The biggest e-commerce companies typically deal with just a single website. Sure, there are potentially thousands of pages to track, but it’s all essentially the same entity they are trying to rank.

Meanwhile, multi-location brands must treat each of their locations as separate entities.

Every location needs to be managed, optimized, and reported on. This means marketers in large multi-location brands, like you, manage SEO for hundreds or even thousands of “websites.”

Marketers working within e-commerce are equipped with specialized tools to help them manage SEO at scale. However, the same cannot be said for their multi-location counterparts. Until now, marketers at multi-location businesses have had to rely on two less-than-ideal solutions:

1. General SEO Tools: Powerful for general SEO but lacking in local specificity. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush are excellent for website SEO but they’re not primarily focused on locations. This means they lack crucial local-level insights necessary to help you make informed decisions and enhance performance in local search.
2. Traditional Local SEO Tools: Fine for a single location but overwhelmed by scale. Multi-location marketers are left with hundreds or thousands of reports to wade through and no way to see the big picture.

You’ve lacked the right tools for the job. This has put multi-location marketers, like you, into a cycle you can’t escape.

You struggle to navigate measuring performance and uncovering insights to boost results. Engaging stakeholders to show how local SEO contributes to business growth is difficult. The result? Your teams are underpowered, overstretched, and underappreciated.

Thankfully, we’re breaking that cycle and rewriting the rules with the launch of BrightLocal Horizon: A Search Command Center for Multi-location Brands.

BrightLocal Horizon isn’t just another rank-tracking tool; it’s the only rank-tracking solution that’s purpose-built for multi-location SEO.

Let’s get to the good stuff.

A new Horizon for multi-location SEO

Horizon is more than just a report or dashboard. It’s a command center for tracking and understanding your performance. It’s the springboard for deeper analysis and prioritization. And, it’s a powerful communication tool for sharing insights and impact with stakeholders.

Measure real-world search visibility at scale

BrightLocal Horizon simplifies local rank tracking for multi-location brands. It consolidates rankings across hundreds and even thousands of locations into a single, intuitive dashboard. Instantly gain insights into your brand’s nationwide and regional search presence. And, measure performance over time with top-level ranking metrics.

Focus on what matters

Forget the days of sifting through endless ranking reports. BrightLocal Horizon turns noise into a signal by highlighting underperforming regions. Making it easy to home in on the locations that need action.

Our simple interface helps you navigate from a broad national overview to specific local issues in a few clicks.

Attention-grabbing reporting

Let’s face it, ranking tables don’t turn heads in the boardroom. Our visual reports are easily understood by stakeholders so that the value of local SEO is recognized across your organization.

You’re not just sharing numbers—you’re telling a story that everyone can get behind.

Identify your top search competitors

When competing across hundreds of different local markets, you’re likely to face off against thousands of distinct competitors in search.

Unlike traditional SEO, where major players can dominate search results, local search offers a more level playing field. It allows small businesses to compete directly with big brands in search results.

This situation makes it tough for businesses with many locations to figure out who their main search competitors are. It’s hard to know where to start when there are so many.

Luckily, Horizon finds the top competitor in search for each of your locations, as well as the top one in each state. This way, you can quickly see who you’re up against the most all over the country. Then, you can check out what they’re doing well, plan your strategies to do better, and stay ahead in the game.

Steer your strategy with the right data

We know that marketers don’t have the time to analyze each location on a regular basis. Which is why Horizon gives you a bird’s-eye view of performance.

This strategic overview is essential, but we also recognize the need for in-depth analysis in certain scenarios.

Each location tracked in Horizon is powered by its own Local Search Grid report. Local Search Grid is our geo-map rank tracker that gives marketers the ability to measure the real-world search visibility of a location.

Each report can be customized to ensure it reflects the customer catchment area and can track up to 30 keywords. With each keyword, you get benchmarking data on the top-ranking competitors against key local ranking factors.

Horizon equips you with the insights needed for impactful decisions. Whether that’s tweaking a Google Business Profile category or addressing a shortfall in reviews and ratings.

Because Horizon is powered by the most accurate and comprehensive ranking data and the best local-level insights, you can have complete confidence in where you point your strategy.

Local search is still an untapped opportunity

While the surge in online shopping is undeniable, it represents only a fraction—about one-fifth—of total retail revenue. The current trends, particularly in the post-pandemic era, show a big shift back towards in-person shopping, with a remarkable 81% of retail revenue still coming from physical store visits.

This raises a crucial question: Why is local SEO still eclipsed by traditional SEO strategies?

