Whitespark or Moz Local
-
Hello all,
We can't use Moz Local as we're in the UK. Tempted to use Whitespark, but not quite sure what the differences are between the two.
Also, can a website design / digital marketing agency be considered to be a local business - in Googles eyes?
Thanks!
William -
Thank you Miriam
-
This is great - thanks Nyagoslav!
-
Hey Mary!
Nice to see you here! That's correct - Yahoo is not currently one of our supported Network Partners. Our 7 supported partners to whom we currently push data are:
Infogroup
Neustar/Localeze
Acxiom
Superpages
Factual
Foursquare
Best of the Web
We'll hope to expand our network in future, but for now, this is the list:)
-
Hi - I have a few questions about Whitespark.
Once the initial cleanup is complete & your listing(s) are propagated throughout the local ecosystem, what if updates to listings need to be made in the future? Is there one central place to make them? If so, are there additional fees to make future updates?
Also, is there an easy way to manage multiple listings? Right now, that's what's making me lean more towards MozLocal - easy to update multiple locations at once as often as necessary (thinking hours, descriptions, etc. vs. NAP).
Thanks!
-
I recently discovered that Moz Local does not distribute data to Yahoo!Local.
-
Hi William,
So sorry Moz Local can't be in the running for serving a non-US-based business. Nyagoslav has given you a good rundown - I do want to be clear that our duplicate finder app can be really helpful in closing out duplicates on our network partner platforms, but I'm sorry our service doesn't currently support the UK.
For international citation building, the 2 most highly-spoken of services in the Local SEO world tend to be either Whitespark or BrightLocal. I would suggest you check out the features of both to see which is the most ideal match for your needs.
-
Hey William,
First, I'd like to mention that I am Nyagoslav (of Whitespark), and not Darren, but I am using his account to reply
I know that my comment would be biased, no matter how hard I try for it not to be, and it is important that you view it as such. Here is an answer I recently gave to a very similar question (advantages/disadavantages of Yext, Moz Local, and Whitespark Citation Audit & Clean-up):here are some general notes and Q&As that might help in your decision making. Of course all the decision making should also be made on case-by-case basis, but I will base my notes on the case(s) you described in your original post.
1. Will each of these services take care of all of your duplicate listings, or listings that feature incorrect, outdated, or fake information that should be removed?
Both Moz Local and Yext are uni-linear, automation-based systems. This means that they will, in general, find and fix one listing per website (with the note that they cover only the websites that are part of their networks). They offer different types of add-ons that could deal with duplicates, but additional manual work on your end would be required, i.e. you would need to help them find the duplicates. I have personally had negative experience specifically with the duplicate suppression process of Yext. A few of our clients have had active Yext subscriptions at the time they signed up for our citation clean-up or general local <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> services. That is why I seeked the help of Yext's support to try and get rid of some of the duplicate listings on the sites that are part of their network (note: some of the subscriptions had been active for more than 2 years, but there were still tens of duplicate listings on the sites part of Yext's network). Unfortunately, in almost all of the cases I had absolutely no success going through Yext's support and that is why I did the duplicate clean-ups manually.
2. Will each of these services cover all of the important bases that would need to be covered in terms of citation auditing and clean-up?
The important bases could tentatively be divided in the following categories:
- Data aggregators (ExpressUpdate, Acxiom, Localeze, Factual)
- Important top-level search platforms (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Apple Maps)
- Most important citation sources (the likes of YP, Yelp, Citysearch, Superpages)
- Most important secondary citation sources (the likes of MerchantCircle, MojoPages, Kudzu)
Yext cover:
- Factual + they do have some relationship with ExpressUpdate, but as far as I understand it is available only for some users
- Bing + Yahoo
- Some of the most important citation sources
- Some of the most important secondary citation sources
Moz Local cover:
- All the data aggregators
- Google + Bing + Yahoo
- Some of the most important citation sources
- Basically none of the secondary citation sources
Our service covers:
- All the data aggregators
- All the important top-level search platforms
- All the most important citation sources (except for WhitePages and their network, which is monopolized by Yext)
- All the most important secondary citation sources
3. What is the cost and sustainability of the service?
Moz Local: $84/year
Yext: $500 to $1,000/year
Our service: $750 (one time)I have previously done a case study on what happens when one cancels their Yext subscription. You could find it here.
