Places Scount Review - The Swiss Army Knife for Local Search

[Linda Buquet]

<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SwissArmyKnifeNew.jpg" alt="SwissArmyKnife" width="65%" />


Local Rank Tracking :: Competitive Analysis :: Citation Finder :: Lead Finder
Local NAP Audits :: Reputation Management :: Keyword Generator ​

I call Places Scout the "Swiss Army Knife" for Local because it gives you multiple tools in one and provides powerful time-saving features to help you manage and automate most common Local SEO tasks.

Places Scout offers solutions for Rank Tracking, Citation Analysis, Listing Auditing, Competitive Analysis, Lead Generation, Reputation Monitoring, and Social Media reporting.

<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ScoutLogo500.jpg" alt="SwissArmyKnife" width="35%" />

Introducing the New Improved Places Scout (Online Version)​

The new online platform provides a suite of tools for enterprises and agencies that manage large-scale SEO campaigns. This all-in-one solution provides you with a wealth of reporting data at your fingertips, without having to use separate tools.

I've been wanting to do a review for awhile, but was waiting for a couple of features I requested to be added and for the info pages to be finished, so you could see all the options. I was going to try to do an overview of all the Places Scout features. But the software does way too much to cover in one post. So I'm going to make this a series instead. Today I will cover 2 of the primary modules, then just link to the other modules with a brief summary. Then later will do more in-depth overviews of some of the individual modules.

There are TONS of features and I'm only covering a few for each module so be sure to click through to each page to check see the full feature list and screenshots of reports for each module.

<div style="font-size:28px;color: #ff9900;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;">Rank Tracking</div>
• Track rankings in major search engines
• Updated to work with and accurately track all the latest Google SERP changes
• Location Emulation - allows you to GEO target ranking which is essential for local tracking
• SERP Competitive Data
• White Label Client Reports
• Beautiful Historical Ranking Charts
• Customizable Ranking Reports - Change Time Periods
• Before / After Report Comparisons (See reasons below)

NOTE: I just picked out a few of the features. Go to the Rank Tracker page to see them all.

I especially like the <a href="https://www.placesscout.com/rank-tracker">Before/After Ranking Comparison Report</a>, which is one of the features I recommended and worked with Mark on. (See 8th screenshot down at link above.) Perfect for showing clients, before/after they started working with you OR for your own analysis before/after you started a new technique OR before/after a big algo change.

CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW FULL SIZE SCREENSHOTS & OTHER REPORTS

<img src="https://www.placesscout.com/images/new-screenshots/rank-tracker/rankings-1.png" width="85%" />​

There are so many other features & screenshots, I could not fit everything in this post.
Go to the site to see all the Places Scout Rank Tracker features.


<div style="font-size:28px;color: #ff9900;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;">Competitive Analysis / Leads Generation</div>
Places Scout’s hybrid competitive analysis / lead generation module can provide up to 400 points of data about any business, giving you a wealth of background intelligence data that can be used for competitive analysis. reverse engineering the algo for each niche or for prospecting for new clients.

Business Intelligence Data is displayed for multiple businesses based on the keyword and location you provide when creating a report, and gives you the upper hand in competitive analysis as you can see all of this data side-by-side with all businesses in your report.

Knowing this data will position you as an expert in the field for new prospects as well as existing clients and helps you see at a glance the factors that are influencing the rankings most, in that particular market.

With this data, you can hand pick targeted businesses based on any one of our over 400 data points and offer these businesses a wide range of services.

PARTIAL LIST of DATA SETS AVAILABLE:
o Google My Business Data (27 Data Points: Claimed? Distance, #Citations, #Reviews & More)
o SERP Ranking and Google Page Rank
o SEOMoz, Majestic, Alexa.com, WHOIS and other organic metrics
o Website On-Page Keyword Analysis - Keyword and/or City in Title Tag, H1 and More
o Mobile Website, Responsive Design And Flash Detection
o Website Technologies Detection
o Social Media Metrics including Facebook likes, etc.
o Email Addresses, Business Owner Names and many other helpful prospecting details about business

One of the features I like best is one I recommended to Mark. You can add your client to the competitive analysis. So normally to reverse engineer the algo to see what it takes to rank in that market, you would query the top 10 businesses. But what if you have a new client and they are sitting at # 28? They aren't in the top 10 so you can't see how they stack up. Now you can add your new client's listing even though they aren't ranking well yet and compare them to the top 10 to see what ranking factors they are lacking in comparison to the other players in their market.

<a href="https://www.placesscout.com/lead-generation">SEE Complete List and Description of All Data Items (400 total)</a> Places Scout can Provide for each Business Result. Numerous reports can be generated and there are TONS of screenshots on that page to help illustrate the power of this module.


<div style="font-size:28px;color: #ff9900;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;">Citation Reports</div>
• Citation reports gather all websites that contain your business’ name, address, phone, and site URL
• The list of citations returned is what is considered to be true citations in the eyes of Google
• Overall Citation Summary Metrics
• Competitive Citation Analysis AND MORE

My favorite Citation Finder feature: Analyzes both your client's citations and your client's competitor citations. Allows you to compare your client's citations against competitor to discover at a glance where they have citations.