As brands intensify their focus on e-commerce, many are missing a huge opportunity. They’re bolstering their SEO and PPC to capture online revenue and overlooking local consumers. These consumers are predominantly shopping in physical stores. But, they are increasingly relying on online searches to discover and research brands ahead of purchasing.

Google itself revealed that 83% of U.S. shoppers perform an online search before visiting a store.

This oversight is costly: potentially billions of dollars in sales are being lost because brands aren’t visible during these crucial local searches.

BrightLocal Horizon is here to address this gap, equipping multi-location brands with the ability to turn overlooked opportunities into tangible business growth.

Ready to expand your Horizon?

BrightLocal Horizon is now available for brands with over 100 locations, as well as agencies working with them, in the US and UK. Fit the bill? Request a demo today and we’ll show you what’s possible.

It’s time to break free of the confines of the square and make every grid point count. Add or remove grid points to track search visibility in the most crucial areas for your business or your client’s business.

Wash Away Irrelevant Grid Points

Have you ever been stuck with a report that has grid points over water? Not only is it a waste of credits, but it can lead to awkward conversations with clients who wonder why you’re “targeting people on boats.”

Fret not! Now, you can simply remove any grid points that appear over bodies of water and ensure your reports make the right sort of splash with clients.

Think Outside the Square

Most cities and towns don’t fit neatly into a box—they come in various shapes and sizes—and a square grid may not accurately represent where potential customers are located. But with flexible grid points, you can shape your grid to better reflect the population density of any neighborhood, town, or city. That way you can focus on what truly matters in search visibility: driving more traffic and leads.

Track Visibility in Different Regions

This update is a game-changer for businesses that travel to serve customers in multiple towns or regions. Let’s say your client is an HVAC contractor in Modesto, California. And they also serve customers in nearby cities like Sacramento, Stockton, and Fresno.

Previously, you would have to create a large grid to cover all those regions, resulting in lots of grid points in low-population areas.

But now, you can create a report that only covers the specific areas they serve. This means less wastage and clearer insights into regions where they lack search visibility.

Multi-region reports aren’t just beneficial for traveling businesses. Many brick-and-mortar businesses attract customers from different locations, such as malls, car dealerships, tourist attractions, restaurants, and spas. They too require ranking insights that accurately represent their catchment areas.

With flexible grid points, you can confidently showcase the true reach and impact of your business (or your client’s business), no matter where potential customers are located.

Make Every Grid Point Count

We’re always working to make improvements to our tools and flexible grid points is something we’re pleased to roll out. This is a change we’re confident will help you track your local visibility more accurately than ever.

It’s now available to everyone, so just open up Local Search Grid and start trying it out.

You simply want to share all the cool stuff happening at your business (or your clients’), but the process is a major time suck. There’s no scheduling option, so you have to keep logging in every time you want to make a post. And if you have multiple locations to update? Good luck, because you’re stuck posting the same content over and over again to each location.

Thankfully, managing your Google Business Profile is about to become a whole lot easier and more efficient with our latest creation: GBP Post Scheduler.

This simple to use tool is a game-changer for scaling up Google Posts, offering effortless scheduling, multi-location distribution, and an exciting feature we can’t wait to tell you about: AI content generation.

Effortless Post Scheduling

Save valuable time and ensure your GBP is always full of engaging content with scheduling.

No more manual posting every few days or last-minute rushes. Updates, offers, events—whatever you need to let customers know about—GBP Post Scheduler will have you covered.

You can schedule each post to go out at the exact right time and set relevant expiry dates to ensure a consistent stream of content for potential customers to engage with.

You’ll get full visibility of what’s live, what’s scheduled, and what’s expired from a single dashboard. It’s as easy as setting it and forgetting it! If you need to make changes, it’s just a case of editing anything that’s already scheduled or deleting anything that’s live.

It’s really that simple.

Multi-location Distribution

If you’re working with a multi-location brand, there could be instances where you need to push the latest national promotions to every location at once. As we mentioned earlier, Google forces you to do this one location at a time. Yuck!

But GBP Post Scheduler was built with scale in mind. Now you can publish a post to multiple locations simultaneously, saving you potentially hours of tedium. Ensure consistent content across your entire network of locations (or just a select few) in a few clicks.

AI Content Generation: GBP x GPT!

Say goodbye to writer’s block with our AI content generation feature. Our brand new integration with GPT ensures that you always have engaging and captivating content at your fingertips.

Simply give us a description of the message you want to put out, and in seconds, our AI writing assistant will give you caption ideas to run with and optimize.

Watch as your posts maximize engagement and attract attention like never before. It’s the perfect blend of human brilliance and AI wizardry!

