Online Advertising Solutions for “Main Street” Businesses

With LEADS.com, businesses sign up for monthly packages that include local pay-per-click search, online yellow pages and pay-per-call programs. The typical customer is a “main street” type business such as plumber, landscaper, realtor, locksmiths, pest control service, moving/storage or auto mechanic. The LEADS.com program helps drive phone calls, emails and foot traffic to the participating business and the business owner tracks the program’s success via an easy-to-use online dashboard.

(PRWEB) March 23, 2006 -- In the early 2000s, Todd Walrath and Tobias Dengel, the founders of LEADS.com, witnessed firsthand the beginning of the migration from traditional print yellow pages to online searches. Both were at AOL at the time, Walrath leading AOL Classifieds and Directories and Dengel overseeing AOL Yellow Pages.

“Despite the much-publicized Internet bubble burst, Internet use continued to increase exponentially and that included online yellow page searches,” explains Walrath. “We realized that those ‘offline’ small businesses which are typically heavy advertisers in print telephone directories would need to diversify their yellow page advertising to include the Internet if they were going to continue to drive customers to their doors,” added Dengel.

With about $500,000 from their own pockets, Walrath and Dengel struck out on their own in June 2003 and received additional funding totaling $1.55 million from private investors in the following 12 months. Originally founded as Lead Logic, Walrath and Dengel began their company with a single vision that continues to this day: to be a turn-key solution for small businesses’ online marketing needs so they can use Internet advertising and online searches to drive local business.

With LEADS.com, businesses sign up for monthly packages that include local pay-per-click search, online yellow pages and pay-per-call programs. The typical customer is a “main street” type business such as plumber, landscaper, realtor, locksmiths, pest control service, moving/storage or auto mechanic. The LEADS.com program helps drive phone calls, emails and foot traffic to the participating business and the business owner tracks the program’s success via an easy-to-use online dashboard. The company’s partners include Google, Yahoo! Yellow Pages, Yahoo! Local Search, Switchboard and Looksmart among others.

Walrath and Dengel’s early assessment of the migration from print yellow pages to online search was right on target. More than 30 percent of all searches for local businesses and services are conducted online vs. print yellow pages and the number is growing rapidly. At the same time, most small businesses do not actively promote themselves on the Internet.

Matching local businesses with online consumers has proven to be a valuable service for their customers and a successful formula for growth. In less than two years, LEADS.com grew to more than 40 employees and a revenue run rate of more than $6 million per year. The company officially changed its named to LEADS.com in August 2004.

In April of 2005, LEADS.com was acquired by Website Pros, a publicly-traded company that provides website building tools, services and internet solutions for small to mid-sized businesses. The acquisition expands LEADS.com resources and market reach.

Walrath and Dengel are optimistic about the future of online advertising by smaller, “main street” businesses. “There are more than 225 million Internet users in the U.S. alone and more people are getting online every day,” explains Walrath. He continued, “As broadband penetration increases, local search becomes a more convenient solution for the consumer to find a local business.”

“The best news for local businesses is that about one-fourth of online searches are for local merchants and 84 percent of online users call a business after finding it online,” added Dengel.

About LEADS.com
LEADS.com is a premier provider of subscription-based online advertising services dedicated to helping businesses reach local customers online. More information is available at www.LEADS.com or by calling 1-866-LEADS-12.

About Website Pros
Website Pros, Inc. (Nasdaq: WSPI) is the leading provider of website building tools, services and internet solutions. The company offers a comprehensive suite of website design, customer support and technology tailored to the needs of small and medium sized businesses. Additionally, Website Pros partners with enterprise companies to help them build stronger, more profitable relationships with their business customers. Based in Jacksonville, Florida, Website Pros can be reached by calling 1-800-GET-SITE. More information is available at www.websitepros.com.

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