Yext is a New York City-based software company founded in 2006 by Howard Lerman. Yext provides a platform for businesses to manage their digital knowledge and interact with customers across multiple channels. The company’s goal is to improve local search engine optimization (SEO) by synchronizing business information like addresses, hours and menus across directories, maps and social networks.
Yext ensures consistency in listings across the web and gives businesses more control over how they are presented online. With Yext, businesses only need to update their information in one place, and it will flow across all their listings. The platform aims to increase findability and visibility for local businesses in search results and online directories.
What Does Yext Do?
Yext is a platform that allows businesses to manage their listings and information across various online directories, review sites, social networks, and other sites. The core of what Yext does is centralize the management of a business’s NAP (name, address, and phone number) as well as other listing details like hours, descriptions, menus, and more.
With Yext, businesses can update and sync their listing information across over 150 directories, sites, and apps including major platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Alexa, Waze, and many more. This allows businesses to efficiently distribute accurate listing details across the web and local search engines from one centralized dashboard.
The goal is to maintain a consistent NAP and set of listing information wherever customers may search for the business. This helps improve local SEO and discovery, and prevents contradictory or outdated information across different sites.
How Yext Works
Yext is a platform that allows businesses to manage and update their listings information across sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, and more. The goal is to keep business information consistent and accurate across the web.
According to Yext, over 70% of listings contain inaccurate information such as incorrect addresses, phone numbers, business hours, and more. This can be detrimental for local SEO and cause customers to get frustrated when trying to find or contact a business.
Yext consolidates all of a business’s listings into one central dashboard. Any time information needs to be updated, you can push those changes to all your listings with one click. This ensures consistency and accuracy across all sites.
For example, let’s say a business changes their hours of operation. In the Yext dashboard, they would update the hours and hit save. Then Yext would automatically push those new hours out to hundreds of sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc. No need to go to each site one by one.
Yext also offers tools like the Listings Verifier to scan listings and identify inaccurate or out-of-date information. This tool allows businesses to monitor the health of their listings and make corrections as needed. The end result is a cleaner, more accurate web presence.
Yext Packages and Pricing
Yext offers four main packages for businesses to choose from: Emerging, Essential, Complete, and Enterprise.
Emerging
The Emerging package is Yext’s starter plan. It costs $199 per year per location.
They often make this intentionally confusing by listing the prices as “weekly” pricing.
With this plan, listings are syndicated to sites like Merchant Circle, eLocal, and YellowPageCity. It includes basic performance analytics and the ability to monitor listings on the supported sites.
Essential
The Essential plan costs $449 per year per location. Listings are syndicated to the sites covered in Emerging plus Google, Facebook, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Navigation apps like Waze, Print directories, and more. Additional features include social monitoring for reviews and check-ins, custom reporting, and priority email support.
Complete
The Complete plan is Yext’s most popular package. It costs $499 per year per location. This plan syndicates listings to all the sites of the previous packages plus an additional 30. Additional capabilities include local inventory ads, enhanced analytics and reporting, website visitor tracking, and automated review requests.
Premium
The Premium plan has customizable pricing based on each business’s needs. It includes all the features of the Complete plan plus expanded capabilities like custom integrations, a dedicated success manager, and additional analytics. This plan is designed for large multi-location businesses managing a national or global local presence. It costs $999 per year.
Features Comparison
Yext offers four main packages for businesses to choose from: Emerging, Essential, Complete, and Premium. Here is a breakdown of the key features included in each plan:
The Emerging package starts at $199 per year and includes:
- Listings on core directories like Google My Business, Apple Maps, and Bing
- Social media listings management for Facebook and Instagram
- Basic listing analytics
The Essential package starts at $449 per year and builds on Emerging by adding:
- Listings on 25+ additional sites like Tripadvisor and Yelp
- 5 supported keywords
- Enhanced analytics and reporting
The Complete package starts at $499 per year and includes everything in Essential plus:
- Listings on 75+ directories
- 25 supported keywords
- Advanced analytics and lead generation
Finally, the Premium package starts at $999 per year with:
- Premium support and setup
- Unlimited keywords
- Custom reporting and analytics
Is Yext Worth the Cost for Local SEO?
When considering Yext for your local SEO needs, it’s important to weigh the potential benefits against the costs to determine if it’s the right solution for your business. Here are some of the key pros and cons to evaluate.
Pros
- Having all of your listings in one centralized dashboard can provide convenience and save time managing listings across individual sites.
