Please notice I didn’t say “death.” There are types of business for which the Yellow Pages (Yellow Book, Valley Yellow Pages, whatever) are essential – what I call the “24/7 plumber” category. If some Sunday afternoon, your toilet starts spewing effluent out the bathroom door on to your parquet floors, I don’t care how Internet savvy you are, you don’t rush to the computer and start Googling plumbers.

This category includes virtually all emergency / occasional-but-crucial service providers like the guys who come out in the pouring rain to dismember the fallen tree that threatens to crush your double-glazed solar porch. The list includes auto body shops, appliance repair…persons, electricians and the like…for now at least.

But that’s changing…hence the “decllne” part…because people are increasing going online – at least when they’re hair’s not on fire – to search for almost everything they used to find in the Yellow Pages…and a lot more.

One of great challenges one faces when using the old, traditional, four-inch thick YP is their limited choice of categories and the fact that the green paper “search engine” is printed once each year and remains unchanged for the next 360 some days. Whereas Google is updated constantly…stuff you couldn’t find in yesterday’s search will jump out right at you when you search for it tomorrow.

No one knows the challenge faced by the Yellow Pages from the Internet better than the folks at the Yellow Pages, who are madly scrambling to stay relevant with the “on-line” Yellow Pages or similar efforts, which they will gladly bundle into your upcoming year’s print Yellow Pages contract. Such a deal! That is until you break out the cost and compare it with the cost of creating your own on-line search efforts.

This problem is rooted in the categories that the Yellow Pages insist on forcing businesses into. Now understand, as in the print book, on-line they’ll gladly put you into as many categories as you think you belong in…for an additional fee for each category listing you choose. The more categories you choose, the better…for them.

Now consider this, the Internet doesn’t work like the Dewey Decimal System…what you don’t remember how libraries are organized? For those of you without a library card the DDS (also called the DDC) is a means of classifying books by category that was invented in the 19^th century. The Internet doesn’t classify your business, idea, concept, song, whim by any category except the words you choose to use in the afore-mentioned idea, concept, song, etc.

What this means is that compared to a rather finite (for some businesses maddeningly so) number of categories, the Internet offers an infinite number of ways of placing your message in front of the possible customer.

Yes, I know that the Yellow Pages have their own Internet functions. Okay? Try this simple test. Google anything and count how many times you get a search result by way of the Yellow Pages…unless you first go to the Yellow Pages. Of course, if you do that your search will be limited by the YP’s choice of….business categories.

So, if you do business in one of the emergency / occasional-but-crucial lines of work by all means place your ad in the YP. And if you just won the lottery splurge on an eye-grabbing quarter page, high-visibility ad. But make sure the production folks at the YP get all the details right because if they don’t you’ll have to live with the results for the next year.

Or, you can buy a Yellow Pages ad that’s just large enough to spell out your service, your 24/7 phone number and your website and put the money you saved into a website that offers a detailed description of your non-emergency services, a full-color picture of showroom and watch a video of your state-of-the art processes which are available during reasonable working hours. And if you don’t like the message, or you want to add a new service you don’t have to wait until next year to make a change…you can do it today.

And with the rest of the money you saved – Yellow Pages ads are expensive and getting more so every year – you can complement your website with a search engine marketing program this will insinuate your message throughout the Internet, making you easier find in large part because you won’t be pigeon-holed into an (often arbitrary) business classification.