Is it more beneficial to use Yext rather than doing the citations manually?
-
Our company wanted to experiment on whether it truly is more beneficial to use Yext for citations rather than to do them ourselves. The thought process here, is that when we manually do the citations, some of our listings would increase in quality. The problem we have been running into, is that Yext has exclusive deals with nearly half of the sources we were previously listed under. Is there a way around this, or is Yext truly worth the cost?
-
I think Yext is really worth the cost and has the most important local directories covered. One main advantage of services like Yext or Moz Local is the ease of making updates to the listings. With manual citations, if you need to make a small change to the hours or description of the business, you need to repeat the task for all the sites one by one. But with Yext or Moz Local, it can happen quickly by just updating the business under your Yext or Moz Local account while automation will take care of updating the rest of the listings in the background for you.
There is also this business listing scan tool out there that I thought might be relevant to this question, it covers the most sites and also tells you what's your completeness score and your accuracy score with a short link that you can use to share the web-based report with others. I hope you find my answer useful. -
Yext is a HUGE time save. Well worth it.
-
Good Morning, Bek!
I hope you will receive a variety of responses from our community on this, as citation management is often a case of horses for courses. What you choose should be based on factors including the scale of your business model, your funding, your expectations of control/management, etc. Basically, you have 3 options when it comes to citation management:
-
Do it all manually. The plus side of this is that you have as much direct control as possible. The minus side is that it is time-consuming and can't be scaled easily for companies with multiple locations. It's all but impossible to efficiently, manually manage local business listings for dozens, hundreds or thousands of locations. And, manual on-going monitoring of citation quality is a huge chore even if you only have a single location business.
-
Hire a company to do it for you manually. Whitespark is one of the more popular companies that builds a la carte citations manually. The plus side of this is that you pay once and the citations are built well with good data that you've approved, without you having to invest a lot of time. The minus side is that citations typically need to be managed on an ongoing basis, which companies like Whitespark don't do. They are an excellent service for a one-time manual build, but because of the way data can degrade over time, may not be the right match for a business that wants to monitor and manage their listings on an on-going basis.
-
Automate it. This is what companies like Moz Local, Uberall and Yext do. Moz Local, for example, distributes your data to the major citation platforms (including the major aggregators) and then offers you a dashboard for ongoing monitoring. The plus side of this is that the work on your end is nominal and, at least with Moz Local, you'll be alerted to ongoing issues with your data, including inconsistent and duplicate listings, as they arise. A solution like this scales to dozens, hundreds or thousands of locations. The main minus side is a lack of direct control, plus cost can be a factor, and one of the key complaints about Yext is that (unlike Moz Local) they charge for your distribution to low-quality directories that few people actually use.
So, those are your 3 options, and what might work best for a single location boutique may not be the right match for a multi-location restaurant chain. Some businesses do like Yext, but if you do a bit of searching, you will also find genuine complaints, as you will about most providers. Other people are big fans of Moz Local, BrightLocal, Uberall and other providers. So, as I said, I'm hoping you'll get multiple points of view on this thread, do some investigative work, and discover the right match for your brand's scenario. In the end, that's what matters most!
I'll just finish up by letting you know that if you have any questions about how Moz Local could help you business, please email our customer service support at help@moz.com. You'll receive a friendly and helpful reply.
-
-
This is a really good question and something with which, I am at least personally experienced with - in terms of having done recent research on the subject
Recently we (at Effect Digital, UK) moved office. I say recently, it was probably nearly a year ago now. Previously we had been using Moz Local, but were shocked to find that simple features like 'changing' or 'updating' our business address were not supported. The problem comes down to directory aggregators (the main offender being Central Index) and how they interact with various listing suppliers
When Moz Local failed to update our business address, we tried to contact a lot of directory-owners (and directory aggregators like Central Index) manually. Trust me when I say, the largest ones (like Central Index, which handle the majority of your directory listings across local newspaper sites - at least here in the UK) do not want to hear from you at all
We submitted contact forms, spent hours browsing to hidden contact URLs, even found a phone number for them - which rang for a minute, then forwarded to a separate disconnected number. These guys don't care about receiving updates from Moz and they don't care about your update requests. They don't even want to listen to you, for 2 minutes
The problem with Moz local, as a Moz rep told us - is that when they push data (from Moz's Local database, to the databases of aggregate listing handlers like Central Index), there is no legal agreement requiring the aggregator(s) to accept Moz's update(s). They will accept Moz Local's first set of data, but if you ever want to change anything substantial - that rapidly becomes a massive problem. Moz Local is a great way to take your first steps into local listings handling, but the solution isn't end-to-end, or rigorous enough for on-going usage
Yext is much better, from the sounds of it. Myself and another experienced colleague spent some hours on the phone to their support people who seemed qualified and able to handle our complex queries. They stated to us that, they have a more 'direct' agreement with listing aggregators which directly pushes their data over the top of everyone else's. That tells me that, either their solution works well or - if it didn't work, you'd have recourse to push them to get things sorted out. They take more responsibility and really try to make sure that their updates 'actually' end up live in aggregator databases (which is great)
We didn't end up using Yext because, as an SMB the pricing was pretty severe. We were told that Yell basically re-sell Yext's technology to smaller businesses and that we'd have better luck with Yell. Whilst Yell may be based on the same technology, the support is woefully inferior and I'd never recommend working with Yell. We had one rep visit us to answer technical questions. He knew none of the answers to our questions, knew nothing about SEO and actually had the tenacity to try and 'steer' us toward purchasing some crappy directory listing on Yell which wasn't at all what we wanted (or were interested in)
Moz is great when you're starting out, but because the 'deals' they have with data aggregators aren't 'forceful' enough, it's not a good on-going solution (Moz know this and said as much to us over the phone). It's still the best place for you to 'start' as the prices are great and it does function well, until more crucial data changes are required (at which point it falls flat on its face)
At that point you really should be going with Yext if you can afford Yext. The product is superior, the support is very strong (Moz's support is actually great too, but hindered by the product which is defective under some specific circumstances). In-between the cheap and cheerful Moz and the very expensive Yext, there's nothing good enough to fill the void (which sucks!)
