Most customer’s journeys start with a question. They are looking for answers, looking for a solution to their problem, or just want to learn more about a specific topic. However, search engine results are not always effective. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the actual answer that you’re looking for when you land on a website. That’s where Yext comes in. In this article, we will talk about what is Yext and why you should have it on your business’ website!
Keep reading to find out:
Yext: What Is It?
Yext is a search tool that businesses can install on their website to help deliver verified answers to searching consumers. Unlike other popular search engine platforms, Yext provides an ad-free approach to web searches using what they call their Yext Search Engine Experience Cloud platform.
This platform allows companies to take charge of their data online and the search experience of their website visitors. For example, if someone were to search your business’ hours on another platform, they might see three ads for your competitors before they see the actual answer they’re looking for. With Yext’s data management tool, business owners can make sure people get the information they’re looking for, accurately.
Yext also allows businesses to sync their location-based information with other popular platforms so that everything is the same, no matter where someone searches. This even includes voice-enabled searches and chatbots!
To sum it all up, Yext is a great way to make sure all of the official information about your business is up to date everywhere on the internet without having to manually update the information on each website one by one.
Why Should You Use Yext as a Small Business?
First off, Yext is practical and it will save you tons of time. It allows you to sync information about your business across all web-based platforms and search engines. They will audit business directories to ensure accuracy and will update and/or replace information that does not match the official information provided by you. The platform also identifies websites where your business is not present and allows you to easily add that information for an even bigger reach.
We’ve all seen it happen: some customer decides to create or update a business’ listing on Yelp and Google My Business and it leads to confusion. Often, the business owner isn’t even aware that this false information exists. This is just one scenario where Yext can really help you.
Read more: How to Create Your Google My Business Listing: Step-by-Step
They make it super simple. You just update your business’ information once, and they will make sure it gets updated and added everywhere it needs to. This is important because most people are looking for this kind of information online, and if the information they find about your business is inaccurate or something is missing, you might just lose a potential customer.
With Yext, you can sync information like:
- Business name
- Business categories
- Business hours
- Address
- Location labels
- Phone number
- Calendars
- Holiday hours
- Products and services
- Photos
- Videos
- Bio
- Coupons
- Advanced search and filtering
Aside from making it super easy to publish and update business information on multiple websites and directories, Yext will also make sure your business is listed on third party websites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc. This is important because being on these sites is one of Google’s ranking factors. In order to make sure your business is listed higher in Google’s search engine results, you need your (correct) business information to be on these other websites. Those rankings really matter, because the higher you are, the more likely it is that people will visit your website and hopefully, convert into customers.
Should You Use Yext for Your Small Business?
If your goal as a business is to rank higher with search engines like Google Search, Google Maps, Siri, Alexa, etc. then you should definitely go for it. Yext will help you achieve this goal because they’re going to help ensure that your accurate business information will show up on as many different website directories as possible.
However, it’s important to understand that just being present on these platforms isn’t enough. So, just because you’re on some more online directories, you aren’t going to see your Google search engine rankings jump from 100 to 1 overnight. There are other factors at play. The best results will come when you use Yext combined with other SEO techniques. If you don’t have the bandwidth to do this or aren’t sure what the current SEO best practices are, you can always hire an SEO professional that has the expertise to help your business rank higher on those ever-important search engines.
We can’t wait to see what you do! Don’t forget to tag us using the hashtag #GrowingTheBiz so we can see and share your work. And don’t forget to follow us on Pinterest for some more inspiration and ideas!
