Whitespark

The Industry

Local SEO is booming right now- only a year into its rapid growth development stage, companies are cropping up everywhere to offer services.  The all pretty much work on the same three core areas:

1. local citation cleanup & management
2. reputation management
3. tracking of rankings in local search results

Whitespark is no exception, offering what’s become the standard trio of local SEO services plus a whole lot more, all of which is designed to improve rankings in the search engines in the local search results.

If you’re not familiar with the difference between local and organic search results, here’s a quick primer:

• organic search results: these are traditional search engine results, based on website optimization, backlinks, or whatever the search engine (Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc) deems relevant at the time.  These results appear under the Sponsored and Local results.
• local search results.  for the keyword you’re searching, these are results which are physically located near you or the keyword you put in the search engine (e.g. “pizza in Houston” or “beauty salon”).  You don’t even have to type in a location since the search engine may be able to tell where you’re located if you haven’t disabled certain applications in your browser.

The Company

Whitespark is a local SEO service company, but on their Google+ page you’ll learn that they do more than provide services.  They also create the software the aids in providing these services, making them much more of an expert in the field than many of their competitors.

They make much fuss about the fact that they’re Canadian, not sure why since this is the internet and such services know no geographical boundaries. But the important part and piece to remember here is that local lead generation can be done from anywhere in the world.

The president and Founder has forged his own path in the internet jungle, so his “credentials” don’t mean much as far as traditional measures of success may go.  His accomplishments are self-realized, so he has no big business positions to display on his resume, or academic credentials other than a BA in anthropology.  We’ll just have to take his word for it!  His skills seem to be speaking at conferences to like-minded buddies who work in his own niche.

Bios on the Whitespark website are mainly lots of fluff and jokes, with unprofessional things like speaking about “soiling oneself” and loving golf.  But don’t worry: we’ll take your word for it, that you’re qualified, capable, and professional…?

The Products & Services

In total, Whitespark offers 7 products and 3 services.  They are:

Tools

1. Local Citation Finder (explained in detail below)
2. Reputation Builder ($27/month and up)
3. Local Rank Tracker ($5/month and up)
4. Link Prospector  ($5 per report or $47/month and up)
5. Review Handout Generator  (Free)
6. Offline Conversion Tracker  (Free if you have a Whitespark account, i.e. if you are paying for another service)
7. Google Mas to Google+ Bookmarklet (Free)

Services

1. Citation Builder  ($4 each or $5 each)
2. Citation Audit & Cleanup  ($750-$1200 or $900-$1400 for lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, dentists, and insurance agents )
3. LocalSpark  (SEO service, need to get an individual quote)

Product: Local Citation Finder: $20 per month and up

Whitespark’s software gives clients the ability to check up on their competitors’ citations.  The idea is to see who’s ranking in the local search engines in the client’s local area, and then backwards engineer those top rankers’ citations so that they can be mimicked.

The client-administered tool provides the data as well as direct links to online directories, review sites etc where the client may create his or her own account and get listed.

Essentially, the Citation Building tool helps clients focus on building a presence in the directories that matter the most, potentially saving many hours which otherwise would have been spent signing up for directories that just don’t do much for local business rankings.

 The Verdict

Whitespark does seem to have it all tied up as far as offering a pleasing array of products and services for the business owner who wants to improve his or her local rankings.  They build their own products (or at least in the case of their Citation Building Service and their Link Prospector tool) they partner with others to offer their own software.

But how much of local SEO really requires such products and services, and how much can simply be done by hand for free?  It  remains to be seen.  This is an industry still in its infancy, trying to prove its worth.  By failing to reassure nervous and budget-minded business owners that they can ad will act professionally once under contract, Whitespark is making a mistake and missing out.  Clean up your bio page, leave out the fluff, and make your potential clients believe you’re going to help them, not fleece them.

Make sure you check out one of the best local business marketing coaching programs in Job Killing that will help you maximize your ability and effort to rank and convert leads into clients for local businesses.