You may have some luck manually adjusting some listings. But for the ones controlled by central databases which fire their data out to many directories, your only real option to have a reasonable shot at getting them changed - is assuredly Yext
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
-
Best address to use on Google business listing for youth sports program
Hello, Moz Community! I'm helping a friend with some local marketing for his youth sports program. He trains his kids at a community center and a public park where court times are managed by the city. His address in his Google business listing is currently the community center, but that is shared with multiple businesses including the community center itself. I know he needs an address that is unique to his business, but he lives outside of the city in which his program is located. Our goal is to boost exposure in the city in which his program is located. Since 1) his business address is located outside of the city in which he conducts business and 2) the addresses at which he conducts his business is utilized by multiple businesses including the actual property owner, what options do I we have for an address that Google will recognize as valid and won't cause ranking issues? If there is nothing we can do in the current situation, what are steps we can take to address this issue for his business? Thanks a lot!
Local Listings | | Tony_GP0 -
Google Places - Cached Citations
Looking to update my business address where possible because I have moved offices. I know that Google uses citations from multiple parties to impact on the Google Places results. Trouble is when address details are updated on hese third party sites I notice that Google doesn't often recache the page and get the new address. What method(s) can I use to resolve this issue? Justin
Local Listings | | GrouchyKids0 -
In 2015, How Important is having a Local IP address (rather than a cheaper hosting overseas)?
Looking to move several sites from my current hosting provider, and am considering moving them to cheaper, overseas hosting providers. What's the current thinking of how this will impact local SEO results?
Local Listings | | SEO-NS1 -
Local Citation Building Services Similar to Yext
I have several clients looking for local submission services similar to Yext (since they are already subsribers). Can anyone suggest a service similar to Yext for an SBO. Likewise, do any of you know any local citation services that are similar to Yext, but specifically for the hotel/hospitality industry? I was considering localeze.com, but I'm skeptical because I believe the citations I will be getting there will be similar to the ones I'm getting on Yext. Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Local Listings | | maxcarnage1 -
What is the ideal length of a business description for citations?
I am trying to write a business description for building citations. What is the ideal length or word count for this? I am using Yext to help get them listed, did a lot of searching for an answer and was unable to come up with a definite answer. Any help would be great! The business I am working on for this is James River Church, they have 2 locations. So I am trying to write a unique description for both locations.
Local Listings | | chris.oursbourn0 -
Local Citations Name
Hi Everyone, I am creating local citations for a company, let's call it "Gray Marketing". That is their legal business name and has been this way for about 23 years. Recently (over the past year) they have been going by the name "Gray Marketing and SEO". They had a new logo made that appears on their companies website and location. When creating local citations. The four primary aggregators (Axicom, Localeze, Infogroup, Factual) have the legal business name. My question is, should I change it to the new name or leave it as the legal business name? Side note: I am not able to change the legal business name on Axicom. Any advise would be awesome, thanks. -Michael
Local Listings | | Mike.NW0 -
Local Citations
So we are working on our citations. Now the issue is (not really an issue, but it is definitely very annoying) is that we have multiple locations. I get that you need to then have multiple listings. Where I get baffled is that I have read that you will then need to have more than 1 google + account for the different addresses. That seems like a lot of work to keep two google + accounts updated. Is this a must for SEO purposes?
Local Listings | | blackrino0 -
Getting Google To Correct Your Citation
Over the last few months, I have done everything other than drive out to California and bring google flowers to get them to edit the stupid zipcode for our downtown Tampa office. Does anyone have any experience getting these types of situations corrected? I'm at a total loss, and I do not know what else I can do. Extremely frustrated...but always grateful, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0