You should read this article if...
You're a local business owner or a marketing agency and you've got Moz Local on your radar. Just like you, I've got a keen eye for Local SEO tools.
Moz Local is one such contender, and here's why you need to read this review:
We talk about the 3 undeniable benefits that could revolutionize your Local SEO strategy.
We'll delve into the flip side too. Brace yourself for 5 honest cons of Moz Local.
Budgets are our reality. Let's see if Moz is worth the investment.
Reviews are critical for Local SEO. We'll see if Moz can help you manage and get more reviews.
And I will not hold back. You'll get the full picture – the good, the bad, and everything in between.
Wondering if Moz suits your needs? Stay tuned for the final verdict tailored to small-medium businesses and marketing agencies.
And before you brush this off as just another run-of-the-mill review. This is different. This would be like a chat, where I'll share insights you won't stumble upon elsewhere.
I've scoured through 100s of Moz Local reviews, dug deep into it's workings, and I'll tell you exactly what I found.
So, grab your favorite brew, settle into your comfy spot, and let's start...
Before I forget, here are some quick links to everything covered in the blog:
- Moz Local Review Summary
- Where does it Shine?
- Where does it fall short?
- Moz Local Cost Review
- Unpacking Moz Local Review Management
- Moz Local for Agencies Review
- Is Moz Local Worth It for Small-Medium Businesses or Marketing Agencies?
Moz Local Review Summary
If you're short on time, here's a quick 2-minute summary of this blog:
3 Things Moz Local Gets Right
- 📊 Easy Listing Management: It will help you handle local listings effortlessly. You can maintain accurate business details across platforms for a strong online presence.
- 🔍 In-Depth SEO Insights: You can access keyword research, track local search position changes, and explore search queries for better rankings.
- 📈 Live Progress Tracking: You can get detailed reports and updates on listing progress. Track the timeline for your listings to become live, also you can track duplicates.
- If you want to understand all of this better, more on the bright side of Moz below.
5 Things Seriously Wrong With Moz Local
- Updates Take Forever: Moz can take weeks or months to update listings. Some users even see wrong info despite correct data shown.
- Data Isn't Accurate: Users complain about wrong info in citations marked as done. This confuses people and makes them feel tricked.
- Customer Support is Really Bad: When you ask for help, you might get stuck in a loop endless emails.
- Hard to Cancel: Cancelling Moz is tough. People get stuck with unclear steps, leading to surprise charges. Trust goes down the drain.
- No Review Generation: While it does help you respond to reviews, it can't get you more reviews. Serious drawback since reviews are critical for local seo.
- Details on the dark side of Moz below.
Is Moz Local Worth the Cost?
It offers 3 different plans:
- Lite Edition - $14/month/location - Active location management on Google, Facebook, Maps etc. Review monitoring but you can't even respond to reviews. No more copy-paste, your info stays synced and tidy. Plus, you can easily catch duplicate listings!
- Preferred Edition - $20/month/location - Everything in the Lite Plan, plus the ability to respond to reviews.
- Elite Edition - $33/month/location - Everything in the Preferred Plan + submit to additional local directories.
- Add-Ons - They will submit your data to aggregators in US (like Data Axle, Neustar) for an extra $4/month/location. More on that below.
Well, that was Moz Local review in 2 minutes. But if you have 8 minutes to spare, we'll dive deeper into Moz - what it's great at and where it falls flat on its face.
Moz Local Review - Where does it Shine?
Here's what customers like:
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Managing your local business listings accurately across various platforms becomes easy:
- Consistency Everywhere: Moz Local ensures your business info stays the same on all online platforms. Plus you can publish updates to all your listings at once using their dashboard.
- Stronger Online Presence: Accurate local listings help boost your SEO. When search engines and people find the same info, it builds your trustworthiness and helps more people find your business.
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Robust SEO Insights:
- Find Good Keywords: Their keyword explorer tool helps you find the right keywords for your site. Understanding what people search for to find your site is important. By picking the right words, you can attract the right people to your site.
- Watch Your Rank: Moz rank tracking tool tracks your website's position changes over time. This helps you adjust your plans and make your content better for ranking on top of Local Search.
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Real-time Progress Tracking:
- Detailed Reports: Get reports that show how your local listings are doing and how long till they go live. The real-time updates and progress reports keep you up-to-date and motivated.
- Keep Getting Better: Being able to see progress right away helps you keep improving your local SEO plans. When you see what works, you can adjust your approach for even better results.
Here's Mohammad talking about how Moz helped him:
“One of the best features of Moz Local is its ability to track and monitor your listing progress. The software will track your listing progress and provide you with reports so you can see how your listing is performing.”
