Yesterday David Mihm posted an update to the local search ecosystem in a fall 2012 update. In his newest update he included information about Yext and its place is the local ecosystem. If you are new to local search or just want to know how citations are aggregated and shared make sure to check it out.
If you currently build your citations using services such as Yext, please take note of what David Mihm said regarding the citations. Basically Localeze and Yext are different service providers but Localeze is essential to the long term success of your local project. Therefore Yext should only be used when:
1) After you have claimed your listings in ExpressUpateUSA and Localeze.com
2) Yext can be used for businesses just getting started with their brick and mortar or online store
3) Or businesses that need a quick boost of citations and don’t have the time to create the others
My take is that Yext.com is still a great service for local SEO and I generally use it for my clients since they like quick results and the manual labor citation fixing can really take a lot of time. I’m not saying that Yext replaces that, but it will speed it up for its citation sources. One service (or set of citation sources) by themselves are not going to give you a long term solution. Make sure your citation building process is always ongoing with quality citation sources.
About author: Casey
Casey Meraz is the CEO of Ethical SEO Consulting. He is currently writing a local SEO book. Casey is heavily involved in local SEO research and runs a local SEO Blog. In his spare time he enjoys traveling, boating, and trying new things. +Casey Meraz+