GBP Post Scheduler is the first in a series of innovations that will harness AI to revolutionize the way you do local SEO, helping you save time, uncover valuable insights, and create highly effective marketing strategies. You can expect to see more AI-powered features hitting BrightLocal soon.

Powering up Listings Management

GBP Post Scheduler is now available as a brand-new Publishing Pack add-on for all subscribers.

Our Publishing Pack also includes our other latest tool, Active Sync, which allows you to sync your business information across Google, Bing, Facebook, and Apple. You can easily update information across each listing (like opening hours) and protect them from rogue external edits to ensure customers are seeing the most accurate and up-to-date information when discovering your business.

GBP Post Scheduler takes our listings management capabilities to the next level, but here’s the good news: We’re keeping the add-on price the same at just $8 per location. That’s up to three times cheaper than the likes of Yext and Moz Local.

Both GBP Post Scheduler and Active Sync are also available as a standalone with our subscription-free account: Simply Listings.

How GBP Post Scheduler Works

Using GBP Post Scheduler is a breeze. Watch this short video tour or read on to learn more.

From the top navigation you’ll be able to access the GBP Post Scheduler overview dashboard, where you can:

• Easily navigate to the desired location to manage your Google Updates
• Create bulk posts to publish across multiple profiles
• Check which locations are connected to GBP
• Gain visibility on live and scheduled posts for each location

To use GBP Post Scheduler for a location, make sure you have purchased a Publishing Pack and set up the GBP connection. Once that’s done, you’re all set to efficiently manage your posting.

Posting to a Single Google Business Profile

To post to a single profile, you can either navigate to the relevant location via the GBP Post Scheduler dashboard by clicking ‘View,’ or you can find it in the left-hand navigation when you’re in a location.

Once you’re there, you’ll be presented with a dashboard that displays all the posts for this particular Google Business Profile. You’ll see what is:

• Live: Posts that customers can currently see on your Profile
• Scheduled: Posts that you’ve already scheduled to go out
• Expired: Events or offers that have ended and are no longer live on your Profile
• Rejected: Any posts you attempted to publish that were rejected by Google

Clicking ‘Create a New Post’ will open a modal where you can post an update, offer, or event. If you want to learn more about each post type, you can refer to our guide to Google Posts.

Everything you see in Google is recreated here to provide a seamless experience. You can add captions, images, buttons, start dates, and end dates, just like when posting directly from Google, but with the all-important added ability to schedule your posts.

Once you’re satisfied with the content, you can choose the exact date and time for the post to go out.

However, if you prefer to publish immediately, you can simply click ‘Post Now.’

Generating Content with AI

Generating AI content is incredibly simple and efficient with our AI writing assistant. Instead of manually crafting the title or caption for your post, you can provide us with information about the update, offer, or event, and then click the ‘Generate content using AI’ button.

Within a few seconds, you’ll receive a caption generated by GPT-4. From there, you have several options: use the suggested content as is, make edits to customize it according to your needs, or even start afresh with a new prompt to explore different possibilities.

The quality and relevance of the AI-generated content are greatly influenced by the details you provide in the prompt. Be sure to include all the relevant information about your update to achieve the best possible results. This feature is a valuable time-saver, particularly for large-scale posting, allowing you to create compelling content that resonates with your audience.

Bulk Posting to Multiple Profiles

Imagine having a national promotion that you want to distribute across your entire network of locations. Previously, this task would take hours of your time. But with our bulk posting feature, you can accomplish it in a matter of minutes.

It’s as simple as selecting two or more locations from the overview dashboard and clicking the ‘Create Bulk Post’ button located in the top right corner. You can use the search bar to quickly locate specific locations.

Once you’re in the bulk posting mode, you’ll follow the same familiar steps: selecting the post type, adding your content, and deciding whether to schedule the publish date or publish instantly.

Whether you manage a few or hundreds of locations, GBP Post Scheduler will be a real time-saver, ensuring compelling content reaches your customers on every profile.

Get started now by adding our new Publishing Pack to your plan to get access to both Active Sync and GBP Post Scheduler.

We’re thrilled to announce the full launch of Active Sync and unveil the first-of-its-kind hybrid listings management solution.

This is a significant moment for us, and our customers, and we’ve had an interesting journey to get here. Before we dive into what Active Sync is and how it can help you manage listings more effectively, let’s start by taking a look at the local listings landscape.

Shift Happens

Over the past decade, the local listing landscape has undergone a significant transformation. Previously, consumers used hundreds of sites to discover local businesses. But now, just a few major players dominate consumer engagement.

