Is Yext Worth It?
It’s important that your business’ contact information is the same across all of the local business directories if you want to show up on the first page of Google in the local results for keywords in your business’ industry. Consistency is one of the ranking factors for Local SEO. Local Search has become more relevant with the rise of smartphones.
With your approval, Google and other search engines can track your location which allows them to give you search results based on where you are currently located. Here is what the local business search results look like from my desktop computer at my office in Atlanta for the keyword “Atlanta web design”:
And here is what the business local search results look like on my mobile phone at my office:
Yext allows you to update your business information on multiple local business review websites without having to log in to each one manually.
Setting up multiple directory listings is time consuming and tedious. Yext takes away a lot of the pain by allowing you to claim and create listings for your business in over 80 local business directories by setting up just one profile. So, should you use Yext? Keep reading, and judge for yourself.
Pros of Using Yext
As of today, Yext manages over 80 local business directories from their dashboard. Changes to a business’ profile on Yext appear almost immediately on directories partnered with Yext. Some of the more well known local directories in this list are:
- Amazon Alexa
- Apple
- Bing
- Eventbrite
- Citysearch
- Dun & Bradstreet
- Foursquare
- Google My Business
- Hotfrog
- MapQuest
- MerchantCircle
- Nextdoor
- Postmates
- Snapchat
- Superpages
- TripAdvisor
- TrustPilot
- Uber
- UberEats
- Citysearch
- Waze
- Yahoo
- Yelp
- YP
- Zomato
Yext would be beneficial to many small business owners because most small business owners don’t have the time nor the skill to manually set up multiple accounts one-by-one. I’ve set up profiles manually for Mr. Technique on many of the websites listed on Yext, and it took me several hours. This entailed adding my business name, business description, business hours, categories, forms of payment, and photos. Doing this process is repetitive and time consuming.
With Yext, you can have 80+ profiles set up in a fraction of the time that it takes to manually setup each local directory listing. If you were to do this yourself, it would take you more than 10 hours (maybe even more than 20 hours) to manually setup or change all of your directory listings that are managed by Yext.
In addition to the long setup, you would have to wait for a couple of months for some of those edits to be approved and published. If your business has duplicate listings, Yext can suppress them if you are subscribed to their duplicate suppression plan. I’ve had to remove duplicate listings on Google, Yahoo, and Facebook. It wasn’t the easiest task in the world, and it took a few weeks for the duplicate listings to disappear.
If your business’ phone number, website, or address changes, you could change this information in minutes with Yext as opposed to hours if you were to make the change one-by-one. We’ve had a few clients change their address over the years, but because they were on a Yext subscription plan, changing an address was as simple as updating the address on the Yext dashboard.
Another huge benefit of using Yext is that you get somewhat of a free upgrade on some of the websites. For example, if you set up a free ChamberofCommerce.com profile now, they won’t make it public unless you upgrade to one of their paid plans.
Another example would be Superpages. I wasn’t able to get a YouTube video on my business’ Superpages profile when I manually set it up, but now that Yext controls it, I’m allowed to add a YouTube video to it (see Superpages listing).
Cons of Using Yext
Yext comes at a hefty price tag. Yext doesn’t offer monthly plans. You have to prepay for a year upfront which is somewhere around $1000. If you don’t renew with Yext, all of the listings that were set up through the Yext dashboard revert back to the way they were before you signed up. Also, all of the suppressed duplicates will come back.
If you took the time to set up profiles on any of the business review websites, Yext will overwrite those profiles. My business description that took me an hour to type on Yelp was replaced with the business description that I typed on Yext. I didn’t want my Yelp business description to be the same as all of the others, so I clicked the Opt Out option. When I did that, Mr. Technique’s Yelp business description was wiped out. Luckily, I was able to get a Yelp representative to restore the old original description.
After I restored the Yelp description, I used the Opt Out option on a few websites that hadn’t been changed by Yext yet. I didn’t want Yext overwriting all of the original content that I wrote. I’m not so sure how Google, Bing, or Yahoo views original content on these types of websites, but it can’t hurt to have a few different descriptions. Shown below is a screenshot of the websites that I opted not to be controlled by Yext.
Other profiles that were replaced were my MerchantCircle and ChamberofCommerce.com listing. The ChamberofCommerce.com listing was actually taken out of my account and put back in to unclaimed status. I had to send them an email to reclaim the listing.