- Yext has partnerships with over 100 directories, allowing you to syndicate your listings widely with a single tool. This can improve the reach of your local SEO efforts.
- Some users report that Yext helps them rank better locally by propagating canonical tags across directories.
Cons
- Yext packages start at $199 per year for a single location, with prices increasing up to $999 for the premium options, making it a significant investment especially for multi-location businesses.
- While Yext promises SEO benefits, some users report minimal or mixed impact on actual local rankings and traffic.
- There are concerns about maintaining full control over your listings when using a third-party syndication service.
Overall, while Yext offers some potential SEO advantages, the high cost and mixed reviews on performance make it a debatable choice for local SEO. Businesses need to consider their specific goals, locations, and budget to decide if Yext provides enough value to justify the expense compared to other options.
Yext Alternatives
While Yext is a popular option for managing local listings, there are other alternatives businesses can consider for improving their local SEO. Some top options include:
- ReputationStacker: ReputationStacker is a good alternative to Yext due to its user-friendly interface, affordability, and specialized focus on generating and managing customer reviews. Try a free trial of ReptuationStacker today to see if its right for you.
- Moz Local: Moz Local provides many similar features to Yext at lower price points starting at $99 per month. It allows you to manage listings on Google, Facebook, Yelp and over 50 other sites from one dashboard. Moz Local also offers tracking of reviews and social signals to monitor local SEO efforts.
- Synup: Synup is a listing management and analytics platform with custom packages starting at $199 per month. It focuses on keeping NAP (name, address, phone) information updated accurately across the web. Synup also lets you monitor ranking progress and analyze click-to-actions rates.
- ReviewGain: ReviewGain specializes more on the reputation management side. Their software helps get customer reviews on sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp. Pricing starts at $99 per month and up based on the number of locations. For businesses focused on monitoring reviews, ReviewGain provides robust tools for streamlining review collection and responses.
Choosing the Right Local SEO Tool
When evaluating Yext compared to alternative local SEO tools, there are several factors businesses should consider:
- Budget: Yext is one of the more expensive options, with packages starting at $199 per year. Tools like ReputationStacker and Moz Local offer more budget-friendly pricing.
- Features: Yext offers robust capabilities like syndicating listings to over 100 directories. However, cheaper tools may have the core features you need like listing management, citations, and monitoring. Compare features across tools like SEMrush and Synup.
- Ease of use: Yext centralizes local listings in one dashboard for convenient control. Alternatives like Moz Local also provide user-friendly interfaces. Evaluate which platform best fits your needs.
- Customer reviews: Check third-party reviews and testimonials for unbiased feedback on different tools. User experiences can vary widely.
- SEO impact: Research the actual SEO and ranking results users see from Yext compared to competitors. The platform you choose should deliver tangible local SEO improvements.
Considering your specific goals, needs and budget will determine which local SEO software is the best fit for your business.
Recommendations
Based on the pricing and features, Yext seems best suited for larger multi-location businesses that want to streamline managing listings across many sites. The broader reach and centralized dashboard can provide more value when juggling a high volume of locations.
For small businesses with just a few locations, the high cost of Yext may not justify the benefits. The entry level Emerging package at $199 per year per location may not make sense if you only have one to two locations.
Before committing to any local SEO tool, carefully evaluate your specific goals, budget, and needs. Determine what listings and directories are most important for your business. Also research any less expensive alternatives that may meet your requirements without all the extra features.
Consider starting with a free trial of Yext to get first-hand experience with the platform. Or reach out to your account manager for custom pricing if you only need access to certain features.
While Yext offers convenience, it may not be the most cost effective path for every business. Make sure to thoroughly assess your options to find the best local SEO solution.
Conclusion
Yext offers a convenient way for businesses to manage their local listings by syncing key business information across major sites like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. However, the pricing for Yext’s packages can be quite high, ranging from $199 to $999 per year for each business location.
The main benefits of using Yext include having a central dashboard, broad distribution of listings, and some SEO capabilities like canonical tags. But many users have questioned whether Yext truly improves local SEO rankings and traffic enough to justify the expense.
For businesses focused heavily on local SEO, tools like BrightLocal, Moz Local, and Synup offer lower cost alternatives to consider. Yext may still be a good option for larger brands who value the convenience and need broad distribution across directories.
Ultimately, it’s important for each business to evaluate their specific goals, needs and budget to determine if Yext is the right local SEO software for them, or if an alternative makes more sense.
