Over the past five years, our local search optimization work has evolved. What started as simple citation management is now a comprehensive local SEO strategy that includes data standardization, business information management in data aggregators and industry-relevant directories, schema markup, competitor analysis, link building, and more.
As our LSO services have grown, so, too, have the incredible local search tools we use. Most recently, Yext released a new suite of features designed to help us take full control of how you’re found online, see what your customers are saying, and discover how often customers are finding you!
What Is Yext?
Yext is a location data management platform that allows us to manage business information in more than 75 business directories, maps, apps, search engines, and voice assistants. With the ability to instantly add and update location information, Yext makes it easy to give customers the information they need, improve a brand digitally, and potentially increase sales.
What Was Updated?
The Yext Spring ’18 Release new features are all designed to help businesses succeed in today’s ever-changing digital landscape. The latest release includes 15 new Knowledge Assistant skills, as well as new enhancements in the Yext Knowledge Engine, such as:
- Automatic Competitor Detection
- Templated Review Response
- Enhanced Uploads
- Enhanced Notifications
How Yext’s New Features Benefit Local Search
Each new update has a specific purpose designed to improve our ability to help your business be found accurately and in more places online. Thanks to Yext Spring ’18 Release, we can now help our clients quicker and more effectively. Here’s how…
Knowledge Assistant Skills
The Knowledge Assistant allows us to conduct brand management on the go without having to log into the Yext dashboard. This makes it easy for us to update your business hours, featured message, logo, and more. This makes any last-minute updates you may have as a business less worrisome, as you’ll know we can update on the fly!
Platform Updates
New updates to the Yext platform include Enhanced Entity Upload and Enhanced Notification Setup and Settings. With Enhanced Entity Upload, adding new locations will be even easier for us. In fact, we can add or update thousands of locations by simply uploading a CSV into the Yext dashboard. This means quicker turnaround times for business updates on a wide scale.
With Enhanced Notification Setup and Settings, we can generate notifications more easily. This allows us to keep track of the status of your Yext account without having to log in. This will give us the ability to better manage what’s going on with your current listings and make changes accordingly—or give you more up-to-date information on the health of your listings.
Power Listings Network
One of the most important pieces of the Yext system is its Power Listings Network. The recent update now allows us to add a business description and services menu to Google My Business listings and new directory additions to the Yext for Food Add-On.
When we add a business description and menu of your services to the manager, it will then be synced to Google My Business listings. By adding content to your listing, we have more chances to share information about your brand and potentially attract new customers.
If your business uses the Food Add-On, we can update your business information and menus on AllergyEats instantly! According to Yext, “AllergyEats is a restaurant directory, created to help consumers with food allergies and intolerances quickly and easily find restaurants that will help accommodate their individual dietary needs.”
The Yext for Food Add-On helps us publish menus for restaurant clients on Google, Yelp, Facebook, AllMenus, and MenuPages, as well as sync business information to food search platforms like Zomato, delivery.com, and Postmates. This includes managing restaurant details like price range, meals served, attire, and more.
Reviews
With the Yext review platform, we can create review response templates specific to each business. Having a library of response templates allows us to speed up the review response process and engage with customer responses more efficiently.
Competitor Detection
Lastly, narrowing down the competition has never been easier with the launch of Automatic Competitor Detection. Yext uses all searches that the search tracker runs to automatically identify other businesses that show up most often in the local pack alongside your brand. With this functionality, we can identify competition that hasn’t been there before or that’s made strides alongside your business, which then allows us to keep better track of their placement (and yours comparatively) in search.
What Does This Mean for Our LSO Service?
With these new features, our team has the ability to better serve our local search clients because we have the ability to update listings quickly, respond to comments as they happen, and add new information without needing to wait. As search engines continue to change how they present information to your customers, so do the tools we utilize to keep your business in front of potential customers!
Looking for a company that can help with local search optimization? Check out our Local Search Optimization Solution page or give us a call at 402-932-9990!
