Bright Local Setup SOP

Introduction

Bright Local (BL) is a service focused on Local SEO optimizations. It offers turnkey citation building services among other useful tools.

Citations are just instances of business mentions in online directories, and each citation has the potential to be considered as a type of backlink. In essence, "building" citations is a form of link building.

⚠️ Note: We won’t be using Bright Local for Facebook, Yelp, Bing or Apple Maps citations!

• These listings and profiles require a more involved process of verification that requires our direct engagement with the client, guiding them through various steps so they know what to expect and avoid messing up anything important.

Documents for Bright Local tasks can be found in the Bright Local Training & SOP Folder in Google Drive. Client Info documents will be in the respective client’s folder in Drive.

Use Cases:

We use Bright Local for both Logic Inbound and Clients. For Client work, the use cases are the same, with the exception of White Label Reporting.

Additionally, we will use Bright Local to manage multiple locations for the same Client and their respective Local SEO campaigns.

Bright Local Use Cases:

• Citation Building Campaigns

• Local Citation Tracking

• NAP Consistency & QA (Name, Address, Phone Number)

• GBP - Google Business Profile Management

• Reviews & Ratings Tracking

• Rankings Analysis (Google / Yahoo / Bing)

• Local Search Competitor Analysis

• Local Search Audits

• Local SEO Analytics

• White Label Reporting for Client Campaigns (for Logic Inbound internal use only)

Tools Overview:

• Location Summary - This is your ‘Dashboard’. It offers at-a-glance overviews of all reporting

• Rankings - Tracks rankings in search engines, includes some keyword tools.

• Citation Tracking - Details on listing statuses and reporting functions.

• Citation Campaign (CitationBuilder) - BL builds citations for us upon request for a fee.

• Reputation - Various online reviews & ratings monitoring

• Google Business Profile - Tool for monitoring and managing your site’s GBP Listing

• (Requires linking to target GBP Account)

• Local Search Audit - Audit your site’s local visibility; get actionable SEO steps.

• Google Analytics - GA integration for quick assessments

• (Requires linking to target GA Account)

• Social (Requires linking to target Facebook and/or Twitter Account)

  • Social Media management and monitoring tools (Facebook & Twitter)

Prerequisites

Before starting on any Bright Local tasks, make sure the following items are completed and any needed materials in the Internal Documents section below are available to you:

1. Client company has provided detailed NAP info, company info, public email address and credentials for necessary assets via the Client Info text doc. Must have!

2. Client location has a Google Business Profile (GBP) and you have access to that account. Not a hard requirement for adding a location to BrightLocal, but for local clients it is a priority to set up ASAP.

   1. ⚠️ Sometimes the client isn't able or available to set it up in a timely manner but we shouldn't let that stop our citation building process.

3. Client has a Facebook (Meta) and/or Twitter (X) account and you have access to them (optional)

4. You may need a handful of internal documents in order to properly complete Bright Local tasks.

   1. Some will be essential, others may be situational or optional. Regardless, if you have problems with document access or availability, reach out to Hayk, Clay or Evan.

5. Client’s website About Us page and Contact page for the location you’re working on

6. Client LinkedIn Profile (may contain detailed company info not found on website)

7. Google Search in an Incognito tab (so that location preference is turned off)

Video Guides (3 videos)

Only the latest video has a transcript, for now.

1. Evan & Mason set up new BL location for NTOE (Jan 2026)

- Background:

• NTOE was already present in BL as a client, but in this video, Evan and Mason are adding more locations for specific LA neighborhoods.

• At this point, NTOE doesn’t have GBP profiles set up for the new locations, so the setup omits the part where BL gathers data from GBP.

- Basic Setup - Adding A Location to a business in BrightLocal

1. Find client in BL, click Add Location / One Location / This Business Doesn’t have a GBP Listing .

   

2. Location Name : example “NTOE of Los Angeles” or “NTOE of West Los Angeles”

   1. 🟡 The name should be something a user is most likely to search from that location

   2. 🟡 The name should be easy to get a DBA for (Doing Business As…) This can be a bit finicky to figure out.

3. Fill out the basic info:

   1. [5:40] : Move “suite” numbers to Address Line 2 field

   2. Fill out the ZIP code and have it only be present in the Zipcode/Postcode field.

   3. Take the address from Line 1 and paste it into Google to check if the same (down to the dot) address is displayed on the Map result.

      

   4. Phone Number and Forwarding Numbers :

      1. 🟡 Use separate phone numbers (GHL) for each location if possible. If you only have 1 GHL number, then use the final forwarding number in BL because you don’t want losing a GHL forwarding number (for whatever reason) to screw up all your citations.

   5. Select Business Category (primary)

   6. Is this location a service area business?

      1. If yes, then toggle the button Yes.

      2. If no (they have a hard location), then No.

   7. Unique Location Reference - {Client Business name} - {location/ZIP}

      1. ⚠️ What Evan and Mason did in the video: NTOE-Los Angeles

      2. ⚠️ Better option: use the ZIP code, and if there are multiple locations within the same ZIP code, then mark them with {ZIP}-1, {ZIP}-2, etc. Also, don't use spaces.

