yell.com

...do so.

Yell.com was originally designed to be an electronic version of the yellow pages. For me, trying to find a hairdresser, it is indispensable, since in St Andrews, shops and businesses play musical chairs with alarming regularity. Every week one closes and re-opens elsewhere, some go for good, and there are always new places opening up. It’s like that with hairdressers – my old one had gone, so I needed to find a new ...
...not easier, to use. Yell.com gets a thumbs up from me on this point. The site is presented in a very clear way, using only the colours yellow, blue, black and white, which makes it easy on the eye. Navigation is simple and it is very easy to search for the type of business you are after. Into the box marked “what?” you type in the type of business – in my case, hairdressers, or if you are after a specific name, then you can type ... more

I was using this site a few days ago, trying to find a hairdressers, who would cut my hair in preparation for next week’s grad ball without charging a fortune, when it occurred to me that I really should write a review for ciao on it, since it is an exceptionally useful site, with a lot more to it than you might at first think. Whilst it caters for both business and personal customers, I am writing this opinion from the view of a personal customer, as this is the only way in which I’ve used the site, and probably the way that the majority of readers on here will also do so.

Yell.com was originally designed to be an electronic version of the yellow pages. For me, trying to find a hairdresser, it is indispensable, since in St Andrews, shops and businesses play musical chairs with alarming regularity. Every week one closes and re-opens elsewhere, some go for good, and there are always new places opening up. It’s like that with hairdressers – my old one had gone, so I needed to find a new one, but of course, the latest influx of hairdressers had arrived too late to make it into the most recent edition of the yellow pages. This is where the internet version has the advantage – it seems to be as up to date as possible.

Simplicity is crucial for a site like this – if it’s meant to replace your hard copy of the yellow pages then it needs to be as easy, if not easier, to use. Yell.com gets a thumbs up from me on this point. The site is presented in a very clear way, using only the colours yellow, blue, black and white, which makes it easy on the eye. Navigation is simple and it is very easy to search for the type of business you are after. Into the box marked “what?” you type in the type of business – in my case, hairdressers, or if you are after a specific name, then you can type this into “who?” (an example of this would be something like ‘classic cuts’). Finally, in the “Where?” box, you can enter either a postcode or the name of your town. It will then search for you, and provide you with further options to refine your search. For me, it gave me a list including ladies hairdressers, men’s hairdressers, and wig shops! I then clicked on ladies’ hairdressers, and I was presented with a list of all those local to me, not presented in any particular order. (I looked at this list for ages to see if there was any order, e.g. alphabetical, address etc but couldn’t detect any!)

There were a lot more hairdressers in St Andrews than I realised! If any have their own website, a symbol will appear by their name, and you can go and investigate further. All are displayed with their name, address, and phone number. There is also the chance to click on the map symbol which will show you where they are located. This is quite precise – it zooms in to the exact part of the street where they are. This didn’t really help me as St Andrews is so small it’s difficult not to know where places are, but I can imagine it would be of great use if you were in a much larger town.

The searches I’ve tried on here in the past have always been carried out speedily, and the results have also been accurate, and I have found what I wanted with the minimum of fuss and the minimum of time. Overall I am very impressed with the search facility offered here. So now I’ve found a new hairdressers, and can go and have my hair cut in its usual conservative style… might be brave and have 3 inches off though!

But there’s actually more to yell.com than simply an internet yellow pages. Here are some of the other features that it offers:

Film Finder:
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This is a great way to find out what is showing at your local cinema – certainly something you can’t get from the big yellow book! Simply click on the area where you live – for example, I click on Scotland, then on the town, which for me is St Andrews, and then a list of cinemas in the town will appear. For me, there’s only one, the strangely named “New Picture House”.

You are then presented with a list of films on at this cinema. Click on the name of each one to find out details of the film. The summary presented isn’t too great, but it does at least give you a rough idea of what the film is about. No cast list is given, and if you are seriously interested in discovering info about a particular film, it’s not going to help much. Still, it’s better than nothing, and Yell also offers links to other film sites.

Another feature with the film finder is that it gives you details of the facilities that the cinema offers, and will also give you the opportunity to look for takeaways, taxis, nightclubs, restaurants and pubs nearby. This could be useful if you were planning a night out in an area that you weren’t too familiar with, as it provides you with the phone numbers and addresses of the places. The taxi finder is also extremely useful. It is such opportunities as these which give yell.com one of its main advantages over its paper relation.

Motoring
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Choose the ‘motoring’ option from the main home page and you are presented with a variety of further options. You can use yell.com to get advice on learning to drive, for example, which will explain how to get a provisional licence, choosing an instructor, how many lessons you might need, tips for the test, and what to do once you’ve passed. Very useful advice for learner drivers – I wish I had come across this site when I was looking for an instructor. It helps you to find those in your local town or area.

Other options in this section also include advice on buying a car, including Quentin Willson’s buying guide, and advice on how to finance it, pages to search for insurers, breakdown recovery, and much more. It certainly takes the hassle out of going through the phone book making a list of all the numbers! Down the right hand site of each page, there will also be useful links to car-related businesses (mainly garages) in your area – well, they do have to get their advertising in somewhere! There really does appear to be a lot more to yell.com than I first realised – when you investigate it a little, it is much more than just a glorified phone book. I am very impressed!

Travel
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Once again, yell.com have thought of everything to make planning a holiday much easier. There are links to travel agents, advice on currency changing (it has a little currency converter so you can see how many francs to the pound, for example), and it even has five day weather forecasts for the major cities. One feature which I particularly like is the chance to order travel brochures for any places you might be planning to visit. However, if you don’t have time to plan, there are a selection of links taking you to last minute deals – this site is somewhere to visit if you are after a bargain. Last minute deals were not something I had associated with the yellow pages, but this is definitely a site I will come back to if I ever get around to renewing my out of date passport and decide to take a break!

Films, motoring and travel are only three of the special sections offered by yell.com. Others include property, personal finance, and shopping. Under all of these, there are more subheadings, with links to help you find what you need. I haven’t gone into detail as this review would become very long, and pretty boring if I did so. After all, reading about the yellow pages probably isn’t the most thrilling way to spend your day!

Overall, I find this site very valuable – it’s much easier to use and quicker than hunting for the copy of the yellow pages. It’s speedy, up to date, and well presented, the three most important features when using a site like this. The film guide is also particularly useful for me to see what’s on at the local cinema when I’m too lazy to walk past and see. The other sections, whilst not being of great use to me personally, contain some very useful information and links to businesses, and would be an ideal starting place if you are checking out something such as motoring.
 

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