Our research shows that Google, Bing, Apple, and Facebook account for 92% of online engagement with local businesses. That’s quite a seismic shift.

All that seismic activity meant the local listings landscape split into two distinct layers. We have dubbed them the Engagement Layer and the Authority Layer.

A New Listings Landscape

The Engagement Layer is made up of Google, Bing, Apple, Facebook, and the places these publishers push their data. They’re your primary digital storefronts where customers discover, evaluate, and engage with your brand.

The Authority Layer comprises hundreds of listing sites that still exist on the web today, including Manta, Merchant Circle, Hotfrog, and Superpages, among others. While customers rarely visit these sites directly, they still help you build authority and trust with search engines.

But there’s a problem: the technology designed to help marketers manage their local listings treats both layers identically.

Traditional API Solutions Got Stuck in the Past

Traditional API solutions offer the dream of managing your data on every imaginable site from one place. But it’s just that, a dream. They often come with a one-size-fits-all network, charge huge fees, and force you to “rent” your listings. Not only do you struggle to get ROI, but you also risk listings reverting back to inaccurate data if you leave.

They can be an expensive trap that’s tricky to escape.

Citation Builder, our manual submission service, has been a successful alternative for many businesses, offering a broader network of sites in different niches, control over site selection, and no recurring fees – all at a fraction of the cost. Last year alone, our team handled over 1.4 million site submissions for over 72,000 locations.

Still, we understood the appeal of API solutions, with the speed and protection they offer. Making updates is quick and easy. And they’re the first line of defense against external edits.

As the local listings landscape changed, we realized that the technology needed to change too. 

That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Active Sync, our very own API solution that’s purely focused on the sites that actually matter to consumers.

And the best part? It’s designed to work in combination with Citation Builder. You get the speed and control of an API solution, with the reach and flexibility of a manual submission service, at a fraction of the cost of traditional API solutions.

How unbeatable?

Consider this: if you’re a marketer working for a 10-location business and you go with Yext, Synup, or Moz, you could end up spending anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 per year. 

With BrightLocal, you’ll likely pay just $1,800 in the first year (which covers a Citation Builder campaign) and as little as $800 each year after that. 

Over the course of five years, you could save anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 – that’s up to 75% saved.

See how much you could save

Use our calculator to see how much you could save by switching to BrightLocal.

Say hello to Local Rank Tracker 2.0.

That’s right, it’s so major we’ve cracked out the two-point-oh, something we don’t do lightly at BrightLocal.

Now you’ve got the same unbeatable accuracy of Local Rank Tracker with even more insights and a whole new look.

What’s new, at a glance:

• All-in-one dashboard: Easily view all your local ranking insights in one place.
• Ranking comparisons: Effortlessly compare your website and Google Business Profile rankings side-by-side.
• Local Pack insights: Track Local Pack performance with greater clarity.
• SERP Features: Identify which SERP Features you need to target to claim more visibility.
• Landing page visibility: Quickly view which landing pages are ranking for each keyword.

This is the biggest single update to Local Rank Tracker since its launch over a decade ago, but that doesn’t mean it’s been gathering dust on a shelf.

A lot of the recent updates have been under the hood, with performance in mind. We cut average report run times from 14 minutes to a speedy 4 minutes, for starters. Then in recent months, we added brand new metrics like Average Google Position, Keyword and Positional Movement, and Local Pack Coverage to offer even more insights.

These changes helped improve the foundations of an already solid tool. But, for Local Rank Tracker 2.0, we rolled up our sleeves, took your feedback on board, and took a running jump forward.

All Your Insights in One Place

Over the years we’ve added numerous features to Local Rank Tracker. Some you might have completely missed. And that’s on us.

We hid powerful features and insights away in modals and tabs. But not anymore.

Now we’ve bought all your ranking insights into a single dashboard.

Your new local rankings dashboard gives you everything you need at your fingertips. View keyword groups and benchmark against competitors without leaving the dashboard. And, if you don’t want this visible in external reports, just select “Hide section”.

Not only that, but we’ve improved how we display your data. Now you will see historical ranking performance for each keyword in a handy graph. Spot fluctuations or trends at a glance.

Simplified Data

Local Rank Tracker tracks a lot of data!

There are Google Organic, Local Packs, and Google Maps rankings. Plus, Desktop vs. Mobile rankings.

It lets you track rankings for your Google Business Profile and websites. And the visibility of your listings on third-party sites.

That’s already a lot of data, and we haven’t even mentioned Bing yet!

While all this data is essential for gaining a deep understanding of a business’s overall search visibility, we realized that it was too much information to digest at once.