It’s not shown on here, but I used the Opt Out option on Google Plus (now Google My Business) as well. Keep in mind, that while the number of directories that Yext manages is increasing, there are still several local directories that Yext doesn’t have access to such as:
Hotfrog, YP, and Nextdoor used to be in this list, but Yext now manages these directories. If you don’t like the idea of never owning your local directory listings, you could go about setting up your business’ local directory listings yourself by visiting these two links:
If your business is located in Metro Atlanta, we could do it for you as we offer Local SEO services to businesses close to us.
So Is Yext Worth It?
At first, I thought that it wasn’t, but the more that I use it, the more I feel that it is worth the price. Has Yext helped Mr. Techinque’s search engine rankings? No, but I had already set up several directory listings manually before become a Yext Partner.
I also had to wait months before my business listing was approved in some of the local directories. Yext has agreements with the directories that they manage, so the wait time won’t be more than a week.
Yext had helped Sittersphere (one of our former clients). Before setting up a Yext account for them, Google thought the search term “Sittersphere” was a misspelling of another word like stratosphere or something along those lines. Thanks to the local directory listings that were quickly set up by Yext, the Sittersphere website and local directory listings dominated the first page on Google.
Yext isn’t the only thing needed in Local SEO though, so don’t expect miracles though. There are other factors that contribute to your business’ local search result like maintaining a good online reputation.
I hope this post was helpful, and I’d love to hear your comments below.
So I was considering subscribing to Yext but when I saw the price tag I said “YIKES.” We opted instead to sign up with a company called Revlocal but now that I’ve done that, I still feel “taken” because I’m paying Revlocal $299 a month for them to add my company to all the local directories plus I get a “landing page” that is supposed to be keyword optimized. I still don’t like visitors going to the “landing page” that they created prior to being taken to my website but I decided to give it a try for 3 montha. At the end of the day, Revlocal uses the YEXT dashboard to update everything if I’m not mistaken so I’m screwed either way. What are your thoughts on this?
I would cancel the Revlocal listing. $299/month is way too much. That’s even more than Yext charges if you multiply it by 12 months.
A good reason why I decided to try Yext is because if I wanted to sell it to my clients, I can offer it on a monthly basis starting at $50/month as opposed the huge lump sum. The client would be able to log in to the dashboard and manage their own account.
I am impressed by the speed at which the updates are made though.
April Chapman,
Yext is a small portion of what is included in the RevLocal $299 Local Search Marketing services. The primary business pages of Google, Bing, Yelp, Facebook and Yahoo are managed outside the Yext platform and directly. Alongside Yext, RevLocal also partners with other authoritative database partners.
In addition to business listing management our service include a dedicated Digital Marketing Strategist that brings a real relationship to your business. Like a CMO for your local business. We also have an industry leading digital marketing dashboard that delivers full API integration’s.
The service that Yext provides is only as valuable as the residual content delivered to it. I hope this helps to understand the value of Yext vs. RevLocal.
Great post! Would you mind sharing: after you opted out of the other sites: (1) how long did it take for your old listing information to reappear? and (2) did you old listing data reappear on all of the other sites (besides Yelp) (3) why didn’t you opt out of other listings? I mean, why just those, and why those?
Sure, Tina.
I just opted out for my Superpages listing, and my old listing information appeared within 5 minutes. Yext allows you to link a tagline to a page on your website. The link was removed when I opted out for my Superpages listing. My business description text stayed the same and showed up in my Dex Media account. Dex Media manages Superpages.
Before joining Yext, I set up several local listings individually, and each one of them had a different description. I did opt out of a few other listings like Chamber of Commerce, Foursquare, Yahoo, and a few others.
Yext allows you to have a more enhanced listing. For example, you can link a tagline to a page and show a YouTube video. If you set up the listing on the actual local directory website, you wouldn’t be able to have those two items on your business profile page.
If you’re interested in a Yext subscription, I’m offering it on a monthly or yearly basis right here.
Honestly this whole yext thing is terrible for businesses and the yext partners.
Let me explain, I have a few clients who have businesses that are very old, very well known, yet their websites, locations and business names have changed and moved, that said, non of them seemed to want to pay up to have yext update the listings rather they went with the traditional SEO techniques of articles and other non yext affiliated engines. This not only creates old outdated information on the directories that yext manages, it will create rise newer free directories around the WWW.
That’s just my thought on this whole yext take over. As an IT guru, sorry yext, I am swiping next!
Shady T,
CEO 2 IT Support USA
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