Premium Listing? Baloney.

OK. I just got off the phone with a woman who wanted to “update my information” for the White and Yellow Pages. I have nothing against phone books. They’ve come in quite handy over the years when I’ve needed anything from plumbers to pizza. (Well, I’ve never NEEDED pizza. But it does come in handy now and then, especially when facing a couple of dangerously starved teenagers.) And, phone books are actually still handy for some things. . . although I can’t think of any at the moment.

There are a couple of things wrong with this woman’s approach. First of all, she failed to mention that I would have to pay for my “updated” phone book listing. While she rattled off my address (which was wrong) and phone number, I interrupted to ask if there was a charge. Oh yes. Minor detail of $389. BUT, she continued , you’ll get a bold listing AND (here’s the Grrrr) a “premium listing on major search engines Google, Yahoo,  etc.” (This is a direct quote.) I think she was kind of annoyed when I told her it isn’t true that she can give me a premium listing. In fact, she hung up when I said it was totally absolutely and in all other ways inconceivable that she could give me or anyone else a “premium listing” on any search engine. There’s no such thing.

If it were possible to demand top billing for specific businesses, then they wouldn’t be search engines. They’d be advertising engines. And, the guy with the most money would get the Most Highly Profitable and Pretentious Premium listing. Take the Super Bowl. Who even watches the game anymore with so many clever commercials all stacked up waiting to pay their millions for few seconds’ rent on a bunch of pairs of eyeballs? Well, LOTS of pairs of eyeballs, I guess. (And, sometimes the half-time show has some interesting equipment failures, too.) Only the very, very rich can afford ads on the Super Bowl.

The fact is, it’s the quality of a Web site that determines placement on search pages. Searches are designed to return the most relevant information based on the words typed in by the searcher.  That’s it. If the text on the pages of your Web site is relevant to exactly what’s being sought, that page will be more successful in searches, because the text explains exactly what you do or sell and it matches the searched words.

So buy phone book ads if it helps customers find you and brings in revenue. But be sure to question anyone who guarantees higher (“premium”?) placement in Google or Yahoo! searches. That’s not how search engines work.