Are Yellow Pages dead?

I have to share my little “surprise” today.

Are Yellow Pages Dead? I had lunch today with a casual friend of mine who is only a couple of years older than me and lives in Calgary. As we casually chowed down a a variety of dishes at the Chinese buffet we talked about a lot of things trying to catch up on the last year or so. She asked me if i still do web pages or that thing on the Internet. I told her yes, I do local Internet marketing. She stopped chewing and looked up at me with a wondering, confused look and asked me what exactly is that.

What is Internet marketing?

Since I knew I don’t have hours to explain in detail all that Internet marketing is I thought I will just give a quick example of my latest client’s success.I told her I have a wedding planner client whose website showed up on page 6 and higher when searched under most commonly use keywords when looking for that service and now her website shows up on the 1st page of Google when searched under more then a dozen popular keywords.

I was expecting a small “wow”or at least a nod of acknowledgment, after all she is my friend and should be supporting of my little accomplishments, but no….the confused look didn’t change. I could see is trying to figure out what I am saying but wasn’t sure so she asked me why is that important. After trying my best to explain to her she understood.

What I didn’t realize was that she was still using the actual Yellow Pages book when looking for a service in Calgary.

Being so involved in my own world of Internet marketing that I just took it for granted that everybody, specially in Calgary, and under age 55 is online. I still think most are but even those who are need a lot of education to understand how the Internet works. And I will not be presumptuous and say that everybody wants to know, no, not at all. I am only talking about those who are interested.