         1. See this help guide from BrightLocal.

4. Click Next, and select to NOT "Monitor the data" if the GBP profile isn’t live yet. If there's a live GBP, then do select "Monitor This Location".

- Extra Info & Citation Builder

1. [8:40]: Go to Citation Builder and click Start Now to gather citation data. This takes a while, so do something else in the meantime.

2. [9:16]: If you need to change any info later:

   1. Location Manager / Core Info

   2. This is where you can add/connect a GBP profile later.

After BL has done its run collecting the data:

1. [9:47]: Building citations is easy - first, go to Citations / Citation Builder

   1. There is a switch for Don’t show the address publicly . DO show the address publicly, unless otherwise instructed. That means the switch stays off in almost all cases.

2. [10:00] Aggregators - Click the relevant button to "Add" an Aggregator site

   

   1. 🟡 There is a new option on the top called Active Sync Plus which includes Apple, Google, Yelp, Bing and Facebook. Don’t include this in the Aggregators package.

3. Manual Submissions : start with 10 and make sure you remove (exclude) maps.Apple, Google, and Yelp (those are more involved processes in terms of verification).

   1. Select 3 other directories/citations to replace those deselected ones.

   2. For other choices, select the directories that require less verification steps (less symbols next to the check marks)

4. Select Standard Submission Speed , not Express.

5. Ask leadership for help if there are insufficient credits in BL to make the order.

   1. 🟡 Bonus Tip: Under Citations / Citation Builder , the section About The Business also feeds AI engines and databases, so use it to cram relevant info and SEO keywords as well as qualifiers like “Top, Best, Premier” etc.

- Followups (data and reporting)

1. [14:15] After ordering, go back to the Business Location Contact Info section ASAP and fill out as many items as possible.

   1. If information for this section is not available in the Call Notes or the client folder (business images for example), reach out to the client with a request for more information.

2. [16:00] Some of the additional info includes:

1. Extra Categories

2. # of employees

3. Opening Hours and availability

4. Campaign Notes, etc. Example campaign note:

1. "This is a new location for a client who recently opened a new office in Pasadena, LA"

3. You should also get Business Photos from the client, those should go in Business Images .

4. ⚠️ [20:40] Location Name warning:

   1. You might end up consolidating location names if the client can’t provide sufficient documentation pertaining to a specific region or location. Example “NTOE of Los Angeles” or “NTOE of Pasadena”.

      1. Issues like this are common, and if you have this issue with BrightLocal, you will most certainly have the same problem with Google Business Profiles.

      2. They will force you to use only what you have documentation for!

5. Email Alerts - Yes! Also, add more relevant Email Addresses for notifications and reporting.

   1. For example mason@logic or clay@logic. Whoever needs to be notified that the citation campaign is done or is having issues should be added here.

6. Assign Hard Costs to the Teamwork budget. Use the Hard Costs SOP for converting $cost of citations into Teamwork hours.

1. 🟡 Do this for each location/instance where you end up getting billed or spending credits.

2. [24:24] In the video, Mason is doubling the final cost of citations to log in Teamwork because he’s adding two new locations and the fees for each are the same.

2. Clay - NTOE client setup from scratch (Dec 2025)

Recent and relevant guide, no transcript yet, refer to the written guide below

3. Clay & Ivan set up Nervous Charlie’s client (Aug 2022)

Legacy guide, interface and functionality has changed since 2022, and so have our procedures. No transcript.

Written Guides

Additional written guides in case the video transcripts and videos are insufficient.

Setting Up a New Client From Scratch

Part 1: Initial Set-Up

1. Upon logging into Bright Local, you will see the Clients & Locations Screen. Click the “Add Location” button on the top right.

2. Click “Add Location” under ‘Add Single Location’ option

3. Type the name of the business as it appears in their Google My Business listing.

   1. Double check GMB Listing for full company name (i.e. you might need to add LLC or any other company title) if there is a GBP listing at all.

4. The business listing for the client location should pop up. Select the proper listing. verify details are correct and click “Use This Location” [If no results are found, click here]

5. Check that the Location details are correct in this screen, then enter the “Business Category”. It’s best to enter the one shown in the client’s GMB profile.

6. Type the company name followed by the target city name in the “Unique Location Reference” field. If the client is targeting a major city (i.e. San Francisco) but the location is a suburb (i.e. Palo Alto), use the major city for the location reference. For example, Mold Solutions in Kent, WA would be “Mold Solutions SEATTLE” in the Unique Location Reference Field. Once complete, click Next (bottom right)

7. Using the Company Information document for the client, enter the Client Contact Details, including contact name, email and phone.

8. You can add additional details here for Citation builder Campaigns, but we will cover that later in the guide. For now, click “Add this Location” (bottom right).