Rather than trying to cram all that information into a single rankings table, we’ve split out ranking types to provide more clarity. You can still quickly compare rankings across each result type. And now you can get a deeper dive into each tab, which has allowed us to surface even more insights than ever (more on that in a minute).

Clearer Results: Compare Website vs GBP Rankings

The Local Pack can cause all sorts of ranking confusion. Does it count as organic? Is it your website, or your GBP? Historically we reported Local Pack rankings as part of organic results. But, we realized this caused more confusion.

We mixed together the rankings of two entirely different entities; your website and your Google Business Profile.

Both of these have completely different local ranking factors, using their own unique algorithms. Local Rank Tracker 1.0 muddied the waters by blending the Local Pack with organic, making it tricky to compare and analyze rankings. This made spikes or drops from algorithm updates hard to dissect.

To make sure we got this right, we talked to you, our customers about how you wanted to see your results.

When asked, 66% of our customers said they’d prefer to track rankings by splitting out their GBP and website, as opposed to by the search engine (e.g. Organic Vs Maps).

So we did!

We’ve now created a clear distinction between your GBP rankings in both Local Pack and Local Finder Results, and how your website is ranking in organic desktop and mobile results.

Now you can quickly assess whether your GBP or website ranking more accurately. Check whether one is lagging behind, and prioritize your efforts accordingly.

This has also allowed us to offer much deeper insights across each ranking type.

Track Local Pack rankings more easily

Local Pack is now its own search result type in Local Rank Tracker 2.0. We know how important it is to claim these positions to increase traffic and leads so made it easier for you to track.

This pairs well with our recently added ‘Local Pack Coverage’ metric.

Now you’ll be able to quickly see which Local Packs you’ve already claimed, which you might have lost, and which you need to target.

Go deeper into your website ranking insights

You’ll also get even more insights on Organic SERPs and your website rankings.

Know which SERP features to target

See exactly which SERP features are shown for each keyword in organic results.

You’ll know precisely which queries trigger a Local Pack, knowledge panel, video result, or ads. And we’ve added filters so you can isolate the keywords for each SERP feature and come up with a plan of attack to claim more of them.

See which pages are ranking

You’ll now clearly see which page on your website is ranking for each keyword.

Spot issues where the wrong page is ranking and focus your efforts. For example, you might see that your homepage is ranking for service-related keywords instead of your dedicated service pages. This can be the springboard for further investigation and on-site optimization.

More intuitive and insightful

At BrightLocal, we take pride in providing the best tools for local SEO. That’s why we’ve put in the hard work and taken your feedback to heart to create Local Rank Tracker 2.0, a tool that’s more intuitive, insightful, and valuable than ever before. You can see the benefits of all these improvements from today.

And we’re just getting started! Our team is committed to continuous improvement and is already working on exciting updates to make Local Rank Tracker even better.

New to BrightLocal? Try Local Rank Tracker and all our tools with a 14-day free trial.

That’s kind of what’s been happening with SMS Credits in Get Reviews. They all sit in one big pot and it’s not uncommon for one hungry client to use them all up. It’s frustrating for everyone else and it can be costly for you.

Fear not, because we’ve just released our new SMS Credit Allocation!

With this new feature, you can manually allocate credits to different clients and locations based on their typical usage. That way, everyone gets their fair share of cookies–I mean, credits–and nobody is left short.

And that’s not all–you can also keep track of how many credits each client or location is using, so you can top up those who need extra before the month is up. You’ll be one smart cookie.

Watch this bite-sized video to see how it works.

Keep your clientss credit cravings satisfied and more dough in your wallet with SMS Credit Allocation.

Okay, now I’m just hungry.

Managing listings through an API is not a new concept. There are many established companies offering API listing management solutions, and we understand the appeal of this approach. APIs make it quick and easy to make bulk edits, such as updating holiday opening hours.

However, over the years, we have heard from customers who are looking to move away from a traditional API solution about its drawbacks.

They’re expensive. Often exorbitantly expensive.

They effectively force you to “rent” your listings. This leaves you stuck in a painful cycle of paying over the odds to avoid your listings reverting to inaccurate data.

And these solutions often have a one-size-fits-all network based on the partnerships the company has built, rather than the specific needs of different types of businesses

Our Citation Builder service has long been a successful alternative for many businesses, offering a broader network of sites in different niches, control over site selection, and no recurring fees at a fraction of the cost. It has proved hugely popular with businesses and agencies of all sizes. Last year alone, our team handled over 1.4 million site submissions for over 72,000 locations.

Until now, businesses faced a trade-off when it came to managing listings. A trade-off between the speed of an API solution and the cost-effectiveness and flexibility of a manual submission service such as Citation Builder.

