic you generate.	Submit Now
LocalAdLink.com	76453	Packages ranging from $49.95/month to $199.95/month	Preferred ad placement on LocalAdLink.com Your add in the sponsored results for Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, BOOMj	They have a strong record for getting your business at the top of Google’s pay per click sponsored results. I recommend this service	Submit Now

Pay Per Click

skhot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:58:58 +0000

The direct marketer’s dream come true. You specify exactly how much you are willing to pay for each visitor to your website. Originally started by GoTo.com. Now dominated by Google.

Pay Per Click advertising is a very powerful tool, but it requires time and active management. The biggest mistake made by beginners is to simply select some very generic keywords enter a high bid price and walk away.

You need to be actively managing your campaign. You should be using Google Analytics as well as the tracking tools in your Adwords account to analyze exactly what your conversion rate and ROI is.

Make sure you read Geotargeting: How to Use it to Out-Compete Your Pay Per Click Competitors before starting your campaign

If you are serious about learning Pay Per Click Marketing I highly recommend Perry Marshall’s book “The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords”.

Site Name	Site Popularity (As determined by Alexa.com)	Price *Variable. Depends on keyword price	What you Get	My comments	Submit Link
Google Adwords	1	No minimum.		Largest and most popular pay per click search engine. Very user friendly interface. Great tutorials. Start here. Once you get comfortable with Google Adwords you can start branching out to other PPC engines.	Submit Now
Yahoo	2	No minimum	Your ad appears on Yahoo.com, MSN, Excite, CNN, Altavista, Infospace to name a few.	Originally goto.com, then overture.com, then bought by Yahoo. It is the 2nd largest pay per click search engine. Start using Yahoo after you are comfortable with Google Adwords	Submit Now
MSN	15			Much lower volume than Google or Yahoo. More consumer oriented, so avoid if you are selling a B2B service	Submit Now
Superpages.com	632	$50 minimum to start. No monthly minimum	Preferred ad placement on superpages.com. Only pay when individuals click on your listing	The yellow page pay per click is a good adjuvant to Google Adwords. If you have the time it is probably worth it.	Submit Now
LocalPages.com	7604				Submit Now
Citysearch.com	879	minimum $200/month	Customized Business profile page Professional editing of your ad copy Placement on Partner websites They determine and buy search engine keywords	There have been reports about fraudulent clicks. I do not recommend this service.	Submit Now

For a more detailed comparison visit: payperclicksearchengines.com

Data Providers

skhot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:57:28 +0000

These companies provide data to most of the other online yellow pages and local search sites. This is why your business is likely already listed with sites such as google local, superpages.com, and others without you every having submitted it to them.

It is imperative that check to make sure that they have your business listed with the correct information. If the business information is not correct or you are not listed I have provided links below.

Name:	InfoUSA
Website URL:	http://www.infousa.com/
BBB Rating:	B
Google Pagerank:	6/10
Alexa Pagerank:	35,313
How to Submit:	Go to http://www.infousa411.com/Business.aspx Search for your business name. If you are not listed or the information is incorrect find the link at the bottom of the page that says “Update/Add Business”
Contact Info:	800.321.0869 help@infousa.com
My comments:	Do not let the fact that the site itself is not very popular. Their data is used with Yahoo Local, AOL Local, and mapquest just to name a few. Make sure that you are listed with them. It can take one month or longer to get listed or to update information.

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Name:	Acxiom
Website URL:	http://www.acxiom.com
BBB Rating:	A
Google Pagerank:	6/10
Alexa Pagerank:	103,929
How to Submit:	Acxiom still does not allow local business owners to modify their own data via the web. I called the company and was told that they would be adding this feature to the website, but it is not up of yet. They pull their data from local phone books, so this is currently the only way to get listed with them. You can however call them directly to verify that your listing is correct or you can check a website that is known to use their data. Two of the bigger ones are: http://www.local.com/ http://www.yellowbook.com/
Contact Info:	1-866-977-6019 https://www.acxiom.com/ContactUs_Us.aspx
My comments:	Lots of websites use their data. Even though it is a pain in the ass to verify your data I would go ahead and do it.

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Name:	Localeze
Website URL:	http://www.localeze.com/
BBB Rating:	No rating
Google Pagerank:	5/10
Alexa Pagerank:	83,933
How to Submit:	Go to http://webapp.localeze.com/bizreg/update.aspx Search for your business to see if you are already listed.If not listed go to http://webapp.localeze.com/bizreg/Add.aspx
Contact Info:	1.800.960.3755 http://marketing.targusinfo.com/LocalezeContact.html
My comments:	Not quite as important to submit to as the InfoUSA and Acxiom and it is likely that they already has your business information. Submit if you have the time.

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Name:	IBegin
Website URL:	http://www.ibegin.com/
BBB Rating:	Not Rated
Google Pagerank:	5/10
Alexa Pagerank:	21,095
How to Submit:	Go to http://www.ibegin.com/ and search for your business If your business is not found go to: http://www.ibegin.com/business-center/submit/
Contact Info:	http://www.ibegin.com/contact/
My comments:	Submit if you have the time.

Local Ad Advice » Paid Options

Paid Local Online Advertising Options

Full Service Providers

Reach Local

Yodle

AdReady

Jivox

WPromote

Submission Services

Universal Business Listing

Add Local

LocalAdAdvice

Flat Monthly Fees

Pay Per Click

Data Providers

InfoUSA

Acxiom

Localeze

IBegin