In fairness, the yellow pages aren’t dead yet… but they’re definitely on life support, thanks to Google and other major search engines fine-tuning their search results and offering paid placement.

If you’ve purchased advertising in the yellow pages for your business but aren’t advertising online, you run the risk of having your business die alongside this struggling medium.

Here are 5 reasons the rise of online advertising means the death of yellow pages:

• Online advertising provides more information to the potential customer than a small piece of yellow paper can provide.

• Online advertising presents more “trustworthy” results first, not just putting the business with the deepest pockets in prime position. Consumers perceive search results to be less impartial than directory advertisements.

• Online advertising makes it easy to see the results – reporting shows how many people saw your ad, clicked on it, and contacted you or purchased your products or services.

• Online advertising accommodates ALL budgets. You can’t choose to run your ad in only a fourth of the directories being published. Online, you can cost by reducing your exposure.

• Online advertising does not require lengthy commitments. Yellow page advertising offers no way to discontinue advertising until a new directory is published. Failing advertisements are extremely costly in a print directory – not so online.

Major search engines still offer the benefit of being directive media, like yellow pages – people who search for your keyword are known to be interested in your product or service. They are highly likely to purchase your product or service… if you are seen.