4. What would be your time involvement and time until work is done?
With Yext, the information should be distributed instantly or near-instantly across their network. With Moz Local, as far as I know, it takes a few hours. With our service it takes about 1 month, as it is a manual process.
It would take you approximately 15 minutes to get set up on Yext or Moz Local. Your involvement would be about 30 minutes overall with our service.
Regarding your second question - historically web design firms have had problems getting local presence on Google (Google Maps/Places/Plus Local). However, this changed a few months ago. Please check this article for reference.
I hope this helps!
Nyagoslav
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do You Think the Distance Algorithm Has Less Weight for Local Service Related Businesses?
Hey guys, I wish Rand could answer this question, because I know he figured all of this out, or has at least thought about it at least once. Basically, I want to understand exactly how the local algorithms work. Do you think the Distance algorithm works differently for service related businesses that don't offer services directly to your car, or other moveable assets? (motorcycles, lawnmowers, small engines) For example, construction companies. We all know how boring their offices are. No one wants to go to one unless there has been a problem or to pay a bill, say at Trugreen or something. They don't sell products, and who wants to go to some construction company that will likely just be a receptionist and maybe a field manager on his lunch break with some field reps rotating in and out during the day getting new leads and entering sales? That's uncomfortable. Why not just call them? So, do you think Google's local algorithms know that and put less weight on businesses that fall into that category? Car shops, small engine repair, and say shoe repair shops are different because you have to bring them something to fix. Stores that sell products are different because you have to go shopping and pay them to take the products home. But remodeling companies, marketing agencies, etc. probably don't get a lot of foot traffic. (And it's because we know we can handle it on a phone call.)
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
Local SEO & Google Maps Question - 1 Company with Multiple Google Pages
Hey Mozzers! I'm working with a client who has 2 websites (different URLs completely), which one is for all parts and the other is for accessories only. They have multiple brick and mortar locations throughout the US and have done a nice job creating Google My Business pages for each and all verified. Their question is will it benefit them to create and verify another GMB page with same address, but place in "Suite B", a new phone number and apply the other URLs for the accessories site. The business name would also be different, but similar meaning Business 1 = ABC where as Business 2 = ABC Accessories. Their goal would be to try to have both rank or display to improve their local SEO. In theory it sounds like it will work given NAP would be satisfied within the GMB, but wanted to get the Moz community thoughts on this first before moving forward. Look forward to the replies. Patrick
Local SEO | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Happy Local New Year from Miriam
First, I want to thank all of our awesome community members here who continuously post interesting, tough and good Local SEO question in the Moz Q&A forum. I love chatting with you all, and I hope you'll keep asking away, giving us all the opportunity to muse and learn together. I think 2018 is going to be challenging and fun, and have a few thoughts on that I'd like to share, hoping you'll reply with your own tips and predictions. In the new year, I believe: Quality is going to further solidify as the most apparent differentiator of local businesses, giving those companies with the most considerate and excellent service and policies the upper hand. Memorably good customer service will drive the high-star reputation and word-of-mouth marketing that leads to success. Small local businesses have an advantage here, in their agility to implement the most genuine home-town excellence, but bigger brands can strive for this, too. From skilled phone service, to adequate in-store staffing, to employee training, to dedicated management of all online local assets, to initiatives that make a lasting, positive impression on consumers, quality is the key ingredient to loyalty, which is what every local business should most pursue in 2018. Speaking of loyalty, I would especially advise SABs to leave no stone unturned in earning it. Google's LSA program will be a serious disruptor of business-as-usual in this sector, changing the makeup of local SERPs and striving to become the middleman in the service industries. SAB owners won't love having to rent back their customers for a fee to Google, so developing Google-independent streams of leads and repeat customers will be vital in any city where LSA rolls out in the coming year. Serving in a smaller town? Begin working on Google-independence anyway, particularly via word-of-mouth marketing so that you have these streams running in advance, should LSA move beyond the more densely-populated areas. While developing Google-independence, don't overlook Google opportunities that are still free. I think Google Posts was the most interesting development