Anyone using "Universal Business Listings" (ubl.org) ?

[easycash]

Hy friends

If this is as good as it seams, they offer a silly low price for their services.

https://www.ubl.org/Index.aspx

A complete listing for your client for $30 bucks ? Kiss my a..

Is anyone using this? Good or bad?

May this help my clients in Brasil as well (using appropriate anchor text)?

Thanks for answers

G.

[AP]

Hy friends

If this is as good as it seams, they offer a silly low price for their services.

https://www.ubl.org/Index.aspx

A complete listing for your client for $30 bucks ? Kiss my a..

Is anyone using this? Good or bad?

May this help my clients in Brasil as well (using appropriate anchor text)?

Thanks for answers

G.

I've been using UBL for over a year now, very satisfied.

Here is how I use them:

First I set up a Gmail account for my new client.
Then I manually Tweek/Manipulate a few Online Directories that UBL includes ( I do not have UBL poplulate)
Then I submit the balance to UBL

What's nice about UBL is they will get you listed within 4-6 weeks, whereas other services can take 6 months. They also get your clients listed in the 411 Directories, and all the GPS Directories such as OnStar.

It's $30 per year, not a one time fee.

~AP

[BAYO a.k.a. Mr. B]

Discovered it last year and it has been well worth the investment indeed.

BAYO

[easycash]

AP, Bayo

thanks for your answers

if you two vouch for it, guess then there are no further questions about the quality.

Just one to my geo location. Would you think that this can BENEFIT sites OUTSIDE the US?

And thanks AP to remind that it's $30 per year, anyhow a steal IMO as you can't get this done in an hour if you cost $30 an hour.

With this ALONE some offliners can make a $200-250 EASY PROFITS with a biz just offering all what they do for the $30 bucks.

Nobody has to know to whom we outsource ;-)

G.

[drdan]

I think I remember Dexx talking about this in another thread. So do you guys tell the clients that they must renew with UBL or with you? Obviously if they are not paying you a monthly fee.

[ramprof]

I've been using UBL for over a year now, very satisfied.

Here is how I use them:

First I set up a Gmail account for my new client.
Then I manually Tweek/Manipulate a few Online Directories that UBL includes ( I do not have UBL poplulate)
Then I submit the balance to UBL

What's nice about UBL is they will get you listed within 4-6 weeks, whereas other services can take 6 months. They also get your clients listed in the 411 Directories, and all the GPS Directories such as OnStar.

It's $30 per year, not a one time fee.

~AP

Hi AP -

Two questions:

1. Why setup a new Gmail account instead of just using your own?
2. Which directories do you manually submit to and how do you tweak?

Thanks.

-Ross

[AP]

Hi Ross,

Always open a separate email account for several reasons (I learned the hard way, lol).

1. If your email or correspondence from someone else doesn't make it to your clients email account, they will blame you.
2. Eventually all clients fade away. It makes it easy when all correspondence, passwords, etc... are in one account, theirs. Make the separation as painless as possible, similar to a divorce.
3. I tell my clients ALL correspondence goes thru the Gmail account I set up for them. I send all correspondence to the Gmail account I set up plus my clients personal account. I can't tell you how many times a client will say "I never received your email." I say "check your Gmail account."

I can give more examples but you get the point.

In regards to manipulating/tweaking online directories, that is part of my WSO and is for those members only. I'm doing a webinar on that exact topic today.

Take care,

~AP

Hi AP -

Two questions:

1. Why setup a new Gmail account instead of just using your own?
2. Which directories do you manually submit to and how do you tweak?

Thanks.

-Ross

[dave830]

2. Eventually all clients fade away. It makes it easy when all correspondence, passwords, etc... are in one account, theirs. Make the separation as painless as possible, similar to a divorce.

Just to reinforce this point:

It is currently impossible to transfer a local listing from one Google account to another:

http://www.google.com/support/places...n&answer=17104

So if you claim a local listing with your account, and the client wants to access it at any time, they MUST use your Google login.

Not what you want.

-Dave

[JRG]

I'm seeing a lot of people say that they have submitted to UBL and still see no results. Anyone else having that issue?

[Clearwater]

@ easycash
I live in Canada (Quebec) and have asked UBL about listing canadian companies.
It cannot be done in the regular US UBL directory service, BUT they have a canadian directory listing in Beta mode (for English sites only). I was told I would be contacted by the appropriate team, but haven't until now (2-3 weeks later).

For canadian directory submissions I have found www.SubmitinMe.com. Have just used their one time canadian online directory submission for one of my canadian clients, as a test. Cost is $13 as an "outsource client". Will report back when I see some results as to how the citations affect my google places and other organic rankings.

[Dexx]

@ easycash
I live in Canada (Quebec) and have asked UBL about listing canadian companies.
It cannot be done in the regular US UBL directory service

Well that explains the lack of results I got...so glad they could take the time to let people know its not for Canadians (unless I missed that somewhere)

Ah well.

