Brightlocal is an online platform offering set of local search marketing tools that will help you to gain an advantage over your local competitors.

It lists how many citations and reviews there are for your business in all of the most important online directories and listing sites. You can check out Brightlocal and get a free 30 day trial using this link. You do not have to enter any credit card details to get the free trial and you will probably be able to find out all you need within the 30 day free period.

There is, however, much more to Brightlocal than that. Despite it being set up and sold as a local SEO digital marketing tool, events have taken something of a turn and, although local digital marketing is important for businesses that trade in their local area, the number of citations a business has is now believed to be a ranking factor for Google right across the web – not just locally.

Obtaining citations is relatively easy to do but it is very time-consuming so you may find that you need a little help and Brightlocal is ideal for that. As well as letting you carry out a full citation audit and get a listing of all the citations that you have and the ones that you currently do not have, Brightlocal gives each one a rating and lets you know which ones are important and need to be prioritised.

As well as viewing the local SEO and other information on the screen Brightlocal has a great range of easy-to-read reports with nice graphics which makes the information accessible to everyone on the team, not just moarketers.

The process of applying for citations often involves writing a short description of your business as well as providing information such as opening hours, name and address data, telephone numbers and so on. In most cases there is some kind of verification procedure that typically involves taking an automated call at the number you have listed as being the business number and then inputting a security code.

If you don’t have the time or the inclination to do all of this yourself then fear not – we do offer a citation procurement service – enquire here for a free quotation and find out just how many free citations you are missing.

As well as making it much easier to find missing citations and then set about obtaining those citations, Brightlocal also includes some other useful local SEO tools include their “ReviewFlow” and Google+ Local Tool. In the same way that obtaining online citations for your website is more important than ever before, reviews from your customers and clients is also growing in importance and is already considered by many to be an important ranking factor for Google.

You can get a free 30 day trial of Brightlocal, no credit card details required, by following this link: Bright Little Light Ltd