Yext “Reinvents The Local Business Listing” With New Rich Content Options

Location data platform and provider Yext has introduced a range of new data types and rich content into its PowerListing local data syndication product. The new offering is called PowerListings+ (Like Google+).

Enhanced local data categories enable the inclusion of employee/staff bios, event calendars, product inventory and services (including prices).  Yext said that the new content types would be available at the same fee structure (no additional charge) under its PowerListings product.

Yext syndicates data to 45 local search sites, including Yelp, Yahoo Local, Foursquare, WhitePages.com, Local.com, Superpages and a range of others. The company says its data reach 150 million users online in the US monthly. However because there are some integration changes required to accommodate this enhanced data the new program will launch with 30 partners and roll out to the rest over time.

Below is a screenshot provided by Yext of an example local product inventory integration. (Local product inventory data provider Goodzer recently released its own inventory API.)

The idea here, according to Yext CEO Howard Lerman is to move beyond pure location data (the “where”) and provide consumers with additional information to help them make buying decisions (the “what” and “who”). Simultaneously the new enhanced content helps SMBs and national-local businesses expose more information to consumers online.

There’s an SEO benefit both for the local search/directory partners and for the local businesses themselves via enhanced content.

One of the virtues of the Yext system is that it changes made in the data populate in real time across its partner network. Yext pays a portion of the fee businesses and enterprises pay it to its publisher partners.

The Yext PowerListings+ data product is part of a broader effort to get more “real world” data into listings and on to the internet (and mobile). SinglePlatform (acquired last year by Constant Contact) and Locu syndicate restaurant menus and pricing information. However both are seeking to bring a much broader array of local, real-world data to search and mobile discovery.

Factual, a Yext partner, is also aggregating and syndicating a wide range of rich real world data to its publisher customers and clients. And Canadian company Locationary offers a kind of local data exchange.

All of these initiatives also to some degree play into the larger “internet of things” meme.