Alternatives to Bright Local

[sodomojo]

So long story short I am transitioning my customers rankings from my white label provider over to a new BL account I created. Suffice it to say it hasn't been a good experience.

I want to LOVE BL, their tools look amazing, but it looks like I'll probably need to search for an alternative.

Is there any other company that has similar offerings to BL?

 

[mborgelt]

I am in the process of launching Keyword Ranking Tool | Free SEO and Local Analysis | MySEOLabs that will allow you to do SEO analysis, Local analysis, citation research and most importantly keyword rank checking for both organic and local results. All the tools are free except the keyword ranking tool which is $0.25 per keyword.

What other features are you looking for?

 

[sodomojo]

I am in the process of launching Keyword Ranking Tool | Free SEO and Local Analysis | MySEOLabs that will allow you to do SEO analysis, Local analysis, citation research and most importantly keyword rank checking for both organic and local results. All the tools are free except the keyword ranking tool which is $0.25 per keyword.

What other features are you looking for?

Keep in mind I haven't used BL yet, but I think it looks awesome and looked forward to using tools such as:

Local SEO Checkup
Google + Local Wizard
Citation Tracker
Review Biz

 

[Linda Buquet]

So long story short I am transitioning my customers rankings from my white label provider over to a new BL account I created. Suffice it to say it hasn't been a good experience.

I want to LOVE BL, their tools look amazing, but it looks like I'll probably need to search for an alternative.

Are you saying it won't work for you or the transition is problematic? If so, I assume you've contacted support for help? I would think their support would be very good.

BrightLocal has some very rich features no one else has!

I've not had time to look at Michael's software, but hope to when I get caught up.

Have you looked at Places Scout? (Note only using an affiliate link because I donate consulting time to help develop and improve the software for everyone's benefit and am responsible for many of the features that Mark has added.) Scout's rank tracker is excellent and their Local SEO and competitive analysis features are really good. Plus they have citation finder and reputation management.

 

[sodomojo]

Are you saying it won't work for you or the transition is problematic? If so, I assume you've contacted support for help? I would think their support would be very good.

BrightLocal has some very rich features no one else has!

I've not had time to look at Michael's software, but hope to when I get caught up.

Have you looked at Places Scout? (Note only using an affiliate link because I donate consulting time to help develop and improve the software for everyone's benefit and am responsible for many of the features that Mark has added.) Scout's rank tracker is excellent and their Local SEO and competitive analysis features are really good. Plus they have citation finder and reputation management.

The issue is that I have an open trouble ticket (from 7 days ago), with all the information needed to transfer these accounts to my BL account 5 days ago, and though I have sent 5 emails, I've only had 1 reply (after the first) and that was 4 days ago.

Yep I have PS as well. I prefer the BL ranking and would love to keep the history I have in their system, plus I am really interested in all their other programs.

I don't mean to turn this into a bash on BL, I WANT TO WORK WITH THEM! I just need alternatives because it doesn't appear that it will work out.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Please use my contact form and email me about this and reference link to this thread so I don't have to look it up. I'll forward to Myles at BrightLocal and see if support can help you get this resolved. (I'd just send Myles to this thread but then he would not know your real name or email to help.)

No sense giving up if it's what you want. Let's see if they can get it working for you.

 

[Jo Shaer]

I have used BL for best part of a year now and their support is normally very good. Give them another nudge.

Having said that, I read a couple of 'gurus' who said that scraping the internet for rankings could actually count against a client. It has given me serious reservations about whether or not I should be providing regular ranking reports in this way.

Anyone else got any thoughts?

 

[sodomojo]

Please use my contact form and email me about this and reference link to this thread so I don't have to look it up. I'll forward to Myles at BrightLocal and see if support can help you get this resolved. (I'd just send Myles to this thread but then he would not know your real name or email to help.)

No sense giving up if it's what you want. Let's see if they can get it working for you.

Just emailed you.

 

[Myles Anderson]

@Sodomojo - Myles from BrightLocal here.

I have sent you an email reply to this so hopefully you'll see that. I also wanted to publicly reply here to explain how we have tackled this.