9. Finally, click “Monitor this Location”

10. The Client is now set up, move on to Part Two to set up reporting

Part 2: Reporting & Review

1. Check the Location Data shown and click “Save and Continue”

2. For Search Terms and Locations, consult the Company Information document and/or the client’s keywords and URLs spreadsheet. Select 10-25 top keywords and paste them into the Search Terms field.

3. Enter the client’s target City in the Search Location Field (not necessarily the client’s physical address city).

4. Enter the Type of Business

5. Check the boxes under each search engine (Verify Location button lights up)

6. Click the Verify Location Button. Once verified, click Save and Continue

7. Check the box “Track mentions of your business on 3rd party sites

8. Enter at least one Competitor name and website. If you don’t have one already, use a Google Incognito tab to search the client’s business type with the target city keyword (for example: “App Developer Seattle”). Click Maps and choose the top result. Once you’ve entered one more competitors, click Save and Continue

9. The next section is “General Settings” and all you’ll need to do is change the day on which to run the report to “Last Day” (it will otherwise default to today’s date).

10. The Advanced Location Data section is only for clients that have moved locations within the past few years. In this uncommon situation, you would click “yes” and simply enter any old business NAP (Name / Address / Phone) information. If there is no need for this update, simply leave the “no” radio dial selected. Click Save and Continue

11. You’ll now see a list of client citations. Scroll down and click “Monitor this Location”

12. After a short loading prompt, you’ll be taken to the Client’s Dashboard. It may take a few minutes for all the reporting to complete. Check the list of tools and reports on the left sidebar for progress. When you no longer see anything with “Updating Data…” status in that list, you’re ready to conclude Client Setup. Move on to Part Three.

Part 3: Tools Integration (e.g. Google Analytics)

1. At this point, you will most likely only need to integrate Google Analytics to the Dashboard. Click on “Google Analytics” in the left sidebar

   1. Click “Connect to Google Analytics” and choose the seo (at) logicinbound account

   2. Click “Allow” and select the Client’s GA Profile from the list, click “Select” (bottom)

2. You should now have GA data in the Dashboard. If not, reach out to Clay or Hayk

3. We are not using the Social tool at this time, so ignore it for now.

4. The “Citation Campaign” setup is only for the Citation builder service.

5. All we have to do now is assign this Location to a Client profile.

   1. While the primary setup is now complete, there is one more quick and easy task to run through. We need to add the new client to the “Clients” tab. Follow these steps and you’re all done:

      1. NOTE: If you set up a new location for an existing client, simply assign the location to them

   2. Click on the Bright Local logo to go back to the starting page. Click to the “Clients” tab.

   3. Click “Add Client” then “Add Single Client”.

   4. Enter the Client’s company name and web address, then click “Add Client”

   5. In the pop-up prompt, click “Assign Locations”

   6. Check the box for the location you just set up, click Assign Locations.

Questions & Answers

1. Does the Client Need Citation Burst?

If the Client qualifies for a Citation Campaign, they will be added to Bright Local and we will run a Citation Tracking report and prepare a campaign for them. We will run a Citation Burst Campaign for Clients that meet any of the following criteria:

1. They are New Client

2. The Client’s Link Plan calls for Citations

3. The Client has no Local Citation footprint

4. The Client has low Domain Authority

5. The Client requests special focus on Local SEO

6. The Client has multiple physical locations needing SEO management

2. How Many Citations Will We Build for the Client?

We will determine the quantity of citations for Clients according to the following standards:

• 10 Manual Citations for all new clients

• (if budget is low, only do the aggregators in the first month)

• 10-25 Manual Citations for clients with no citation footprint

• 10-25 Manual Citations for clients with low Domain Authority

3. How Do We Pick Citations for the Client?

We will prioritize citation choices based on the following standards while taking into account the client’s budget, the Link Plan, campaign timelines and number of citations being built:

1. Highest value, most relevant citations first

2. Exclude Google, Apple, Bing, Facebook, and Yelp

3. Exclude GPS Location Services for Clients without a physical address or live GMB

4. Citations with high Domain Authority and quality backlink profiles take precedence

5. Citations offering links to the client site will be considered a priority

6. Citations with DoFollow links take priority over those with NoFollow (always exclude no follow unless specified by the Lead SEO)

7. Citations that are not relevant to the client will be avoided, nor should any local specific citation not targeting the client’s location (i.e. Miami Newspaper citation for a Seattle Company)

4. How Much Can We Expect the Citation Campaign to Cost?

Currently, these are the costs for Aggregators, Citations and cleaning up Duplicate Listings:

5. What if no results are found when searching by Company Name during Client Setup?

Post in the Challenges channel on discord for further assistance.

6. Why do we exclude Google, Bing, Facebook and Yelp from our citation building campaign?

These listings and profiles require a more involved process of verification that requires our direct engagement with the client, guiding them through various steps so they know what to expect and avoid messing up anything important.