Yahoo! Business Listings for Dentists and Physicians
This post will give you the information you need to get listed in Yahoo! Local. Yahoo! Local commands a big piece of the local search market. At the very least you should be taking advantage of the FREE Local Basic Listing.
How can this help market my dental or physicians practice?
Yahoo! Local Listings is an advertising network using the Yahoo! Search Network which gives business owners access to millions of searchers looking for local products or services. In other words, when people are searching Yahoo! for:
‘dental practice osh kosh wi’
-OR-
‘family physician springfield il’
you need to be listed in the Yahoo! Local index to be displayed.
Yahoo! Local Listings is made up of three products:
Yahoo! Local Basic Listing (FREE)
Yahoo! Local Basic Listing is available to any business owner. In fact, chances are that you are already in the Yahoo! Local Basic Listing index. You need to find your listing and “claim” it. Verify that the information is accurate and enhance the listing. Simply query the Yahoo! Local search engine for your business.
The Local Basic Listing allows you to list all of the following information:
1. Address, phone number and fax number
2. Website and email
3. Business category
4. The hours of your practice
5. Payment methods (Visa, Check, etc)
6. The products and services you offer
Click here for an example of a Yahoo! Basic Listing
Yahoo! Local Enhanced Listings ($9.95/month)
In addition to what is offered in the Yahoo! Local Basic Listing, the Local Enhanced Listing allows you to provide:
1. Dental or Physician Practice logo and tagline
2. Up to 10 photos of your busines
3. A detailed description of your business
4. Select up to five separate business categories to be associated with (i.e. dentistry, orthodontics, etc)
5. Ability to create two links that lead to customizable coupons
The main difference between the Enhanced and Basic listing is the ability to list in up to five categories. If your practice provides several different services that cross categories this may be a good option for you. Otherwise, you are better off keeping and enhancing your free listing or upgrading to the Featured Listing.
Yahoo! Local Featured Listing (Starts at $25/month)
The Featured Listing includes everything from the other two packages in addition to the following:
1. Guaranteed placement in Yahoo! Local on queries that match your category and region
2. Monthly, automatic billing
3. Customizable business listing/details page
4. A free 5-page basic web site
The image below shows where a Yahoo! Featured Listing appears in the Yahoo! Local search results page for the query ‘dentist chicago il.’
Click on image to enlarge
The difference between these Featured Listings and regular Pay Per Click results is two-fold:
1. You do not pay per click, you pay per month.
2. You have guaranteed placement as long as you are making those monthly payments.
So, how much do Yahoo! Featured Listings cost?
Yahoo! Featured Listings rates vary according to two factors:
1. The demand/competition in the business category (e.g. dentistry)
2. The size of the population in the region requested
Here is the rate card:
Click on image to enlarge
As a benchmark, the pricing for the Dentistry category in the Cook County, Illinois (Chicago Area) Region is $300.00 per month for Top placement. Top placement refers to being displayed above the natural (organic) listings as opposed to below the natural listings. The $300 per month guarantees the dental practice owner placement on page one or two of the Yahoo! Local Search Results pages for queries that match the business category and region. The less populated the region requested the less the monthly charge.
Additional Information about Yahoo! Featured Listings
When your listing is displayed is based on the category and regions chosen. Your listing will be displayed either on the first or second page of local results.
The Featured Listing is a finite resource. Once the Featured Listings for a particular category and particular region are purchased, they are SOLD OUT. You will not be able to acquire one of these listings until someone else leaves the program.
The Featured Listing includes Featured Ad Text which is a short blurb about the most aspect of your business. Consider what differentiates your dental or physician practice and include that in your Ad Text.
For example: “Family Physician of 25 years offers free initial visit.”
The Featured Ad Text is limited to 50 characters.
To purchase a Featured Listing, navigate to your Basic or Enhanced Listing. Click on the ‘Get Guaranteed Top Placement’ link. See the image below.
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If you do not already have a Basic or Enhanced listing you can sign up here for any of the listings described in this post.
Let me know if you have questions by leaving a comment or contacting me directly here.
October 27, 2008
Posted in: Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Others
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