However, with the launch of Active Sync, we’re happy to say that trade-offs are now a thing of the past.

The local listings landscape has evolved

Before diving into the details of Active Sync, let’s take a step back to look at the evolution of local listings.

Watch our launch video and read on learn more.

Over the past decade, the local listing landscape has undergone a significant transformation. Previously, there were hundreds of sites where consumers could discover local businesses. But now just a few major players dominate consumer engagement. As a result, the listings landscape has split into two layers.

We call these the Engagement Layer and the Authority Layer.

The Engagement Layer

Our research found that just four publishers–Google, Apple, Facebook, and Bing–account for 92% of consumer engagement in the local listing space.

It’s these dominant players that make up the “Engagement Layer”, where consumers discover, evaluate, and interact with brands today. This layer expands beyond traditional listings to include voice search and smart devices. For instance, Amazon’s Alexa uses Bing data to provide local business information to users.

Think of these publishers as your digital storefronts. It’s crucial to keep them up-to-date and protected from rogue edits to maintain your brand reputation and provide a superior customer experience.

The Authority Layer

The “Authority Layer”, on the other hand, comprises hundreds of listing sites that contribute to building authority with search engines. These sites include Manta, Merchant Circle, Tupalo, Hotfrog, and Superpages, among others.

While customers rarely visit these sites directly anymore, the accuracy of basic information such as Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) is critical in establishing trust with search engines and enhancing your business’s online presence.

The listings landscape evolved, but traditional listings management software didn’t

Despite the shifts in the local listing landscape, most API solutions still treat all listings the same and charge you a premium for it!

These solutions don’t deliver return on investment against the huge fees they command. And their “one-size-fits-all” approach only covers the sites they’ve built partnerships with, not the sites that actually matter to your business.

But it doesn’t have to be that way…

The best of both worlds

We’re pleased to reveal the first-of-its-kind, hybrid listings management solution:

Active Sync is our easy-setup API solution for the Engagement Layer that keeps your most important listings accurate and protected at all times. Updating information such as opening hours is a breeze–simply make the changes and Active Sync will push the updates to all listings in one go.

Citation Builder is our trusted managed service for the Authority Layer. Our team of experts will build and clean up your listings on the most relevant, authority-boosting sites, ensuring that your business gains the visibility it deserves. There are no recurring fees. The listings are yours to keep, forever. And if you need to make more significant changes down the line, our team is on hand to help.

The best part? They work together seamlessly to give you the best of both worlds. The speed of Active Sync with the flexibility of Citation Builder, at an unbeatable price.

How unbeatable?

Consider this: If you’re a marketer working for a 100-location business and you go with Yext, Synup, or Moz, you could end up spending anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 per year.

With BrightLocal, you’ll pay just $18,000 in the first year (which covers a Citation Builder campaign), and only $6,000 each year after that.

Over the course of five years, you could save anywhere from $58,000 to $200,000–that’s up to 75% saved.

Use our calculator how much you could save by switching to BrightLocal.

Every business has slightly different needs when gathering customer feedback and growing online reviews. Appropriately enough, we’ve used our own customer feedback—your feedback—to ensure that Get Reviews can meet these varied needs.

What’s New in Get Reviews

We’ve packed a lot of improvements into this release! You’ll now be able to:

• Gather internal feedback with Thumbs and Star Ratings
• Skip the internal feedback step and only ask for a public review
• Drive more clicks with improved call-to-action buttons
• Better understand performance with clearer reporting
• Delete responses from your reports

Want a guided tour of all the new improvements? We’ve put together this short video to show you how it works.

Otherwise keep reading to learn what’s now possible in Get Reviews…

Gather Internal Feedback with Thumbs or Star Ratings

One of the most common feature requests for Get Reviews was to provide an alternative to Net Promoter Score (NPS). Some customers said NPS wasn’t always relevant to their business types.

That’s why we’ve added two new internal feedback score options:

Stars: Invite customers to rate their experience by leaving a star rating.

As with NPS, you’ll have the option to determine the threshold for a positive score.

Thumbs: Make it really simple for customers by asking them to rate their experience with a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’.

No matter which feedback score you choose, you still have the option to customize the content and strike the right tone in subsequent steps based on whether a customer gave a positive or negative score.

Skip the Internal Feedback Step and Only Ask for a Public Review

We’ve introduced the ability to send a campaign that only invites customers to leave a review on a public site—no gathering internal feedback beforehand.

Now, when you create a new template you’ll be asked to choose from two campaign types:

1. Ask for internal feedback + public review

If you’ve used Get Reviews before, you’ll be familiar with this campaign flow.

