Yext Review

Yext aims to simplify the world of local business listings. Instead of having to maintain hundreds of different listings across websites, Yext lets business owners control all listings from a single location.

But does Yext actually work as promised? Is it worth the subscription cost? Find out today in our Yext review.

What is Yext?

Yext was founded in New York City in 2006 and currently maintains its headquarters at 1 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The company was founded by Howard Lerman and serves approximately 400,000 customers and has over 350 employees.

Over the years, Yext claims to have disrupted three different industries: pay-per-call advertising, business, listings synchronization, and the local marketing cloud.

So how does Yext actually work? Well, the popularity of Yext lies in a service called Power Listings. Power Listings was launched in January 2011 and instantly transformed Yext from a middling company to the local SEO powerhouse it is today.

Power Listings synchronizes business information across multiple online platforms – like Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Facebook. If your business needs to update its opening hours, change its address, or get a new phone number, you can instantly updated all of this information across multiple networks simply by changing your Yext Power Listings profile. That’s it.

Yext also offers plenty of other valuable options – including analytics support, special deals promotions, and the ability to post new content to dozens of listings websites at the same time.

Where is Yext Available?

Yext is available around the world, but it’s particularly useful in countries like the United States, Canada, Germany, and the UK, where it’s been optimized to work on various country-specific platforms. Interestingly enough, Yext also maintains a presence in Turkey, where its network includes the Turkish Yellow Pages.

Globally, Yext works with sites like Facebook, Foursquare, and Yelp.

Where Yext truly shines, however, is in the United States. In the US, Yext supports about 50 different services, including major players like Yahoo, White & Yellow Pages, Apple Maps, Google Maps, Bing, and Mapquest.

In Germany, Yext supports local German business-finding websites like Web.de, YellowMap, 1&1, and Focus.

In the UK, Yext has linked up with The Daily Record, The Independent, The Mirror, and The Sun to provide accurate local business listing services.

In Canada, unique local listing services include the White & Yellow Pages, AirYell, N49, and Show Me Local.

And as mentioned above, in Turkey, Yext has linked up with the Turkish Yellow Pages – called Yellow Medya.

In total, the Yext network currently consists of 80 services around the world. Some of those services are more useful than others. Most people don’t use Copilot, USCity.net, or YellowMoxie to find the businesses they need – but all of those networks are supported by Yext.

You can view the full list of Yext network websites here.

How to Use Yext

Using Yext is relatively straightforward. You sign into Yext online from any browser.

After signing in, all your business information is viewable on the Yext online dashboard. That dashboard features four different categories, including Location CMS (content management system), Listings, Social, and Analytics.

If you ever need to change your business’s information, then you can do so simply by changing your Yext entry under Listings.

One of the biggest advantages of Yext is how quickly business information synchronizes across multiple platforms. Most business profiles are updated instantly. All profiles get updated within a few hours. That’s great if you’re launching a promotion or sending a special message to your customers – like saying “We’re open 9am to 5pm on Christmas Day 2015!”

You can also search for your business’s current information across websites on which you may not have listed it yourself. Some websites will scrape your business’s old location data from outdated databases, for example, and put that information up online.

Yext will actually scan the internet looking for databases which feature businesses that have similar information to yours. If you find a business listing which corresponds to your business, Yext lets you take control of that listing and update it to feature more relevant information.

Maintaining accurate local business listing information is important for two reasons:

— It Boosts Your SEO Value
— It Helps Customers Find You And Stay Updated On Your Business

The second advantage is obvious. The SEO value is less well understood. Basically, Google is more likely to show your website at the top of search listings if there are multiple business listings featuring accurate information for your business. This can boost local search rankings for your company’s website, which means it could show up before your competitors’ sites.

Yext Social Tracking

One of the cool new Yext services is its social tracking. Yext will scan social networks on behalf of businesses and notify business owners when a social event takes place in their location.

Let’s say someone buys a coffee at your coffee shop and uploads a picture to Instagram. Yext can track that location and notify you – the owner of the coffee shop. You can even like and comment on the Instagram photo directly from the Yext platform.

