In my quest for affordable advertising, I was led to YAHOO Local Listings. It doesn't seem to be a bad deal. I'll let you know if it's a boom or a bust.
It is targeted towards brick-and-mortar businesses. When people use the YAHOO listing service to search for a business in their area, or look up a phone number, you can elect to have your ad show up in the list that is returned. For an "enhanced" listing, it is only $9.95 per month.
If you want to be sure that your ad always shows up on the first or second page, you can pay for a "featured" listing. The price for this depends on if you choose to be shown at the top or the bottom of the page, the category you chose, and the size of your metropolitan area. For my second-choice category, bottom of the page, and a fairly largely populated area, my monthly charge is only $20.
I can cancel or downgrade to the $9.95 plan at any time, and YAHOO even throws in a free website. YAHOO limits the number of ads that can be purchased in each category, so you can't be crowded out. I wonder if buying an ad helps your regular search-engine rankings in any way?
To place my ad at the top of the page using my first-choice category would have been $200/month. Still not a bad deal if you're selling a service or item that people often search for. Take a look. You can go through the sign-up process and get a quote for your ad before you commit to anything.
Cathi, I would be very interested in your results also, as in my own research and communication with my colleagues, Yahoo is considered the best 'local' Internet advertiser at this time.
Posted by: Gary Bourgeault | May 7, 2006 12:13 AM | Permalink to Comment