Express Update USA not available for SEO's

[540SEO]

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[Chris.Menke]

Keith, my feeling is that the days of providing a profitable service of manually updating local search databases for client's local search are behind us.  Give UBL.org a look see.  They update to CitySearch and to Axiom and interface with Yext for even wider distribution and updateability.  You could do yourself a favor and increase your prices and outsource to those who have the whole thing down pat.  Just a thought.

Check out http://getlisted.org/resources/local_search_ecosystem.pdf

[540SEO]

Totally agree the manual updating thing isn't scalable or a long-term play. What I haven't gotten comfortable with yet is how the large distributors will adequately handle the clean-up piece. Dupes, incorrect info. from previous listings, etc. The distribution piece is easy now, the clean-up component isn't and that's the piece of Local SEO that makes a huge difference -- a clean Local footprint.

[Chris.Menke]

Ain't nothin' comfortable about that.  It's why you need to charge your local clients significant fee.  UBL (for example) takes care of the updating but you have to deal with dupes and untangling their shotgun approach to creating profiles and the overhead of figuring out their reporting.  Once you hit their professional level service ( I think they still call it that) things start getting weird for you as an agency.  Their basic service gets much of the distribution taken care of and then you can take are of dealing with the sites that require profiles and verification. Still, you gotta charge the client appropriately.