The “Deconstructing Internet Yellow Pages” panel at DMS ’08 revealed a number of areas in which IYPs need to evolve. Based on Kelsey’s IYP research, conference chair and TKG Program Director Charles Laughlin said, “IYPs appear too conservative and unwilling to do what it takes to win in the local search space.”
One of the key areas consumers value in IYPs remains accuracy of data, but items like look and feel and the ability to add and share information have risen to the top. Two of the “new breed” IYP sites, Brownbook.net and YellowBot, are certainly listening to consumers and responding with uniquely positioned sites.
While major IYPs have advanced, they appear more oriented to supporting advertisers than the consumer. According to David Ingram, CEO of Brownbook.net: “There seems to be a mismatch between what consumers want and what the directory industry sees as important. Consumers want ease of use and accuracy versus publishers, who seem to focus more on advertiser-driven needs.”
The need to structure data to make searching for and finding relevant information easier was viewed by most of the panelists to be vital in providing a satisfying experience on their sites. The challenge is structuring the content you control amid the vast amount of information on the Web, such as user reviews, consumer-generated content and other disparate data. According to Morgan Zimmerman, VP business development for Exalead, “Consumers are looking for more localized information and demanding it from the sites they use and prefer — in an easy to digest manner.”
Taking a counterpoint was Erron Silverstein, cofounder and CEO of YellowBot, who felt consumers alter the way they search too frequently to adequately structure local search. “Tagging listing information shows you how to classify the information and how people are searching and offers suggestions to the advertiser base on how to connect. You need to let the consumer direct the structure.”
The conclusion of the panel is that the current view of an IYP site needs to evolve with a more consumer-focused approach, which in turn will drive more traffic and ultimately better quality leads for advertisers. James Ashford, president of Yellow Assistance, summed it up when he said: “The user experience is key, and how they want to use your site will dictate how best to design and set up your functionality. Ultimately the users will supply the appropriate content and how they want it served up; this will drive the traffic your advertisers need.”
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Great post Michael!
The most telling tidbit: While major IYPs have advanced, they appear more oriented to supporting advertisers than the consumer. According to David Ingram, CEO of Brownbook.net: “There seems to be a mismatch between what consumers want and what the directory industry sees as important. Consumers want ease of use and accuracy versus publishers, who seem to focus more on advertiser-driven needs.”
The only caveat I would add is I believe publishers seem to want to focus more on publisher-driven needs. I’m not yet convinced they ALWAYS have the advertiser’s best interests at heart.
What continues to blow my mind is the reach publisher’s have that they’re unable to leverage. The feet on the street and the client list that many publishers would kill for is a powerful 1-2 punch. And yet, numbers of contracted SMBs continues to decline. Yes, SMBs go out of business. And, yes, SMBs are taking a closer look at their marketing/ad budgets and deciding they don’t get what they used to from the Yellow Pages.
With the long history the publishers have with SMBs – isn’t it going to be easier to KEEP a valued long time advertiser than it will be to get them back after they’re gone? Across today’s local search competitive landscape – if you snooze, you’ll lose.
Again, thanks for the great post from DMS ’08!
Michael,
I can’t agree more that IYP sites need to become more consumer-focused. While it has not historically been the case here and elsewhere, Dex has held that position for quite some time with Dexknows.com. I don’t think it’s as much about a resistance to a focus on the consumer; instead the challenges have been in “unraveling the knot”.
Many of the problems plaguing IYPs today revolve around the legacy products sold on the site, the nature in which IYPs accept and handle information from their core print systems, the taxonomies used (often print-headings based), and the geographies scoped (often matched to print directory scopes). This is all compounded by search algorithms that have historically driven impressions and clicks to specific products/pages and at times put relevance by the wayside.
We have addressed as many of these problems as we could through consistent improvements to the current platform and have seen a very positive response to our efforts; but, fully addressing these topics requires the development of an entirely new platform and site. We have been hard at work on this effort for all of 2008 and expect to deliver something to the market later this year.
In short, I think IYPs “get it”, but a lot of wood chopping is needed to create an environment that you describe above.
Jeff Porter
VP/GM DexKnows.com
Don’t forget about Jippidy.com!! We are also focusing heavily on what the consumer wants. I believe strongly, you focus on the consumer’s needs, the traffic and advertising dollars will soon follow.
Ya you all are talking right but unless a webpage is viewed one can not assess its credibility.
Michael,
It’s somewhat curious to me that the major IYP players were not included on this panel. I wholly agree that the IYP sites need to appeal to the customer and adapt to consumer usage preferences, but I do believe that some of the larger players are starting to get it right in this space. At the end of the day, it’s all about the data and when the data is bad, outdated, inaccurate – it leads to a poor consumer experience. What would be great to see is the IYPs that have a print legacy *change* their mindset to that of the end-user (i.e. the consumer). It’s not about pre-defined ‘headings’ like you see in the Yellow Pages, it’s more about categories and a variety at that. The Internet has clearly changed the way the world interacts with anything (research, friendships, purchasing, etc), but the savvy players will understand that it’s about the consumer at the end of the day and fostering an environment that makes it easy to business with them.
I agree that most important in accuracy of the listings. We are a small publisher and the one thing we can always take pride in, either on the site or the printed product, is that we are FAR more accurate than the large companies who cannot get updates as readily as we do. We are using the Google Mini Search Appliance for our search on the web site in the hopes to make finding what you need more friendly to the user, assuming that most people are used to dealing with google’s search results page.