<a href="https://www.placesscout.com/citation-finder-tool">Local Citation Finder</a> (Complete features & screenshots)


<div style="font-size:28px;color: #ff9900;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;">Listing NAP Audit Reports</div>
Listing NAP Audit reports provide you with a picture of how your business’ NAP info appears in the top major directory sites, allowing you to easily see which sites have inaccurate NAP info for your business. These reports give you the information you need to know before making the decision of whether or not you need to order a listing syndication service such as Yext to clean up your listing data.

<a href="https://www.placesscout.com/business-listing-management">NAP Audit Reports - Listing Management</a> (More features & screenshots)


<div style="font-size:28px;color: #ff9900;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;">Review Monitoring</div>
Gather and Monitor Reviews from 21 Top Review Sites and get a complete picture of any business' reputation online with overall summary metrics as well as individual metrics for each review source.
Also includes: New Review Alerts, Sentiment Analysis Word Clouds (so you know the things people are saying most about your business across all reviews) and Historical Review Metrics Charts.

<a href="https://www.placesscout.com/reputation-management">Reputation Management & Review Monitoring</a> - Tons more here.


<div style="font-size:28px;color: #ff9900;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;">Multi-Location Management</div>
Places Scout has built in client / location management, allowing you to create client(s), and one or more locations for each client. You can then create reports for each location, allowing you to visualize all of Places Scout’s reporting data for each location with our dashboard summary view.
Offers full support for large enterprise SEO management and multi-location businesses.

This is POWERFUL for multi-location, chain and franchise listing management, analysis and reporting. Way too many features to mention. You'll find more details in several sections under the "Solutions" tab.


I'll be doing a much more in-depth post about the Competitive Analysis tool and how it can be used for ranking troubleshooting, sizing up new markets and reverse engineering the algo - especially helpful after a big Google shakeup!

Take advantage of the FREE TRIAL. That's the best way to discover all the features!


After you sign up, please report back and let us know what you think!

Also if you have any questions, ask here and I'll get Mark to come answer them.
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[Linda Buquet]

Zachary Palmer, in the Pro Community, just asked if I know the developers.

MY REPLY:

Yes, I have been working with the developer for 4 years on this product, since I 1st did BETA for the desktop version.

He's incorporated many of the suggestions I've recommended and they are some of the coolest features. (I mention a couple of them in the post.) His name is Mark Kabana and he'll be popping into the forum thread. He also has been active answering questions about the product in other threads at the forum.

EXTREMELY responsive to anything I need. Asked him for 4 new features I thought we critical last week. They are ALL in now!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Zachary Palmer just asked me another great Q so posting the convo here since I'm sure others are wondering the same thing.
8:25 AM

Zachary Palmer
What do you think? I've been using BrightLocal for simple tracking stuff since Beta - is this worth checking out and considering a change? 

Linda Buquet
I'm a BIG fan of both. I know BrightLocal added many of the features I recommended to Mark for Scout, after Scout launched them. So they are somewhat comparable. But they each have their strengths in different ways.

When I was still working with clients I used both for different reasons. Some things I liked better in one and some things in another.

Do the free trial and see what you think. Here it is: https://www.placesscout.com/pricing-packages

BUT these days I'm much more familiar with all the features of Scout and now with the online version it has so many new advantages. Plus a ton of new features have been added recently. Many of them are features no other Local SEO software has.

But again, BrightLocal is great, so try both and see which is a better fit for you.

 

[Linda Buquet]

FYI here is a post where I go into the "Find Local Clients" lead gen module in a little more detail.

FYI that's the same module as Competitive Analysis, it's just a matter of what type of data you want to gather and what your goal is.

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/consultants-corner/36137-local-search-brainstorm-best-ways-get-new-clients-fast-round-2-a.html">Local Search Brainstorm: Best Ways to Get New Clients Fast? Round 2</a>

 

[Susan]

Linda= I don't know whether to hug you for putting this together and sharing it or to scold you - this was a ton of work and typing that Im guessing you shouldn't be doing. BUT THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Great info - excited to report back.

 

[KabanaSoft]

Linda - Thank you very much for putting together such a lovely and informative post on the new version of Places Scout, it is much appreciated!

Also, you can view our full screenshot gallery of all of Places Scout's reports and features at this link: https://www.placesscout.com/screenshots

Folks, if anyone has any questions, comments, feedback, concerns, or need any help whatsoever with using the new version of Places Scout and would like to speak with someone on our team, we are here to help, so please do let us know - the quickest way to get in touch with us is to fill out the contact form at the bottom of our website here: https://www.placesscout.com or you can send me a PM directly with your contact info and i will have one of our support representatives get in touch with you as quickly as possible.

We are looking forward to everyone's feedback, and encourage you to get started by signing up for a free trial today!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Linda= I don't know whether to hug you for putting this together and sharing it or to scold you - this was a ton of work and typing that Im guessing you shouldn't be doing. BUT THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Great info - excited to report back.