I'll check out that Canadian link you sent CW!

~Dexx

[targetdirect]

I'm seeing a lot of people say that they have submitted to UBL and still see no results. Anyone else having that issue?

To a degree yes. For example, I submitted one client who had a phone number change when they changed ownership, and it took months for it to change. After 60 days (which was how long UBL had said it would take) I contacted them and showed them several entries with the old info still up. A couple of months later and I think they are all finally updated.

Another case involves a business who's name was listed wrong in Yahoo Local. UBL after 5 months still hadn't corrected it. I went in and did it manually finally (didn't get extra pay for that but what the hey).

For 30 bux it's not bad, but you just have to wait and wait, and you will still probably have to do some manual input if you want to cover all bases.

[phoenixmarketingdr]

Thanks all I have not used them yet but it seems like they will save me bunches of time

[cptravers]

This is Chris - one of the UBL founders - good to see all the positive comments above. We have some interesting new tools for you to do more with these submissions now, and we have some interesting reputation monitoring capabilities which we will release next week. Sorry to the Canadian user - we have been steadily growing our distribution there and it has almost doubled since we first released UBL across the border. I suggest they send an email with their account info and we can look to redistribute for them.

[beachgal]

I'm wondering if people first do their own submissions for google places, bing, yahoo local, merchantcircle and a few others before giving to ubl.. Also do you get the username/passwords for the directories if you wish to manually update yourself later with pictures or other info? Has anyone seen the videos they do in their more expensive packages? Do you still clients a monthly fee to monitor things and make some updates and then at time of renewal with ubl say that there is a yearly renewal fee ? Has anyone used their reputation managment service? I read on another thread it's good to grow citations slowly so wouldn't the massive amount they do be a problem since they are done at once?

[targetdirect]

Well I tried the $49 upgrade package for a company I'm now doing marketing work for, and big time FAIL! This upgrade was to get 15 "quick listings" - manually submitted listings to some of the top directories. After 3 weeks, none of the directories in their QL list were showing up so I inquired. I was told that I "slipped between the cracks" and they would refund me the upgrade fee (they did) and have the manually submitted listings up by Monday and a QL report to me... I didn't get the report yesterday so I inquired. I got a report with links to the sites. Only 3 were done as best I could tell, but they were incomplete and inaccurate. One of the listings has us in the "Career Counseling" category. We are a car dealer. Clearly someone just hit "enter" when the auto-fill put in the career counseling choice. Other links went to the business sign up page on the respective directory. I tried entering login info provided by UBL and it didn't take in most of them, and when I just looked for the listings... not there. I feel as though they really thought I was stupid or something. Like I wouldn't check the listings. I bet a lot of people don't unfortunately. Hopefully when I'm done posting my reviews, more people will check up on the work (or lack thereof).

[David T]

Not Agency Friendly, questionable business practice.
If you use the affilate program you can send out links an earn a 20% commission and be paid after $200.
If you set up an agency account and bring in say 20 lsiting clients at their medium service the Premium ($129) you get nothing. Under the Affilate account you would have been paid out over $500.
UBL.org claims that the solution is to whitelabel or mark up their prices to an agency client. Here in lies the ethical disaster that is UBL.org
So an Agency that is brining in more then one client, building lasting relationships based under service, trust and responsibility should overcharge its clients so UBL can avoid paying the agency till after they hit 100 clients? The overage net profit anywhere from $1500 to $14,000 for UBL.org before they pay anything to a legitimate Agency.
So if you are the majority of Agencies out there that carry under 100 clients you are either going to have to overcharge your clients and risk they find the service from someone else who points out the markup, or offer the service as added value.
Of course if someone else replicates this software and service and talors to SmB Agencies then UBL will be run out of business in a few years because of the viral actvity it will lose.

[Onlineasusual]

Haven't used them ... Honestly don't intend to for various reasons. Spent too much time learning SEM and tons of other IT marketing to put much faith in what they claim to offer. Guess it could have some pro's ... but wouldn't want to risk the cons that come to mind. Stuff like this is important to the people whose web presence is being meddled with. Not real confident in leaving that up to an automated service. There's no way imo they have the kind of access or the features in their service that could ensure it's done right.

1/2 tempted to think they just have some kind of paid arrangement with one of the major data providers out there. You submit to them, they submit to said dataprovider which distributes x information around the web. Though that's just supposition folks. The ole you get what you pay for comes to mind too. Some other warning signs I noticed when I looked universal business listing over a longgggg time ago. Many of the people they claim to submit to for someone have less than no realistic value. Oh well ... among other problems I personally have with what they're offering ... But this is all just .02 cents.

[RajeshKevin]

Thank you for these nice information