What's the deal with Yext?

[cschwartzel]

Ok, the "SEO" in me says don't sign my clients up for this. But their ads are EVERYWHERE. All the time. Is this bad/good? thoughts? Have you ever used Yext? I can't find a review online that I don't think is biased. Should I trust my gut on this one and pass?

[OlegKorneitchouk]

Manual > Yext BUT Yext take a lot less management/time/effort and will be effective in ranking small businesses.

So if you have the time and resources to hire and manage an employee/outsourcer to manually submit, claim, verify and update your listings - do that.

Yext pretty much does that but all automated through a backend. You enter your business info and Yext submits/updates the listings on all the sites (I don't know whether they have outsourcers doing it on their end or its all coded). I've found that changes take longer to update with Yext and isn't as flexible.

[TheeDigital]

I agree with Oleg. In theroy it's a great tool, but we've seen issues with it as well. It sometimes doesn't always work and it somtimes says things are "broken" when in fact the listings are correct.

What we suggest is that you use it as  a "brain storming" tool for where you should build links to your local listings.

[WhiteboardCreations]

Hi Courtney,

Kudos to you in not trusting everything you read online Reviews can always be skewed, so asking around has been what I do a lot of as well. Thanks for posing the question.

Let me answer your comment about seeing their Yext ads everywhere... You see them everywhere because they are heavy remarketers. So, when you visit their website and browsed around, they dumped a cookie on your browser, essentially tracking you and wherever their remarketing campaign could place an ad to bring you back to their site with an ad graphic, they will make sure you see it. Big money spent on that type of online marketing! If you delete your cookies, then Bye Bye to their ads. Or you could disable cookies on your browser altogether if you wanted.

We've used Yext before and referred clients to them or helped clients go through their service. There were issues with some clients and others went flawlessly. It is a time saver for sure, but know it's automated and their support lacks big time. There are resources out there to find the best, most relevant directories and sites which Yext and other services like them build profiles for links, so create that link in XLS and work on them manually, unless you have a ton of clients who need listings created. Keep track of all logins in the XLS file for each client so if they ever move, you can provide to them or have easy access to info if things need updated. Yext won't make updates unless you are a paying customer as well and things tended to take a long time for those updates to occur. Same for UBL out of Charlotte... I knew some people who worked for them when I started my business.

Hope this was helpful and a solid answer to help you make a decision! - Patrick

[cschwartzel]

All good answers. It is relieving to know that my doubt in Yext could be substantiated by other valued members here. Sounds like building them myself (I use Whitesparks) is the way to go. But - it is time consuming. If I need a quick fix, I could do Yext, but I will not count on it for long term or consistency.  Using it to "brainstorm" is a great idea! Thanks for the info about their advertising as well Patrick. That sure makes sense!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Courtney,

I support the sound conclusion you've reached. As the marketer on the project, hands-on nearly always beats automation. Whitespark's service is terrific and if you're using that and hand building citations for your clients, they have an edge over other companies who have taken the automated route, simply because someone (read: you) has maximum control over their citation profile. Great responses on this thread.