Moz Local Review - Where does it fall short?
Alright, now it's time to get real and talk about the top 5 things where Moz Local goes seriously wrong:
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Unreliable Updates:
- Listings updates can take weeks, sometimes even months to go through.
- They promise quick updates to your business listings, but it takes way too long. It's like waiting for your favorite show to start, only to realize it's on a never-ending commercial break.
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Inaccurate Data:
- They seem to be playing a game of Chinese whispers with your business information. Let me explain...
- They say your citations are complete, but when you check online, you won't be able to find them. Accuracy matters, and Moz Local might need a little reminder.
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Dismal Customer Support:
- Imagine being in a maze, and every time you ask for directions, you're sent in circles. That's what some users feel like when dealing with Moz Local's customer support.
- You have a problem, you reach out, and instead of getting a solution, you're caught in a loop of emails. That's what you get from their support.
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No Review Generation campaigns:
- Reviews are critical for Local SEO and Moz Local doesn't help you get more reviews in any of their plans.
- While you can monitor and respond to reviews, you can't generate more using review campaigns. This is a serious drawback.
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Difficulty in Cancellation:
- While you can cancel your subscription without emailing anyone, you need to be smart or they'll slap you with cancellation charges.
- If you don't cancel the renewal at least 72 hours before your billing period ends, you'll be charged for the next billing cycle.
- Also, after you cancel, your listings would be reverted to the pre Moz state soon enough.
Customers get frustrated by the misleading data. Here's what a real estate agency owner (ex-Moz customer) said in their Moz Local review:
“Updates take weeks/months and my citations weren't being updated, yet would show being correct in the UI. For some, I could not find my citation organically online at all (hotfrog, botw, bing), yet showed 100% complete. I ended up emailing support and got what I felt was the runaround.”
Btw, if you're interested in running personalized review campaigns for yourself or your clients, you can do it for upto 10 profiles in just $49/month with ReviewGain.
Here's a review by Michael talking Moz's cancellation issues:
“My advice - DO NOT EVER, EVER GIVE THEM YOU CREDIT CARD! WAY too long for listings to update...if they ever do! Auto renewals despite cancellations.After contacting support about unauthorized renews and requesting NONE of my listings be auto renewed several months later ANOTHER UNAUTHORIZED auto renewal. Now I waste more time getting my money back.”
Btw if you're into checking out some alternatives to Moz, I recently wrote this blog where I talk about the top 5 reasons you should think about alternatives. Plus, I've listed out 7 of the top Moz Local alternatives there too. So, if you're interested, give it a look!
Moz Local Review - Cost & Plans
Here's everything you need to know about Moz Local plans:
Lite Plan - $14/month (for each location):
This is where it all starts. You pay $14 to start creating listings for your business. What do you get for this price?
- Your business listing starts getting featured in essential directories in the US, UK, and Canada – Google, Facebook, and more.
- Plus, the ability to sync your data across all your listings, detect duplicates and monitor your reviews.
- And that's it - no review management, review marketing, or big data aggregators in this plan.
Preferred Plan - $20/month (for each location):
- You're not just in standard directories; you can now submit your data to aggregators like Data Axle and Neustar Localeze.
- But beware, getting listed on these aggregators cost an extra $4/month/location (in additon to the $20).
- You can respond to reviews and even post on social media.
Elite Plan - $33/month (for each location):
- Includes everything in the Preferred Plan.
- For $33, you're everywhere – standard directories, local directories, aggregators.
- If you want to submit to aggregators, you still need to pay the extra $4/month.
But...
- There are better options out there for review generation + marketing. And these are available at a much more affordable price too
- For example, ReviewGain offers a complete reputation management tool for small-medium businesses and marketing agencies starting at just $49/month.
Btw, if you're curious about getting all the details like the free trial, how the pricing works, discounts, and what happens if you want to cancel, you should check out my blog post on Moz Local cost guide for 2023.
Moz Local for Agencies Review
We've already seen what local businesses like and don't like about Moz, but how does it do for agencies? Let's see...
How can Moz Local help your agency?
- Consistent Data Distribution: Keeping location data accurate and consistent is vital. With Moz, you can effortlessly distribute spot-on data across all your client's locations.
- Reputation Monitoring: Staying connected with customers matters. Moz is super handy to monitor your client's reviews and respond in real-time.
What are the problems with Moz Local Agency solutions?
I feel there are 4 major issues:
- Missing Partner Dashboard: It's a bummer that there isn't a handy partner dashboard that lets you manage all the clients from one convenient place. It'd be so much smoother to have everything under a single account instead of jumping around.