Customers are asked to rate their experience using your preferred internal feedback score: NPS, Thumbs or Stars.

Once they’ve given a score, you have the option to gather additional feedback to learn more about their experience. This open text field can be shown to all respondents, to negative respondents only, or it can be completely removed from the flow altogether.

This option is useful if you want to:

• Reach out to the customer privately with more context about their experience
• Uncover common issues around your products or service
• Gather review content, such as testimonials, for marketing purposes (just be sure to check if the customer has given consent first).

Finally, customers are invited to leave a review on your chosen public review sites.

2. Only ask for a public review

As the name suggests, this campaign skips all forms of internal feedback and just asks customers to leave a public review.

This is a great option for maximizing the number of public reviews generated in each campaign because the less you ask of a customer, and the easier you make the process, the more likely they’ll be to leave a review of your business.

Drive More Clicks with Improved Call-to-action Buttons

The volume of new reviews is often the biggest success marker of a review generation campaign, so when it came to improving Get Reviews, we focused on ensuring that as many respondents leave public reviews as possible.

When we looked at the existing flow, it was clear that the final step could be improved to increase the chances of a customer clicking through to leave a review.

The biggest standout was something that, ironically, didn’t stand out: the call-to-action buttons.

We recognized that the buttons could easily get missed by customers being asked for reviews, so we went about redesigning them so they stood out and had a clear ask.

Better Understand Performance with Clearer Reporting

Adding in new types of campaigns always meant that we were going to need to update the campaign performance reports. However, we also used this as an opportunity to improve the dashboard to make it easier to understand and quicker to get valuable insights and trend data from.

Now, you’ll see a clear breakdown of each of the channels you’re using to generate reviews, and the average feedback score of each campaign.

Clicking through on a campaign will reveal further information on how it performed, including:

• A breakdown of the internal feedback score across all respondents
• The completion rate between each step of the feedback funnel
• A list of who received the campaign, what actions they took, and their rating and feedback

Delete Responses from Your Reports

Lastly, in this update, we’ve added the ability to delete responses from your campaign performance reports.

In most cases, you’ll likely want to delete responses that are part of test campaigns. For example, if you’re sending an email to yourself when testing out a new template.

To delete a response, simply find your details in the ‘Customer Details’ column and click the ‘trash can’ icon.

Greater Flexibility, Better Engagement, More Reviews

We hope that these improvements will allow you to send the right type of campaign based on your objectives, and help you to generate more reviews than ever before.

If you want to take advantage of these new options, you can either update your existing templates or create new versions.

New to BrightLocal? Then take out a 14-day free trial to learn how we make review management simple and cost-effective.

We know that understanding changes to local ranking performance can be time-consuming, particularly if you’re tracking dozens of keywords.

Diving deeper into data is undoubtedly important to truly understand performance and inform your strategy, but sometimes you just need to quickly know what’s changed. Are things heading in the right direction? Have there been any significant ranking drops that need further investigation?

That’s why earlier in the year, we introduced ‘Average Google Position’ to help you understand ranking performance at a glance. And we’re excited to say we’ve added even more quick insights to Local Rank Tracker with a number of new features.

Introducing your performance snapshot

The new ‘Overview’ section at the top of your reports is a snapshot of ranking performance. This section is packed with new metrics (more on those shortly) that’ll help you spot significant changes to your rankings and track progress over time.

Each metric includes useful additional information – just click on the tab to see charts and the data behind the metric.

These metrics can also be handy for showing progress, shining a light on changes, and avoiding information overload when sharing reports with clients and stakeholders. But, if you don’t want to include them in your external reports, you can simply hide it.

You’ll see that ‘Average Google Position’ now lives in this section and that there are new metrics too! Let’s dive into them now.

Get more context around rankings changes with Keyword and Positional Movement

Sometimes you just want to know if keywords are heading in the right direction, or if there’s been a big drop in rankings. That’s where Keyword Movement and Positional Movement come in. We’ve grouped these together because they could tell a different story about ranking fluctuations.

Keyword Movement is simple – it will tell you how many individual keywords moved up vs how many moved down.

Here we can see 20 keywords moved up and 15 moved down, so the ‘Keyword Change’ is 5.

Positional Movement tracks how many positions were gained vs how many were lost across your keywords.

A keyword that moved from 8th to 3rd gained five positions. ‘Positional Change’ is the net total of all your gained positions minus all your lost positions.

While the Keyword Change in the previous example was only 5, this business actually gained 43 positions over the same period – a potentially significant increase in visibility.

