Clean It Up

UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Mr Dvae on July 15, 2011, 10:16:24 pm

Title: yell.com
Post by: Mr Dvae on July 15, 2011, 10:16:24 pm
Anyone on here advertise on Yell.com and is it worth it?

Dave
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Carpet Dawg on July 15, 2011, 10:29:18 pm
advertised yes but was pretty useless for me.

MAybe in a differeant area might work better.
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Simon Moat on July 15, 2011, 10:37:48 pm
Advertise: Yes

Worth it? No!

We'll be pulling out this year.
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Neil Williams on July 15, 2011, 11:31:24 pm
I actually believe that even the yell reps have given up.
When mine was due for renewal i got the phonecall but asked if they could call me back a few days later. Three weeks later she called and arranged a date to visit. the day before the due date she called and cancelled because she was ill.
Not heard anything since and that was about 2 months ago.
Oh apart from a voicemail left on my mobile asking me to call them, that was about 3 weeks ago and they've not tried again since.
I was going to pull out of it anyway but this summed it up totally.
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Mr Dvae on July 16, 2011, 05:17:58 am
thanks guys, you've just confirmed my thoughts guess i'll pull out too.


Many thanks

Dave
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: CarPete Cleaning on July 16, 2011, 07:13:05 am
Yell.com was the biggest waste of money  - I spent £700 on it a a couple of years ago and only got a 1 or 2 small jobs from it.  Don 't go anywhere near it.

Also, don't get sucked into having your business card on the display boards at supermarkets - another total waste of money !!

cheers, Pete
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: PaulKing on July 16, 2011, 07:41:38 am
interesting as was contemplating doing something on wednesday and then this was published in the telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8638808/Yell-Group-slumps-as-digital-plans-fail-to-impress.html

dropping the yell brand?

the rep take on it was "thats because the telegraph is our competitor" Really ???
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: M.Acorn on July 16, 2011, 07:52:29 am
Stayed on Yell,costs me around £80.00 per month,have had quite a few jobs out of it this time around.You have to make your listing work,get some photos on there,and a bit of info,seen some on there I just wouldn't bother with if I was looking
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Mr Dvae on July 16, 2011, 03:09:53 pm
Paul  that's very interesting article, personally  i think yell have agreat brand name but fail to live up to expectation due to lack of skill within their working staff.

I also think we've come full circle ie yell directory, 118, yell.com, google etc it seems everyone is trying to re-invent the wheel and keep up with the times, so i'm considering going back to basics and just doing what worked for us years ago.

Dave
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: cannon on July 16, 2011, 10:00:36 pm
Ive noticed Yells been doing a lot of advertising on the radio lately pushing websites.

I got nothing but sales calls off yell.com and a couple of small jobs.

Yells great if you just want a list of names, numbers, addresses which is why the sales use it
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: markpowell on July 16, 2011, 10:55:52 pm
Waste of money imo
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: spencer davies on July 17, 2011, 11:17:32 am
I wouldn't waste another penny with them, dead advertising imo

S
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: clinton on July 18, 2011, 07:32:49 am
I didnt get much work for the yell.com and came off it a few years ago..

Would put the money into another web site if i were you..
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: mark_roberts on July 18, 2011, 03:38:13 pm
The rep gave me a print out of the phone numbers that rang me within a two month period.  50% where English numbers so in other words sales calls.

This year yell.com and the book are included in the same price so no seperate pricing therfore cheaper but then now theres no ranking so much less effective.

Mark
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Gabriel Nagy on July 18, 2011, 03:42:13 pm
In November I have an year with Yell but it was a big mistake. They are not professionals at all. The agent who done the deal for me was tricking me to get a small advert in Yellow Pages instead of big one. After a while I realized that he wanted to not lose the deal if offered a much expensive one. I would not recommend them.
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Scoop on July 20, 2011, 12:18:28 am
The reports on Yell are pretty much universal now. It doesn't work very well and it's in sharp decline.

