Is Yext worth it?

Investing in Yext could be the missing piece in your digital strategy puzzle. Navigating the online landscape can be challenging, especially when maintaining consistent business information across various platforms. Yext serves as a valuable tool for local SEO to ensure your business details are accurate and up-to-date wherever potential customers may search. By using Yext, you can enhance your online presence, improve your local SEO efforts, and ultimately drive more traffic to your business.

But is Yext worth it? The problem facing Yext for most small businesses is the cost — and the misconception of what happens when you stop paying for it. It’s true that citations aren’t as important as they once were, but they still play an important role in sending the right signals to Google to rank your business.

We’re going to help you make an educated decision, and explain why and how we use Yext in all our local SEO campaigns.

What Is Yext?

Yext streamlines business location-data management efficiently for improved online visibility and search-engine rankings. This tool allows you to maintain control by directly integrating your business NAPW (name, address, phone, website) for accuracy. The Yext dashboard provides a user-friendly interface where you can easily update information in real time and manage suggested edits through the Suggestions feature. With Yext analytics, you can gain valuable insights into how your listings are performing across various online directories.

By automatically updating information across hundreds of platforms, Yext saves time and ensures accuracy. Overall, it provides a comprehensive solution for businesses to enhance their online presence and effectively manage their location data.

Key Features of Yext

1. Feature comparison — Yext offers a detailed feature comparison chart to help businesses understand the differences between plans and select the one that best suits their needs.
2. Integration options — Businesses can integrate Yext with platforms and tools such as Google Business Profile, Facebook, and Yelp to ensure consistent data across multiple channels.
3. Customer reviews — Access real-time customer reviews and ratings within the Yext dashboard to monitor feedback and make informed decisions.
4. Pricing plans — Yext provides pricing plans tailored to different business requirements, offering flexibility and scalability based on the size and goals of the organization.

Benefits of Using Yext

Straight from Google’s developer portal for Search:

By using Yext, you can benefit from improved business listings, enhanced digital presence, increased online visibility, SEO benefits, and efficient listing management. Yext ensures your business information remains consistent and up-to-date across over 100 platforms.

It acts as a central hub for making instant changes, eliminating duplicate listings, and providing local listing analytics for online searches. Through Yext, you can create Enhanced Listings with diverse content to attract more customers. This tool not only boosts your SEO efforts but also drives online traffic to your business.

How Yext Improves Local SEO

As local SEO has changed over the last ten years, the reliance on citations has become less — but according to studies it still counts for about 10% of the overall ranking strategy. Consistency in your brand is important, which is exactly how Yext can help.

When using Yext, you can expect the following benefits:

1. Strengthens online presence — Consistent, accurate listings across the web solidify your business’s online footprint, making it easier for customers to discover you.
2. Ensures business-listing accuracy — Yext audits and updates your listings to maintain accuracy, which is crucial for trust and reliability in the eyes of both customers and search engines.
3. Improves citation accuracy — By managing your citations effectively, Yext ensures your business information is consistent across the internet, a key factor in local SEO success.

Making Yext Affordable for Your Local SEO Efforts

So… how do we answer is Yext worth it for a small single-location business? Truth be told, it isn’t — when you’re purchasing directly through them. The secret is finding a reliable reseller. With pricing running $500 to $1,000 per year, the direct cost adds up.

Here’s how we use Yext for our clients through two specific resellers, and why we choose one over the other.

HighLevel

HighLevel is the perfect complement to your local business. It eliminates all the unnecessary subscriptions businesses have (Mailchimp, Hootsuite, etc.) and packs everything into one affordable marketing solution. We use it every day in our business.

What’s it have to do with Yext? HighLevel is a licensed reseller of Yext. Through their platform you can sign up and pay a far cheaper price per month. We currently pay $30 per month and get everything we would (and more) with Yext.

Local SEOs who have used Yext in the past often complain about their data being held hostage or reverting to a previous address. This isn’t the case. Yext provides an API to all these listings and data providers. When you cancel your subscription, Yext doesn’t change or revert the previous information — when your listings change after cancellation, that’s due to the listing provider.

SEMrush

SEMrush is another reselling provider that uses Yext within its listing-management service. You’ll need a SEMrush Pro subscription, and for each location you manage listings for you’ll be charged $20 per location. Right now this option is only available in the United States and Australia. If you’re in either country and already use SEMrush for analysis, it’s a no-brainer.

As an agency located in Canada, we use HighLevel — not only does it provide listing management, but we use it daily for our CRM, email marketing, and automation.

Yext Alternatives

BrightLocal

1. Pricing comparison — A more customized solution at a lower price point than Yext, potentially saving businesses a significant amount over time.
2. Customized solutions — Tailors its offerings to individual businesses, offering true listings flexibility for every budget, unlike Yext’s templated approach.
3. Industry-specific listings — Uncovers niche industry-specific sites crucial for certain businesses, whereas Yext’s network is more limited.
4. Local marketing tools — A suite of local-marketing tools including direct connections to major listing platforms, plus local rank tracking that Yext lacks.

Outsourcing

• Lowest price — Outsourcing your citations is ultimately cheaper than doing them yourself, though you’ll still pay. Reliable providers typically price from $20 and up depending on the number of listings.
• Indexing issues — You still need a way to get your citations picked up and indexed by Google.
• Potential loss of logins — This has happened to us before: profiles set up with remote email accounts that we later couldn’t access.
• Low quality — You get what you pay for. At $20 you likely won’t get the best work, but it will get done.
• Verifications — The directories you want (Yellow Pages, Yelp, etc.) require verification, which a lot of outsourcing won’t handle.

Doing Your Citations Manually

1. Cost-effective — Fine if you don’t have the capital or don’t want a monthly service. You may even find niche-specific listings the services miss. But it’s time-consuming.
2. Control — Complete control over your listings: the accounts they belong to, categories, content, and more.
3. Time — If you value time over money, manual isn’t right. In 5 minutes you can submit via Yext and reach 30+ high-powered directories; manually it may take 30 days to complete and verify.

Should I Use Yext for My Small Business?

If maintaining an accurate and consistent online presence across multiple platforms is crucial for your business — and you value your time — then Yext might be the solution you’re looking for. With its ability to instantly update your business listings across more than 50 directories, you can ensure your information is always current, boosting your local search visibility.

For businesses that frequently change locations or have multiple branches, Yext offers the flexibility to adapt. And by connecting with one of the resellers above, you can do so cost-effectively. In essence, investing in Yext could be a strategic move to enhance your small business’s online presence, manage your reputation, and ultimately drive more customers to your door.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens when I cancel my Yext subscription?

Straight from the source: Yext does not hold your data hostage. Cancelling your Yext subscription does not overwrite the updates you have made through Yext, and Yext will not force your listings to revert. If you cancel, Yext no longer sends your digital knowledge to the sites in our network. Afterwards, your data becomes subject to the normal compilation process of each publisher, which may result in your listings changing over time.

Is Yext available in Canada?

Yes — Yext is available in Canada.