Thrilled you are so happy and you are welcome, Susan. Luckily Mark gave me some copy and Dragon helped, so it wasn't too bad.

Linda - Thank you very much for putting together such a lovely and informative post on the new version of Places Scout, it is much appreciated!

Also, you can view our full screenshot gallery of all of Places Scout's reports and features at this link: https://www.placesscout.com/screenshots

Folks, if anyone has any questions, comments, feedback, concerns, or need any help whatsoever with using the new version of Places Scout and would like to speak with someone on our team, we are here to help, so please do let us know - the quickest way to get in touch with us is to fill out the contact form at the bottom of our website here: https://www.placesscout.com or you can send me a PM directly with your contact info and i will have one of our support representatives get in touch with you as quickly as possible.

We are looking forward to everyone's feedback, and encourage you to get started by signing up for a free trial today!

You're welcome Mark. I almost feel like Scout is my baby because I've been pretty involved since the beginning. Plus I always like to share good tips and tools.

Thanks for mentioning that you have the screenshots done now. I forgot about that part.
(There is just too much to cover with you!)

Thanks for stopping by, being willing to answer Qs and offering your help.
We appreciated it!

 

[Eric Rohrback]

For the external metrics (Moz, Majestic, etc), are they fully integrated or do you need to plug in an API key from a subscription to use that? I assume the latter since that's how most platforms like this work, but I wanted to get a definite answer

 

[Linda Buquet]

For the external metrics (Moz, Majestic, etc), are they fully integrated or do you need to plug in an API key from a subscription to use that? I assume the latter since that's how most platforms like this work, but I wanted to get a definite answer

I believe it's all integrated and you don't need a key. It costs you extra points to pull certain metrics like Majestic and Manta biz data. I believe that's because Mark pays for all the subscriptions then you reimburse for just the use of that service by paying the extra points. So you only select the data points you really need.

I'm pretty sure that's how it works, but Mark set up some demo reports for me in my acct, so I didn't really see if it asked for API key, but 99% sure you don't need one.

Mark will be by to answer when he gets up.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

As far as the rank tracker goes, it blows any other tool I've ever used out of the water.

Been a customer for I believe over 3 years now. Worth every penny.

 

[KabanaSoft]

For the external metrics (Moz, Majestic, etc), are they fully integrated or do you need to plug in an API key from a subscription to use that? I assume the latter since that's how most platforms like this work, but I wanted to get a definite answer

@Eric - we are fully integrated and you do not need to provide any API keys to access any data, its included in our pricing.

As far as the rank tracker goes, it blows any other tool I've ever used out of the water.

Been a customer for I believe over 3 years now. Worth every penny.

@Joshua - thank you for your kind words and for being such a loyal customer over the years, much appreciated!

 

[Kaycie Smith]

I realize this thread is a bit old now but wanted to add- I am finally getting a chance to check out this tool and several other similar ones. Still too new to most of them to comment on functionality (however what I have seen with PS seems great), BUT the customer service has been amazing- I sometimes need to actually speak with someone directly about how best to set my accts up and Places Scout is the only one thus far that has actually called me and walked me through some stuff. I have a multi location acct so it was getting a little tricky. Looking forward to continuing my "learning journey" with this tool. THX tons to Linda for helping get this tool created. THX tons to places scout!

 

[Carl Potts]

hi Does this tool cover the UK?

 

[KabanaSoft]

hi Does this tool cover the UK?

Hi Carl,

Yes, Places Scout has full support for the UK as well as 54 other countries .

All of our reports have an option to select your desired country. For rankings, we will use your country specific Google server (www.google.co.uk) as well as an IP address that is physically located inside your country to ensure that we gather data as if we were located within your country and provide results with a high degree of accuracy.

Hope this helps, let us know if you have any other questions, thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey Mark, thanks for weighing in!

 

[Carl Potts]

Hi Carl,

Yes, Places Scout has full support for the UK as well as 54 other countries .

All of our reports have an option to select your desired country. For rankings, we will use your country specific Google server (Google) as well as an IP address that is physically located inside your country to ensure that we gather data as if we were located within your country and provide results with a high degree of accuracy.

Hope this helps, let us know if you have any other questions, thanks!

thank you!,I think I'll give the trial a go

 

[marvellouz]

Can you specify the location in England for lead gen report? I typed in Bournemouth but it wouldnt appear on the results, it was only showing US towns and I selected google.co.uk

 

[KabanaSoft]

Can you specify the location in England for lead gen report? I typed in Bournemouth but it wouldnt appear on the results, it was only showing US towns and I selected google.co.uk

@marvellouz - just replied to your support ticket, please check my response, but in short yes you can specify the country and location setting to pull results for in our lead gen reports.

 

[marvellouz]

I'm using the software on trial at the moment as a Lead gen tool to find prospect clients for each town in the UK. So far the amount of data it has given is a lot more in depth than what Brightlocal gives me. Very impressed so far. And thanks Kabana for your very in-depth reply to my support ticket.