The problem is that we all grew up with it, or rather it's big sister, Yellow Pages. If someone phoned you from Internet Directory of Yourtown and asked you to advertise you'd cut him off in seconds. But because it's Yell we all still want to believe that it can make a difference. In a former existence I used to spend £20k a year with Yellow Pages and it was money well-spent. But it's gone (and so has my former existence  :)). Where is the elusive magic marketing bullet that we all need so badly?

It's certainly not Yell. There are thousands of online directories for everything festering in the bowels of the internet and still trying to leap out of the s*it every time we type our heart's desire into Google. Yell is one of them, and even though it's one of the better ones it's got huge competition. Gone are the days when 'Good old Yellow Pages' was our only instant source of local information. (I don't count Thompson because my Dad always used to do his 'He-Man' impress with it when it arrived and rip it in half).

We (almost) all want extra work and some have got extra advertising £ to spend in order to get it. But we're all sick of being skin-grafted by the pirates who help themselves to our hard-earned in exchange for ... very little if you read the above posts.

So what's the answer? Well, I don't know if I'm right, but if I had just inherited £10k I would be looking at the thing we all use every day - Google. Whilst Yell is sinking without trace, Google made over £5 billion in profit last year selling only one thing - advertising. At the moment it's mainly the big boys who use it, but some savvy smaller companies are moving their advertising to Google and backing it up with a quality website for the simple reason that it is the first place where 80% of the population looks for everything from Recipes to Ryanair. We even use Google when we can't remeber the name of the website that we're looking for. Google is the new Yellow Pages.

I haven't looked into it in any depth - their system of bidding for adwords and maximum daily spend frightens me to death. But at some stage in the future I'm going to try it and so are a lot of others. It's the future.

Everyone's on Google, for everything. Yell is just an old cousin showing up at the party. Reminds me of an old joke for anyone who remembers Watney's beer - "Cut out the middleman - pour Watneys straight down the toilet"  ;D
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Mr Dvae on July 20, 2011, 07:22:51 am
very well put.
i have'n heard a good word about yell yet, i think the product has its place but like all advertising the price needs to drop in order to make it a profitable tool.

we can now buy leaflets for 25% of the price they were 20 years ago so maybe the 'big' money  has gone from advertising.
even my local paper does a deal if you advertise consistently so maybe yell needs to do the same if they wish to retain us long term.

Dave
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: garry22 on July 20, 2011, 03:17:39 pm
Something strange is happening.

In our locality (Midlands), Yell.com has suddenly appeared at number 1 on Google's first page for a variety of local search terms.

Has anyone else seen this or is it just a localised effect?
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Dean Cudd on July 20, 2011, 03:31:33 pm
Something strange is happening.

In our locality (Midlands), Yell.com has suddenly appeared at number 1 on Google's first page for a variety of local search terms.

Has anyone else seen this or is it just a localised effect?
[Yes Garry I have just looked yell is top 1st page. Dean
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: garry22 on July 20, 2011, 03:39:51 pm
Dean,

I'm the other side of Birmingham so it looks like it's city wide. Interesting.
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Dean Cudd on July 20, 2011, 03:52:31 pm
Garry. Getting on the 1st page in our area is a big nut to crack, with out having yell up there. see how long it lasts. Dean
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Neil Williams on July 20, 2011, 03:58:32 pm
I can't get my head around why anyone would want to carry out a 'double search.'
ie you type into google, carpet cleaners in (town) which would bring up all the carpet cleaners anyway and then do the same thing again via yell.
I know some would but......
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: garry22 on July 20, 2011, 05:10:50 pm
Neil,

I've seen some people on there with NO website. They just linked to a copy of their yellow pages ad!

Bear in mind that they are trying to attract people via the web, I could never see the logic in that.

Re;Yell.com

Unless there has been another alghorithm change which favours them, there must be a lot of sudden activity somewhere on their behalf.
Title: Re: yell.com
Post by: Linds Russell on July 20, 2011, 10:13:53 pm
Just to be slightly contrary, Yell.com has worked well for me over the past 3 years. Over the past 12 months, I've made £5 for every £1 I spent on it, so I intend to stay in it until further notice.

Don't get me started on Yellow Pages though >:(