- No Volume Discounts: You must have multiple clients to cater to, and it stings a bit that there are no volume discounts for the loyalty you show to Moz. Some cost savings for bringing on more clients would be a real win. This review by Muneeb talks about this problem:
- Review Generation Gap: If your agency does Local SEO, you know the importance of reviews. It's a letdown that it doesn't offer a way to generate more reviews.
- No Proper Whitelabel: You can only do whitelabel reports, but no way for your client to log into a branded platform, not even a simple whitelabel dashboard.
“Moz local provides a good service but it can be very expensive if you're not using it for a bundle of clients."
Hey listen, if you're handling your clients' reputation and need a whitelabel tool that's perfect for small-medium agencies, you should check out ReviewGain whitelabel. Our platform's got a slick client dashboard, custom review generation, all starting at $49/month, and no setup fees for whitelabel.
That's all on the Agencies Review, next let's discuss Moz Local Review Management.
Btw if you're for tools similar to Moz Local but are actually designed for small-medium marketing agencies, you might want to look at my top 7 Moz Local alternatives blog.
Moz Local Review Management -
The Complete Picture
Because reviews are critical for Local SEO, even more than citations, let's see how Moz Local fares in review management:
Moz Reputation Management - The Bright Side
- Engaging Interactions: With Moz, connecting with customers is a breeze. Respond to reviews and share promotions, offers, and Q&A on social media. This comes with the Preferred subscription or higher.
- Comprehensive Monitoring: The Lite plan and above provide review monitoring, allowing you to stay informed about what's being said about you online.
Moz Reputation Management - The Dark Side
- Absence of Review Campaigns: There are no review generation capabilities. Having your hands tied while trying to get more reviews can put a dent in your online presence.
- Missing Review Marketing: Regardless of the plan you choose, there are no review marketing features. This means you might miss out on valuable opportunities to harness positive reviews and showcase them to boost your business.
That's it on Moz reputation management features.
Is Moz Local Worth It for Small-Medium
Businesses and Marketing Agencies?
Short answer - NOT QUITE! Let me break it down for you.
Here's what we've explored in this review:
- 3 Bright Spots - Simplified Location Management, Accurate Data Distribution, and Real-time Review Engagement.
- 5 Dismal Drawbacks - Slow Citation Updates, Inaccurate Data, Bad Customer Support, Cancellation Issues + Suprise Charges, and No Review Generation!
- Cost Review - We explored the 3 different pricing tiers, including Lite, Preferred, Elite, and also if they are worth it (or not!).
- Moz Local for Agencies - We saw how you can use Moz at your agency, and the 4 biggest problems agencies face with Moz Local.
This review by an IT business owner sums it up perfectly:
“Support has literally not had a sensible answer to the meaning of some of the metrics that are given in the dashboard - this has been shocking all along. From experiencing what I consider very poor and inadequate support replies given the huge importance of local seo, I feel that I should have done it all manually."
No doubt, Moz Local's biggest drawbacks are their poor customer support and missing reputation management features. If you're a small-medium business or an agency, I understand if you're looking for something better.
ReviewGain could be your shining star, we are built for small-medium businesses and agencies! ReviewGain offers 2 compelling plans for small-medium businesses, the Starter plan and the Growth plan, along with a 100% whitelabel platform for agencies.
Starter Plan ($49/month) for small businesses:
- Generate 20-30 reviews monthly using 100 SMS review requests and 1000 email requests for upto 10 locations.
- Manage and respond to reviews like a pro using our simple dashboard.
- Stay in the loop with 24/7 with review alerts sent right to your phone.
- Plus, our sentiment analysis digs up golden insights from your customers' reviews.
- And yes, our 24/7 support is actually responsive – no mysterious disappearances here (*cough* like Moz *cough*).
Growth Plan ($79/month): for bigger businesses:
- Minimum 150 fantastic reviews every month with 500 SMS requests and unlimited emails for upto 20 locations.
- Showcase your positive reviews on social media and your website, all automated.
- And it includes all features of the Starter Plan.
- ReviewGain offers a 100% whitelabel platform, so you can tailor the branding and pricing as you please.
- Start with 1 seat at $49/month per client + $0 whitelabel setup fee.
- Unlock up to 50% discounts as you expand your clientele – money saved, services scaled!
- And don't worry, our 24/7 email and tech support has got your back, we're your reliable tech team!
Hey, if you want to compare Moz Local and ReviewGain, check out my recent blog where I pit Moz Local against Yext and ReviewGain.
That's a wrap! Hopefully, this Moz Local review served up the goods on strengths and pitfalls, along with a compelling contender. If you're curious about ReviewGain, head to our website or kickstart your 14-day trial for free. No credit card or phone number needed — just your email, and you're off!