One of the cool parts about Yext’s social tracking is that customers don’t need to be signed into Foursquare or other location-sharing apps. If there’s any location data attached to a picture uploaded to Facebook, Google+, or Instagram, Yext will attempt to notify the business owner of that location.

In a world where social media interactions can instantly change a customer’s impression of a business, Yext’s social tracking can be a valuable service.

Yext Analytics

Another valuable part of Yext is its Analytics. Yext lets you keep track of how many people are viewing your website’s listings across the internet. This can be useful for monitoring surges in traffic, or determining where you need to focus your SEO.

Yext will tell you all of the following analytics data:

— Listings Searches: How many times your listings appear in search results.

— Listings Profile Views: How many people visit your listings.

— Featured Message Clicks: See how popular your specials and featured messages are.

— Live Listings: Track the number of listings that were live on any days specified in Yext’s reports.

— Search Terms: Identify the top terms customers are using in queries for your business and visualize them with fancy-looking word clouds.

— Yelp Page Views: Keep track of how many people have viewed your Yelp page.

This information can be incredibly valuable to business owners. It can show you which listings are responsible for that sudden influx of business this past week. It can also indicate whether or not your SEO efforts have been successful, or if people are finding your business but are turned off by your product.

How Much Does Yext Cost?

Up to this point, it’s pretty obvious that Yext offers a valuable service. But like every good service on the internet, Yext doesn’t come cheap. Here are the pricing packages currently available for Yext:

Emerging – Starter Package: $17 per month ($199 per year)

Fix “28% of errors” by adding your listing to the following websites: MerchantCircle, Yellowbot, eLocal, Topix, YellowPageCity, MojoPages, EZLocal, ShowMeLocal, YellowMoxie, CitySquares, LocalDatabase, and 30 others.

Essential – Plus Package: $38 per month ($449 per year)

Fix “72% of errors” by adding your listing to all of the sites included in the starter package along with Yahoo, Facebook, Bing, Yelp, WhitePages, MapQuest, Superpages, Citysearch, Local.com, Foursquare, DexKnows, and TomTom.

Complete – Standard Package: $42 per month ($499 per year)

Gain access to PowerListings+, which lets you publish products, services, calendars, staff bios, and menus across the internet. You also get access to Analytics (track profile views) and all of the sites in both the Essential and Emerging packages. Yext claims this lets businesses fix 100% of errors.

Premium – Advanced Package: $83 per month ($999 per year)

The Premium package also fixes 100% of errors. It has everything found in the Complete package along with Review Monitoring and Yext Pages. Yext claims that each of these bonuses are valued at $300. Review Monitoring lets you keep track of the ratings and reviews your customers post on online listings, while Yext Pages lets you add enhanced content to your website. That “enhanced content” includes photos, descriptions, promotions, special announcements, and featured messages, among other things.

Are you an SEO agency who manages lots of local businesses and listings? You can get a deal on Yext. SEO agencies can receive a customized Yext quote by applying to Yext here and registering as a Yext Certified Partner.

Signing up for Yext as a Yext Certified Partner lets you keep track of multiple client accounts from one dashboard. You can also advertise the fact that you have Yext, and clients can buy Yext from you (it’s a reseller program).

Conclusion: Who Should Use Yext?

You might have received an unsolicited email from Yext at some point in your life. That email might have said something like “one of your business’s local listings isn’t optimized.” Yext won’t tell you which one until you actually go through with their signup process and chatted over the phone with their salespeople.

Yext’s aggressive sales tactics have faced some criticism over the years. However, that shouldn’t turn you away from an otherwise strong product.

Currently, Yext is the leader of the local search listings industry. That industry currently includes major players like MozLocal, WhiteSpark, UBL, and BrightLocal.

Maybe your business is trying to maintain accurate NAP (name and phone number) data across multiple locations. Maybe you’re sick of manually updating your Google+, Facebook, and Yelp pages all the time. Or maybe you want to access analytics to see how many people are viewing your local listings pages.

Currently, Yext is a US-centric service. If you’re an American business willing to pay a premium price for premium online local listings – and analytics – support, then Yext could be your new favorite tool.

And even if you’re outside the United States – especially in countries like Canada, Germany, the UK, and Turkey – then Yext certainly deserves consideration.