Brightlocal Citation Burst Service

Brightlocal as a service for citation building or directory listing

[DaveOzric]

Hello, has anyone used this service or had any experience with this company in any way? I am interested in using them but was hoping for some feedback first.

Thanks

[anallawalla]

I am not familiar with US services as a user and have not heard of this one. A Google check shows many people asking about it and one person with a disappointment with it.

[tangor]

And what is this magical thing supposed to do?

(besides drain your bank account?)

[DaveOzric]

Besides drain your bank account it's supposed to allow you to submit your business to the 4 data aggregators that citation/directory sites use for their directories. So Localeze, InfoGroup, Factual, Axiom which then places like Yelp, Yellow pages, on and on feed off.

It's a quick way to fix or add a business to the directory sites.

I was referred to them by a SEO article somewhere.

[DaveOzric]

It's also some entire local SEO monitoring service but I only need the directory submission stuff.

[tangor]

I won't repeat myself. But will say I don't believe in magic. :)

(and that really is intended as humor, you can't see me smiling, but I truly am. I promise!)

[DaveOzric]

We'll see. I signed up one client and submitted his business. He moved his business and changed his phone number so if it works it will be magic. If it doesn't I'll be doing it manually for free. :(

[engine]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld DaveOzric

Keep us updated as to how that works out.

[DaveOzric]

Thank and I will follow up here with results.

[mack]

I believe they do partner with some of the citation providers. They can them make API calls to claim, edit or change listing information. Not sure about partner numbers to be honest.

Mack.

[ergophobe]

So basically it's similar to Yext or Moz Local then?

[travelin cat]

My company has been using BrightLocal for a few years, they are legit and regularly update their offerings. We do not use their Citation Burst however. Citation Burst is much like Yext and other citation submission services wherein the citations are updated and kept current ONLY as long as you use the service. Once you choose to no longer use the service, the citations revert back to the way they were previously.

[DaveOzric]

"Once you choose to no longer use the service, the citations revert back to the way they were previously."

This is what I was told by the Brightlocal support agent. You just cannot update your info after the year is up unless you pay them again. They do not store the old data and then push it back to the 4 aggregators out of spit when you quite paying. That would not make sense. No one will go back to old or incorrect information because you stopped paying Brighlocal. If that were the case what would a new business do? Just get erased again. The aggregators and citation sites want correct info so it's not in their best interest to switch back to wrong business information because you stopped paying a different company.

Yext does tell you that it's is reverted back but I even doubt that is true unless they actively screw you when you stop.The Yext agent was very cryptic about that part when I trying to nail him down. He just kept telling me it would be wrong if you stopped paying them to keep it right. Brightlocal was very straight forward with this fact saying that was NOT the case. Of course I could be wrong because I have never used any of them before. I can't find that support conversation either. For all I know Yext does not push to the aggregators so then it may revert because the data aggregators never got updated with the correct info. That makes some sense I guess.

Thanks for everyone's input. Very helpful.

[keyplyr]

Yelp, Yellowpages, etc usually pick up sites pretty quickly on their own if you have local search listings with Bing Business & Google My Business (both free.) But if Brightlocal works & is faster, it may be useful as an add-on to your SEO services for the client.

[DaveOzric]

Well, Brightlocal uses Google My Business, LinkedIn and your website to verify the details. So you must have GMB (verified) and your website correct with the info you are submitting.

The beauty it pushing it to the 4 aggregators. This is a HUGE list of citation sites. This is what BL shows.

[DaveOzric]

Here's what BL showed me as a map of likely citation sites that would get my business info. [brightlocal.zendesk.com...]

This is a huge boon for a new business to get listed in. Imagine how long it would take for them to find you on their own?

[travelin cat]

FYI, these listings are far from immediate. It can take many months for businesses to appear in most of the citation sites.

[DaveOzric]

I realize that, but I have clients who changed their phone number or have moved and 60% of their listings still are wrong after 9 months. So I believe it's faster than waiting for ever.