Small firms 'turn to web' to advertise

Smaller businesses are turning away from printed directories and towards the internet for their marketing needs, analysts have suggested.

In an article in The Economist, it is noted that Yellow Pages publisher Yell's share price has dropped by 75% in the last 13 months.

The Economist attributes this partly to company debt and a slowing economy, but also to the long-term effects of a popular shift to local search via the web.

The piece quotes Paul Zwillenberg of OC&C Strategy Consultants, who says that 10 years ago, small to medium enterprises had no option but to market in printed directories.

"Now they can buy space on Yell.com, or they can bypass yellow pages by building their own website and optimising it on Google, or simply buying keywords from Google," he explained.

Yell has denied that Google is supplanting it, and pointed of the growth of its online listings.

And the Economist concedes that the decline of printed directories is likely to be slow, because their listings remain highly trusted by consumers, and because businesses still see results from them.