It seems that the Yellow Pages Association is following in the footsteps of its members, Dex One (formally Dex Media, Qwest Dex Uswest Dex), and SuperMedia (formally Idearc, Verizon). According to a recent SearchEngineLand.com publication, the Yellow Pages Association has changed its name to the “Local Search Association.” The name change reflects the transformation of yellow pages usage from publishers of primarily print directories to multi-platform providers of leads, calls and clicks to local businesses.
With the decreased usage of the yellow pages year over year, the transformation was inevitable. The directional media publishers have realized that the need for a broader product suite is mandatory, and their offerings thus far have been less than enough to keep up with the growing gap in lost print revenues.
With this in mind, the organization is also reaching out to new constituencies that surround the yellow pages and local search industries. New members of the expanded trade association include CityGrid, MerchEngines, Kudzu, Telnic Limited, Kenshoo, Thrive Analytics, deCarta, dotMobi, and VendAsta Technologies, as reported by Searchengineland.com.
Local publishers in the Denver Metro area have implemented pay per click (PPC) products into their offerings, but haven’t backed it with any real measurable technology. Most campaigns that I have seen don’t use the customer’s native website, and some even use a landing page built into the vendor’s site i.e. Dex One. They also seem to be using the “Clicks” money on a tier structure in that clicks fulfilled off the publishers yellow pages site are being charged at the same rate or higher than those filled by Google.
If you look at the overall site usage (above), you can see that online yellow pages usage has returned to the levels of 2004 or below. With the decrease of organically generated traffic to the online yellow pages sites necessitating the purchase of paid inclusion in SERPs, which has resulted in higher costs to their customers, coupled with lower usage online as well as offline, making the foreseeable future of the yellow page publishers very bleak.
Spyfu.com Estimated daily spend report
The Yellow Pages Association is certainly taking a more proactive approach in changing the image of the association, rather than trying to add product offerings. I have always been a big believer in do what you do best. Dex (in Denver) is unquestionably the thousand pound gorilla in the print yellow pages space, and still has the lion’s share of usage when it comes to print, but they are failing to keep up with all their competitors in the local internet space.
I will continue to monitor the trends reports and keep you apprised of the situation.