Perplexed About Paid Services

[Laustin1878]

I've been using some of the free trials for citation tracking tools to to see which will I like the best. As a result, I've been reading a bunch lately and one thing thing I can't wrap my head around is how do you choose which "service" to pay for and which not when it comes to seed NAP services. i.e. Yahoo listing was inaccurate per a report. I went to investigate further, was led to their small business portal and they want $90 for 3 months to update. Is it worth it?

One thing that especially gets me is that if you stop paying for the seed NAP services, the listing goes back to it's original state. I get it, everyone wants their money but some of them are more steep then others. It just makes the decision even harder to choose which one to buck up for.

How are you managing listings for your clients within these paid tools? Have you found several of one or several of the other cover more bases? As with all sorts of tools, there is only so much money to go towards these things. Trying to maximize my dollar the best I can.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Yahoo's local service is Yext white-labeled, just a heads up.

We only use Moz Local and then manually build all other citations.

Yext is too expensive in my opinion when that money goes much further in other services.

Also, I would encourage you to find a good citation builder in Odesk. It's much cheaper than hiring a citation building service. I pay about 1/8 the normal cost per citation.

 

[mborgelt]

Like Joshua said, I would try to find someone who has experience building and cleaning citations rather than use a service. Like you said a lot of these tools have an expiration date and we have seen clients come to us with more problems with their citations after using these services. Someone experienced in citation building will know work around solutions for sites like Yahoo and will know the best way to get your information cleaned and keep it that way. I would manually build and maintain what you can but when you hit a brick wall definitely consult an individual who specializes in citation building and cleaning

 

[MarketingGiant]

I have used Moz Local with over 80+ accounts and have seen good results (start when it was only $45, so got a good deal). I have also used White Sparks, Bright Local, Yahoo Listings. But for some reason all of these softwares did not run as consistent as I thought they would. I like White Spark and Bright Local but have had better luck with Moz Local + i'm located in Seattle so gotta represent #localcompanies. Once we set an account up we manually add new owns as we go. Also Moz Local does not support multiple business, which I hope they add soon.

 

[Laustin1878]

Like Joshua said, I would try to find someone who has experience building and cleaning citations rather than use a service. Like you said a lot of these tools have an expiration date and we have seen clients come to us with more problems with their citations after using these services. Someone experienced in citation building will know work around solutions for sites like Yahoo and will know the best way to get your information cleaned and keep it that way. I would manually build and maintain what you can but when you hit a brick wall definitely consult an individual who specializes in citation building and cleaning

I want to be that person...lol The one who has that knowledge. I want to be the one who possesses that knowledge to work around for these paid services. Thats my light at the end of the tunnel. That is my near term goal.

I have not tried Moz Local yet. I've seen a lot of good comments about the service but I have also seen some negative regarding listings going back to their original state after you stop paying for Moz Local. Any validity to this? Wouldn't this be the same predicament as Yahoo/Yext?

I guess it comes down to trial and error to see what works best for me. I feel like I just need to be more efficient and build value into a service.

Thank you for your time and insightful responses. It's most appreciated.

 

[MarketingGiant]

I would use MozLocal if your looking for the best results for your money. I have used there support many times and had no issues yet. But my only issue is they don't support multiple locations. That is why I use Yahoo local listing because its easier to add multiple locations and verify them. However it does cost around $90 every 3 months. But if you company has multiple locations then I think it would be worth the investment. However I would also use bright local free trial so that you can use there local citation tool that will give you insight on citation your missing or need to fix.