yellow pages or business pages

Well I paid a grand and a half for an ad for web design and im yet to recieve a call 6 months later.
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Simon Meech
http://www.startups.co.uk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2990 - Startups Web Design offer!
http://www.hardwiredesign.co.uk

Well I am a bit unsure as If I go with both of them it will set me back around £500 in vat which is quite alot for a small business even if it is spread out over time.
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www.iccommunications.co.uk - 0845 numbers, 0700 and 0800 numbers

www.0870receptionist.co.uk - Free 0870 numbers, free voicemail, free switchboard - Instant online connection!

Everyone gets "big discounts" on the yellow pages adverts. If you wait until 2 weeks prior to publication they are often even bigger. I had a reasonably big advert in the yellow pages in my first year in business on my own, plus I paid £150 for an advert on the on-line pages. I had 2 genuine enquires and got one item of work worth £99, and huge numbers of sales calls. If you are a local tradesman then sure it is a great form of local advertising, given you are in telecoms then I can’t see this would be your first place to visit. With the internet I personally see the yellow pages becoming rather obsolete. As for the business pages I have never even seen a copy (I have worked in companies of varying sizes) let alone used it. There is a whole queue of people lining up to take money of you as a small business person, its up to you where you wish to spend your budget. £500 will buy a heck of a lot of click through on Google adwords for instance.
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James Smith
Chartered Accountant
www.jamesesmith.co.uk
01235 536 773

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Your indispensable guide to Small Business Bookkeeping, Self-Assessment & VAT

I agree with James. If it was me, in your industry I would certainly not be giving £500 over to either/both of these mediums. I do not believe for a minute that you will get any return on your 'investement'. If you have the money to spend, try and use it more constructively. Where are people looking to find out details about 0870 numbers? On-line, via small business portals, word of mouth?? If so, I would suggest promoting your company in these areas. Anthony Ryb www.depositit.com Secure Online Data Backup

Hi Carl, As James has stated £500 would buy you a lot of clicks on Google, and other PPC (pay per click) sites such as espotting.com or overture.com. The poorest ROI has always been news papers/magazines/paper directories. Over the years we have used many methods of advertising but for us the best ROI (return on investment) has been online via Google (sad but true), and espotting.com. Also, we are very fortunate that in that we occupy first position out of over 4 million other sites on Google for search words "uk business web hosting": http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=uk+business+web+hosting&meta= We never use any "quick fix" methods to help our search engine listing, but ensure we provide valid and useful content. We also provide a link exchange, see here: http://www.seiretto.com/Webmaster_Info/Link_Exchange/link_exchange.php BUT DO NOT CONTACT us unless you have a relevant site, thanks. A good method to get noticed/traffic is to provide something free. We provide free information newsletters and provide the archives online: http://www.seiretto.com/newsletters/ Also, we provide many freeware applications that are both useful and very popular: http://www.seiretto.com/downloads/ I would forget all yellow pages and other paper advertising and spread your budget across google, espotting.com, and overture.com - I know this works [not just for us] but for others as we provide promotion campaigns for other companies and ROI is much higher than using yellow pages. Hope that helps. All the best and good luck with your site.
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Dave Walker - Seiretto Ltd (est 1996)
UK website hosting | PHP hosting | UK Linux Managed Servers | UK Windows Managed Servers

I had a few sales calls from Yellow Pages, and eventually asked them to send information by post. The pack arrived with an option of a free lineage listing in one category, which I took up. I've had 2 calls since being listed (April I think), so I would not pay for a lineage listing, and probably not for a part-page advert either. Regards Aidan

Thnaks for all the advice. I haven't paid for anything yet so I think I will cancel and try maybe google adwords. The only problem is the price per click for key words such as 0870 numbers is very high and seen as I only make money once the numbers are in use I don't lnow whether it worth paying up to about 30p per lead.
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www.iccommunications.co.uk - 0845 numbers, 0700 and 0800 numbers

www.0870receptionist.co.uk - Free 0870 numbers, free voicemail, free switchboard - Instant online connection!