Why is this extra context useful? Because just looking at how many keywords moved up vs down might not tell you the full story.

For example, 10 keywords each moving up a single position could have less impact on search visibility than five keywords each moving up 10 positions.

Additionally, you might have seen 10 keywords move up and only four move down. On the surface that seems positive – more keywords moved up than down. But if those ten keywords each gained a single position and the five keywords each lost 10 positions, that might actually result in a significant loss in search visibility.

Context is always key to understanding the impact of ranking fluctuations and Keyword Movement and Positional Movement will help you quickly get that extra context.

Track how many Local Packs you’re claiming

Any business that’s focused on local SEO likely wants to have as many keywords as possible in the coveted Local Pack positions, and now you can easily track that with the ‘Google Local Pack Coverage’ metric.

This tab reveals how many of your tracked keywords display a Local Pack in Google, and importantly, how many of those Local Packs you’re claiming.

If you want to learn which Local Packs you are or aren’t claiming, just scroll down to the Rankings Table.

Any keywords that have the Google Business Profile icon underneath are displaying Local Packs in the SERP. From here, you’re able to draw up a plan to claim more Local Pack. You might prioritize the keywords that are just outside of the Local Pack positions. Or you might notice that certain keywords have dropped out and need further investigation.

We hope these new additions make it even easier to quickly understand performance and show impact to clients and stakeholders.

This is just one of many exciting new additions we’re got planned for Local Rank Tracker, and our other ranking tools. We’ll be rolling out even more exciting updates soon!

Check out your new insights in your Local Rank Tracker reports.

New to BrightLocal? Try all our local SEO tools for free.

Since we launched last year, Local Search Grid has become a valuable and popular addition for our customers. They use it to:

• See the real-world picture of how a business is ranking based on where customers are searching
• Understand which businesses they’re really competing against in local search and how to overtake them
• Show clients ranking improvements in an easy-to-understand and compelling way
• Generate visually engaging reports for prospecting and pitching potential clients

Up until now, each Local Search Grid report was limited to five keywords, so you’d need to be selective about what you wanted to track and analyze.

But that’s changed! Now, you can track up to 30 keywords in each report so you can:

• Get a broader understanding of local search visibility
• Reduce potential blindspots when tracking and analyzing keyword performance
• Get more insights into who you’re competing with across different keywords
• Make Local Search Grid a more integral part of your client reporting

To help you take full advantage of this, we’ve just given existing Single Business, Multi-Location, and SEO Pro subscribers extra Local Search Grid credits for free.

But that’s not all. We’ve made a number of improvements that’ll make it easy to stay on top of these extra insights. We’ll go through them now, so you know what’s new.

New metrics to help you understand and track performance across all keywords

We’ve added new metrics to measure and compare the performance across every keyword you’re tracking for a location.

All Keywords Average calculates the Average Map Rank across every keyword for a bird’s-eye view of a business’s search visibility. Plus, you’ll be able to track how that’s changed between each report run and see how many keywords moved up and down.

You’ll find these metrics at the top of every Local Search Grid report.

And to help you spot changes to visibility across all locations, you’ll now find All Keywords Average on the Local Search Grid Overview page, and as a metric you can add to Locations Overview.

Track changes to visibility more easily

You’ll now be able to see how much the Average Map Rank has changed for each keyword between report runs–so you’ll never miss a significant increase or decrease in search visibility.

Quickly compare keyword performance

To help you prioritize your efforts, we’ve added the ability to quickly navigate between keywords. And, importantly, see the performance of each keyword and how that has changed since the last report run.

Get started with free Local Search Grid credits

If you’re subscribed to a Single Business, Multi-Location or SEO Pro plan, then we’ve got a special gift, just for you: FREE Local Search Grid Credits.

These bonus credits are in addition to the monthly credits you get as part of your plan. And better yet, they won’t expire! Here’s what you’ll have at your disposal the next time you log in:

• Single Business subscribers: 500 free credits
• Multi-location subscribers: 1,000 free credits
• SEO Pro subscribers: 3,000 free credits

We hope this gives you plenty to get started with, so you can unlock more ranking insights than ever. Head over to Local Search Grid to start using your credits.

If you’re new to Local Search Grid or haven’t had the opportunity to go deep on it yet, then we’ve got you covered.

• Learn how BrightLocal customer, Tim Kahlert, improved his local SEO strategy with Local Search Grid
• Learn how My Social Practice used Local Search Grid to double their client’s inbound calls
• Discover nine ways that Local Search Grid can level up your local SEO analysis and reporting

New to BrightLocal? Give Local Search Grid and all our tools a try with a 14-day free trial.