Excerpt from email -

Sorry you didn't get a reply from us yesterday. Google made a big update to Google+ today which was unexpected and is affecting some of our tools so it's been all hands to the pump to fix that.
Also I wasn't aware of the urgency of your required changes. The request you gave us was the first time we've been asked to do this for a customer so we've had to plan how to approach it best. We actually took the decision to create a re-usable system should another customer ask for the same thing. This took longer to build but means it's very fast for us to again the next time - no technical/developer time needed.
So the delays weren't us being sloppy but us choosing to take the best long-term approach. I'm sorry if that caused you problems but we really weren't aware of the urgency.
We have made these changes for you now and your clients & reports are now in your account. Please double check they are all there and let us know if we missed any.
Apologies again for the delay.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Myles - you rock!

I knew there was a solution and you'd come through as always.

And makes sense the update would shake things up for you and cause extra work. Of course making the software work for all when Google changes things has to be a priority, so thanks for explaining that too.

 

[sodomojo]

Yep, everything resolved. Thank You.

Can't wait to get started using BL.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Awesome! Good to hear. Glad I was able to get involved to help you.

 

[Nick.SEOSpark]

Having said that, I read a couple of 'gurus' who said that scraping the internet for rankings could actually count against a client. It has given me serious reservations about whether or not I should be providing regular ranking reports in this way.

Anyone else got any thoughts?

Hey Jo - I haven't heard about that before but really interested in hearing more - At the moment, I can't see how scraping the web for keyword rankings can effect a specific client. However, if it is an issue, I'd of course like to know about it as well.

So yes, if anyone else can chime in on this (including Myles - nice to see you here! ), then I'm sure myself and Jo would be grateful.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Jo and Nick,

RavenTools and someone else actually had to stop offering rank tracking due to issues with scraping Google results. So it IS an issue for lots of tracking companies. AND in the past - many years ago Google would penalize sites that used certain rank tracking programs.

But it depends on the type of ranking companies are doing - scraping vs some other way. Scrambling and just can't remember all the details. Maybe Myles will see this, come back and weigh in.

Here are a couple posts about Raven: Google Forces Raven Tools to Kill Rank Tracking Tool
A message from our CEO: Raven to drop rankings, other scraped data on Jan. 2

 

[Myles Anderson]

Thanks Linda. Hope that things are getting back to normal for you.

We've fixed those issues cause by google's changes yesterday. Sorry for any interruption to service guys. Business as normal again now

 

[Nick.SEOSpark]

Thanks Linda. Hope that things are getting back to normal for you.

We've fixed those issues cause by google's changes yesterday. Sorry for any interruption to service guys. Business as normal again now

Thanks Myles, and thanks a lot for the support email that you sent me earlier this week.

I'd like to take some time to talk about my own positive experience with BrightLocal.

I find the scope of tools fantastic to use, and everything looks (and acts) fantastic. One of my favourite tools to use is the Citation Tracker + Citation Burst as a killer combo! Essentially, you have the citation tracker to take a good analysis of the current and potential citations, but then you have the Citation Burst (service) to take care of the troublesome task of building the citations.

This way, in a few clicks ($3 per citation), it's all taken care of by BrightLocal. And, I've found the service to be very effective so far. What I like is that they take great care to give quality submissions. I even got an email from one of the support staff to alert me about a Dupe!

 

[Myles Anderson]

@Nick from SEO Spark

Thanks for your kind words and for bigging us up - we appreciate the public backing.

We try our hardest to create & maintain the best set of local SEO tools available online. Lots more improvements and new reports coming soon - i'm particularly excited about our reputation monitoring tool called ReviewFlow product which is due out in April - it's going to be great.

Thanks again

 

[Nick.SEOSpark]

Thanks Myles.

Yes, you guys give so much support to your customers and that is very much appreciated.

I particularly liked the Webinar Series you held before Christmas explaining the best ways to use the tools - very comprehensive.

 

[Jo Shaer]

What Nick said! Myles and his team have always given me great support. And the Citation services are impressive.

I heard two 'gurus' say that scraping the web to find out where your website ranked was against Google's T&Cs. It makes me very concerned about offering a monthly report to my clients if I'm actually doing more harm than good, so would really appreciate the reassurance.