of 2017, and there has been some anecdotal evidence that weekly use of this form of knowledge panel microblogging may give a small ranking boost. Be an early adopter and take advantage of that. 2018 may be the year in which Google finally cracks down on two things: keyword stuffing of the business title and review spam. I'm sure they're tired of the complaints surrounding the former and if Google's commitment to identifying quality remains in place, sooner or later, they have got to deal with this false signal of relevance the same way that have with EMDs. As to the latter, Google's increased focus on reviews over the past year is apparent in the sheer number of emails they are now sending out regarding them. Also fascinating to see that we're closing out 2017 with third-party reviews finally reappearing in Google's local products, after years of absence and trouble with the FTC. Overall, Google knows that their review corpus is dependent on consumers trusting it, and better spam detection methodologies and better/faster response to review spam reporting has got to be on their to-do list. This could be the year! For local businesses, protection lies in abandoning any type of spammy practice (from keyword stuffing to self-reviewing). And, being proactive if you are the victim of review spam. Report it. Raise a polite but firm hullabaloo. Let Google know you hold them to reasonable standards of accountability in their role as public arbiter of brand reputation. The best Local SEO agencies and local business will dig deeper into the history and tactics of organic SEO than ever before. We need to understand Hummingbird, RankBrain, and matching content to the buyer journey with the best of them. We need to master not just linkbuilding, but the relationship building that makes it most authentic and of most lasting value - and this is an area in which local businesses have a massive advantage over virtual ones, in that we can actually meet our neighbors face-to-face to build beneficial bonds. And we need to get a real handle on the technical side of SEO, understanding how site structure, handling of the robots.txt file, and the management of indexation and accessibility issues impact us. When we put high-level knowledge of all these considerations together with our Local SEO know-how, we can be successful in new, exciting ways we may have overlooked in the past. Oh, there's so much more I could say about the interesting things I see coming in 2018, but I'd love it if you'd talk now. What do you see in our industry's near future? I'd love to know. And let me take this opportunity to wish you all a fun, exciting and prosperous new year!
Local SEO | | MiriamEllis11 -
Going from a national to local marketing strategy
I started my graphic design business (imageco.com) after the dot com industry collapsed in 2001 and there were virtually no jobs to be found, I focused mainly on logo design and ultimately figured out a way to drive quite a lot of traffic to my site by the means of creating directories for printers in every major city in the US. It worked exceedingly well for many years but eventually I had a lot of copycats use this technique and ultimately it pissed off quite a few designers around the country and I was reported one to many times to Google and was forced to make some changes. So I dropped the directories and redesigned my site and stuffed as many place names in the site as I could so I wouldn’t lose all my traffic, it worked for a while but ultimately my site has drifted further down in the serps and with the advent of Google Local my traffic pretty much disappeared. Furthermore with the surge in crowdsourcing businesses like 99designs the value people placed on my logo design services dropped to a point where there just wasn’t much reason to go after a national market anyway. I’m not proud of how I built my business but I don’t make any excuses for it, I had a mortgage and a family to feed so I did what I needed to do. I’m now at the point where I’ve decided my best option is to move away from logo design and redefine my business as more of a visual identity/graphic design company and go after the local market. I live in the Seattle area, Bellevue to be specific and the economy is such that I know there is a ton of local opportunity that I'm missing out on and I want to focus my marketing efforts here. My question is what is the best way for me to do this? I focused mainly on logo design for nearly 20 years and my keywords are built around logo design for which I still hit fairly well on but I need to expand my offerings and want to redirect my efforts at turning up on local searches for other terms like graphic design, web design, print design, etc. I don’t necessarily want to instantly drop all of the landing pages I created for logo design because that is still where the majority of my business comes from but I’m fairly certain that these landing pages have me Pigeonholed as just a logo designer. Do I need to delete everything and start completely from scratch or is there a less extreme approach to making this kind of transition? And once I do make these changes what might be the time frame for turning up better locally? I’m in the process of redesigning the site, updating my portfolio and writing all new content and could really use the advice of this community. Thank you!
Local SEO | | Imageco0 -
Trying to rank homepage nationally and internal pages locally?
