Hi guys. I've been involved in offline marketing for a few years now, and I've recently pre-launched a MANUAL submission service that will provide you with visible, verifiable proof of work completed for your clients in the form of a detailed spreadsheet report and access to the e-mail account where all of the account registration/confirmation/account info details are.
Shoot me a PM if you want to know more and read some of the current feedback regarding the service. It is not an automated solution, but for this specific type of work I personally wouldn't want to rely on automated software when inputting important details for my offline clients (you are free to believe and act differently of course, afterall this is BHW).
Now, If we were just talking about posting simple URLs and anchor text...now that would be a different story as far automation goes. I am discovering a LOT of these sites require multiple confirmation/verification steps in order to fully "complete" or "claim" a business listing as well. And they change their submission guidelines, policies, and forms A LOT. Many don't go officially live until moderated after a few days to a few weeks.
When you deal with enough clients, you realize that the administrative side of things can become overwhelming. I'd rather not take the chance of automated programs screwing up a businesses's (name address phone number coordinates etc) by incorrectly filling out the forms, getting a client banned from a certain cite, etc.
If that type of stuff happens when doing normal link building with automated software, we can usually brush it off and just not use that particular website...but what about when a business owner sees that they've been banned or their information is completely incorrect and they can't access the directory account for two months to change the info? Will you tell them that the automated software you used was at fault?
Don't get me wrong, I'd be the first one to use software to help with the research,organization of the offline stuff, but as far as submitting brick and mortar business information to websites that are as FICKLE as these ones, I'm just not sure it is really worth possibly saving a bit of money and time upfront versus potentially screwing your clients out of utilizing certain authority directory websites and what not over the longrun. To each his own though like I said, I welcome all USEFUL tools to help us out in this industry! Not to mention, You can use popular automated stuff like Scrapebox and get additional citations outside of the "normal" directory websites still, though I've noticed Google Places won't show as many WITHIN their platform as they used to, at least in my recent expereinces. Google Places is crazy...I've had facebook, article directories, blog comments, etc all show up as citations.
My new motto for local search is: "If you can get a link on it, NAP it!" nap = Name Address Phone number
My thoughts are, bare minimum people are probably getting around $500 to work on projects for their offline clients (without even mentioning that MOST here I'd assume have their clients on monthly payments). So You could use automated software you already bought and fully rely on it to do these citations, or you could spend around $100 out of that $500 payment and ensure it is done correctly every single time. That money (you pay for manual submissions) adds up when you have multiple clients, and that is where I see the benefit in using software, but once again....at least in my own experiences...I am getting paid monthly by almost all of my offline projects and therefore to me, I'd rather just go manual than attempt to save around $100 per client upfront, as I am getting multiple times that amount paid monthly to me by them anyways. I guess I'm of the attitude at this point, "why risk it?"
- Jim
