Traditional telephone advertising is much less effective than it once was. The advertising was designed to help you gain new customers, but most of those potential customers are online trying to find the same information you paid to have placed in a phone company's print business directory.

Many cities are developing community portals as a means of providing their local or regional businesses with some Internet marketing punch.

If you are a business there are online directories that may be available for your region that can help customers locate you more quickly. That's not to say that the yellow pages have no value, just that the potential for reaching customers has shifted based on the searchable delivery method of the Internet.

Unlike the phone company's print business directory an online business directory can supply users with an immediate connection to your online store. In a short series of clicks they can be browsing your online store to see what you have available and if it meets their needs.

Many of these online local directories are also used by the major search engines to help index your online business. If you use paid phone directory print advertisements you need to understand the effectiveness of this medium is in perpetual decline.

Online local or regional phone directories can be utilized at no cost while others may be fee-based. In the end, you may see a greater return on investment (ROI) from using an online directory than you may have previously considered possible.

As people plan travel they may likely search for businesses that match their personal interests and they are increasingly checking out online business directories first.

This can be a valuable bridge to potential online traffic for existing brick and mortar stores. Many brick and mortar stores have seen the value of Internet marketing, but for those who have yet to gain a full appreciation for the Internet as a sales tool the use of an online business directory may be a good first step ? even if you don't have an online presence yet. At the very least you should be able to include your business name, category, address and phone number.

Adding a website can be a choice that doesn't have to be overly complicated and can open up a whole new world discovered through the benefits of an online business directory.