We are a finance brokerage in Australia and we operate in a specialist niche and in regional areas with low competition but we have identified KW's that are very profitable to us but seem to need different approach re strategy. We specialise in Agribusiness lending. We have been pretty scrappy in the past with our SEO as it has always been done by me, and as a startup, as everyone knows, the jack of all trades can help and hinder! To date, we have done a lot of Adwords (and KW research) so I have a fair idea of what keywords I am after. Some KW are low competition and extremely profitable to us. But there is a difference between them on who our competitor is and how difficult it would be to rank and which strategy to use. For example Agribusiness, used by all major banks, now they provide agribusiness, but only via their own products, as we are brokers we tend to receive a lot of new leads as we are brokers and we can compare all products and as agribusiness can be quite complex this is a major point of difference for us. So my strategy to rank for this KW would include a national approach as we provide advice in this space on a national scale, which has worked well via AdWords leads. But would like to move away from my sole reliance on AdWords. Then we move onto KW that we have also had some success on a national scale via Adwords but the metrics suggest is better from a local perspective (local regional town), i.e hobby farm loan, rural finance, even home loans (when there is no other local competitor in small town). As we have brokers in other regional towns this also opens up an opportunity to have either internal pages with lots of local signals (i.e NAP, Authority outbound links, local KW, social signals from local FB groups etc). But can a internal page compete against a competitors HP, for example I was going to set up mysite/Toowoomba.com.au internal page with info re that broker and lots of local points, or am I best to create another site, i.e brandname-Toowoomba.com.au (still linking from my contact us page for Toowoomba) and focus solely on local for this site (including internal pages to rank locally, i.e Toowoomba Home loans)? the extra benefit is I then create another asset if I was to sell the region as a franchise (another discussion) So, my question is, can I mix my strategies without any issues, or should I create separate sites?
Local SEO | | AgLend0 -
National and Local rankings differences
Hi Guys,
Local SEO | | nikaus
I am in Australia and have a client I am working with that ranks quite well for their main keywords.
The business is based in Sydney but delivers Australia wide. The issue is - their main keyword ranks no.1 nationally.
If I set google to any of the main cities and type
Outdoor Mirrors Perth
Outdoor Mirrors Melbourne
Outdoor Mirrors Sydney
My client comes up no.1 But if I leave the city off the end of the keyword and I'm anywhere but Sydney I do not rank well for Outdoor Mirrors. The address of the business is in Sydney hence the no.1 there, but we said in Places that we deliver australia wide. Does anybody know why we don't rank well without the city added to the keyword and a way to remedy this? Thanks Nik0 -
Local SEO same company two different locations
I have a client who has 2 locations approx 20 miles apart. He wants to reach new customers at the second office location. He is an owner of a law firm he practices elder law, in the second location he has an attorney who practices injury law. The second location is in an area where targeting prospects for elder law could also be lucrative. We currently have two separate websites for each area of law. My question is... Would it be suggested to create another elder law website to target the potential clients in this second location. Also for the first location we have put in place a content marketing strategy that has increased revenue considerably. Basically creating content (blog posts) that resonate with the target audience. If a new website is in order can the blog post be posted here too with a canonical referencing the original website. Im thinking a slow redistribution of content on the new site. Advice here is greatly appreciated as this new market for my client could increase revenue even more.
Local SEO | | donsilvernail0 -
Local Pages for National (Service) Companies
Hi there, I was wanting to know the value of local pages for a service company that operates nationally. They do not have a phone number or address, but they do maintain employees in each of the locations and are thus, keen to emphasize this fact with location pages. The location pages merely explain that they have staff in each of the locations and experience working there, alongside a variety of information that is relevant to the industry/market in that location. None of the location pages are currently ranking well at all - in fact, all of the ones I've looked at so far have had a page authority of 1. Most of the major towns, cities and counties for the entire UK have been covered which means the location pages constitute a significant proportion of all of the pages for the entire site. My questions are: Is a national service company likely to benefit from having location pages? And could it even be something they could be penalised for at some point down the line? Thanks very much, in advance, for your time. Kind Regards, Tom
Local SEO | | National-Homebuyers0