As small business owners you need advertising, and so become inundated with calls soliciting your ad dollars.

The phone book has been dead for some time. Read this article from American Express, dated Nov. 2009! 

How do you decipher where to put your ad dollars?

The above article mentions Yelp. Yelp began slowly years ago as an online directory. If you have been in business for more than 5 years you are probably already listed. Years ago I began suggesting clients fill out a free listing on Yelp and including their website address, photos and other info. But Yelp has succeeded in moving ahead of the pack of online directories and is a viable player.

Google trends allows you a real look at comparisons. Once you arrive: type in: yelp, yellowpages, manta

(Don’t forget the commas)

You’ll see a graph of how each is doing. You can do this for any of the sources soliciting your ad dollars: supermedia, etc. You can finally see how well a company is doing, and by using a comparison you’ll finally have some idea how much of the online market they are reaching.

Google is terrific at giving us tools – they love data!!