Welcome to the UK Window Cleaning Forums

Starting or own a window cleaning business? We're a network of window cleaners sharing advice, tips & experience. Rounds for sale & more. Join us today!

Yell - Is it worth it?

Woody86

Member
Messages
77
Location
Warwickshire
Hi Guys,

Today I have had a great call with Yell dicussing where I have been going wrong marketing my business. They have offered a package to help promote my listings on their Yell page and also to hopefully bump me up in google based off SEO.

Some of it was valuable but I am the worst person to sell to so the sales radar was going off at times. Please may I have your feedback as I am sure plenty of you use yell but also take up their paid for service? I asked for a trial to prove that there approach does actually work... but unfortunately they couldnt offer such a thing.

In all honesty I still see Yell as that yellow book that you never really bothered with. Checkatrade looks more interesting though, especially as there are no businesses listed in my area. That might be a good/bad thing i guess...

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi Guys,

Today I have had a great call with Yell dicussing where I have been going wrong marketing my business. They have offered a package to help promote my listings on their Yell page and also to hopefully bump me up in google based off SEO.

Please may I have your feedback as I am sure plenty of you use yell but also take up their paid for service?
No, it’s not worth it. 

 
By all means get a free listing from them but they are really over priced for what they offer. One thing I would do is type in a search to google something like 'window cleaner in Your Local Area' and see if Yell comes up. If it doesn't then it's not worth paying to be in. Google local is something to look at.

 
I'm currently with Yell, I singed up thinking I could cancel later on if it wasn't working out. Unfortunately once you sign up you are on a 12 months contract and can't cancel. 

I did everything Yell recommended with my profile, correct wording, got reviews and linked all social media and website. I was in local position 5 which put me around 5th pr 6th down the list in my local area for the position the price was £51 a month. 

I would like to say it all worked out but the only increase in sales came when Yell partnered with Google to appear above the natural Google results at the very top of the results page which happened to coincide with our usual busy season. 

I have called recently to cancel as my 12 months was up. They offered some half price months or free advertising. I took the half price months as I figured may aswell see if any gutter cleans come through. 

I will be cancelling at the end of this paying period tho. 

 
Going forward I don't plan on paying for advertising all year round just the busy periods. The rest of the year I will use as free advertising where possible. This will likely be through Google pay per click as I have yet to really try it out but I see it recommended here and there. 

Hope that helps Mate

 
This will likely be through Google pay per click as I have yet to really try it out but I see it recommended here and there. 
Do some reading on google pay per click (Adwords). You need good targeted keywords and catchment area. You also need a good landing page to reduce costs. If you don't target it it will be expensive. 

 
Thanks for the advice, I think as we get some down time at Christmas I'm going to have a further read up on it. 

I see people recommend Instagram and Facebook and although I have both for business, I don't really use them currently. I'm not much of a social person so im struggling to find the urge to post on those places. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I see people recommend Instagram and Facebook and although I have both for business, I don't really use them currently. I'm not much of a social person so im struggling to find the urge to post on those places. 
I know what you mean. I'm not into social media at all. It's just people saying me, me, me look at me!!! Business use is another matter though. I have read lots of people on here have success with Facebook local groups. So might be worth looking at them. I believe you can target Facebook ads quite specifically to areas and demographics, so they might be better than Adwords. I keep meaning to look at FaceBook but there is always something more interesting to do - even watching the leaves fall from the trees ??

 
You should try all the free ones first. I think Bark is free which a roofer was telling me. I'm with Checkatrade which I am very happy about. I may get a customer through Checkatrade and 6 months later the call me again to discuss another job they want done. This game is all about building up trust and then getting repeat business. fwiw

 
@Woody86 some interesting and polarising answers.

the actual answer is that it depends on your circumstance.

they talk a great sales spiel for sure. Can they make your business appear top of google? Yes via the yell results usually within top 1-4  

it can help. Period. We use them at times to penetrate certain areas. Ask for details on their vip listing which put you at the top for a given area. Price depend on area size I understand but we can get these for small towns for £15 a month which pays for itself. 
pair any yell listing with a good number of reviews which is very easy using their app.

if you’re not good at SEO and paying say £15 or £20 a month to be listed high up on a local search via yell and you can’t make that money back; it’s your marketing and business skills at fault and not the platform providing the service.

as with any marketing. They may get you the initial eyes but you have to take the sale from introduction to completion. They can not complete that for you.

analyse the costs and estimated conversion based on the number of searches they can provide and do the maths based on your business. 

 
Even the free listing is ? only had about 6 calls in 20 years.
 
To be fair that's still 6 calls for free ?. I tend to use Yell sometimes to find companies then once I have the company name then search for the web site. So a free listing is definitely worth it. Free listings are good but don't use directories to link to a web site and that doesn't go down well with google.

 
To be fair that's still 6 calls for free ?. I tend to use Yell sometimes to find companies then once I have the company name then search for the web site. So a free listing is definitely worth it. Free listings are good but don't use directories to link to a web site and that doesn't go down well with google.
I didn't get a single job ?

 
I didn't get a single job ?
Been with Yell for 15 years (Free Listing). We monitor where all our work comes from and in that 15 years maybe less than 10 jobs from Yell. Used checkatrade too in the past which is not cheap and return on investment wasn't brilliant. We do a lot of marketing which includes web site, social media, leaflets, canvasing and adverts in Parish mags. Best performer overall? Canvasing.

 
10 years ago yes it was worth while , now complete waste of time , we are on there in there free listing but cannot remember the last time we got a call from from being seen in there , if you are getting a free listing just leave it there but I wouldn’t pay to advertise on there I don’t know anyone who uses it any more Evan I don’t go on yell now and Ime an old fashend technophobe  

 
Back
Top