The #1 SOFTWARE CHOICE For Offline / Local SEO Professionals - Reputation Management Just Released!

[KabanaSoft]

Bored Consultant Researching
Late Into the Night…

Or Well Paid Results-Maker Smiling
About Your Next Client.

Which Would You Rather Be?


Listen up, Warriors - If You Do Any Offline/Local SEO Consulting…Places Scout is the #1 Tool
You Need to Succeed!

If you have ever tried to help local businesses by:

• Optimizing Google Places Page Listings

• Improving Local Search Rankings for Multiple Keywords

• Providing Comprehensive Rank Tracking Reports

• Offering Online Business Reputation Management Services

• Managing Facebook Fan Pages

• Tracking and Managing Social Media

• Building Local Niche Websites

• Offering Mobile Websites / Apps

If you have ever done any of the following work manually:

• Rank Tracking and Reporting to your Client
  

• Client Prospecting - Finding qualified leads with data such as:
  
  • Google Places Owner Verified Status
  • Email Addresses
  • Business Owner Names
  • Whether each lead has a:
    • Mobile Website
    • Flash Based Website
    • Facebook Fan Page
      
  • Google PageRank
  • SEOMoz Data (including number of backlinks)
  • On Page Keyword Optimization Analysis
  • Citation Analysis
  • Social Media Metrics
    

• Keyword Research with Domain Availability Checker
  

• Citation Finding

• Business Reputation Analysis
  

If you have ever used any of the following software tools:

• Market Samurai

• GPScraper

• Power Leads Pro

• Map PI

• Raven Tools

• SEScout

• SEO Spyglass

• Traffic Travis

• Whitespark Citation Finder

• Or any other tool that provides lead generation, rank tracking, keyword generation, competition analysis, or citation finding
  

And if you’re the kind of person who values:

• Freeing up your time from repetitious tasks so that you can talk to more potential clients with key information and make more money

• Staying on top of the Local SEO Game and being an expert in the industry

• Having ONE awesome "Go-To" tool for all your Local SEO needs

• Innovative, powerful, and easy-to-use software that challenges the status quo by raising the bar for Offline Consulting and Local SEO Research Tools

...then I have a solution for you!


Hi my name is Mark Kabana, and I have been a local business consultant since 2006. For many years I struggled with managing multiple clients at once. Maybe you can empathize with this: I found myself spending way too much time performing manual research and SEO tasks for my clients. This slammed the brakes on my income potential because I could only take on 2-3 clients at a time.

I created Places Scout because so many offline & local SEO consultants spend too much time being tied up in tedious manual research and data entry. I believe your time should instead be spent easily finding and talking to potential clients with "insider" information about their online presence! This awesome combination is what gets the foot off the brakes and hitting the gas hard on your potential income.

What separates me from the rest is that I’m also an expert software engineer (I started programming when I was 11 and have a B.S. Computer Science, University of Miami FL), and I know the time-eating challenges that you as a local business consultant face every day taking care of your clients very well.

My experience in both software engineering and local business consulting gives me the ability to understand these challenges…and motivates me to provide solutions to these challenges that will save you tons of time and give you research data that will instantly make you an expert in the field. In addition, since I engineer my own software and do not outsource anything, I have complete control over everything the software does to help make your life as local business consultant much easier.

"FINALLY - An Innovative Transformation in Your
Local SEO Consulting Effectiveness!"

Places Scout strives to be innovative. The way I keep it challenging the status quo is by:

• Offering you features no other software has that will AMAZE your clients

• Continually updating Places Scout with enhanced and new abilities to help you run your consulting business as efficiently as possible

• Helping you make tons more money because you’ll be closing deals with clients instead of being stuck behind a desk doing manual research.

"Wouldn’t You Rather Be Making Money
Than Hitting Keys?"

Places Scout saves you huge amounts of time and aggravation in SEO research by giving you:

• an all-in-one, easy-to-use ability to target potential clients

• instant massive online background on their Web presence

• customized, attention-getting reports to potential clients on Day One!

Places Scout automates a large and growing number of critical research, data entry and benchmarking functions that are important to your success as a local business consultant. Local SEO Expert Linda Buquet calls it the "Swiss Army knife for local SEO," and shares along with other happy clients that Places Scout is the most innovative and effective tool she’s seen.

Hunting and pecking for information takes a long time and is boring. If you’d rather have a list of qualified prospective customers generated for you, and be able to get out there and show these people what you can do for them on Day One, Places Scout is for you!

With Places Scout, you WILL be able to offer a wide variety of Offline Consulting Services, and manage these services in minutes compared to hours of time it would take to do this work manually. Learn how to quickly identify new local prospects, convert them into paying clients, and easily manage the tasks involved in maintaining these clients and keeping them happy. Your revenues will dramatically INCREASE with Places Scout!

"A Real, Considerate Human Being Behind The Software...

Time and again clients express how happy they are with the support behind Places Scout. When you ask me a question, or wonder if a new feature can be added, you can be sure that I’ll listen and help you out as best as I can. Many problem-solving things that Places Scout can do are a direct result of a client asking if the software could do that!

"...And Innovative Features You Won’t Find
in Any Other Solution!"

Places Scout contains many unique features that no other software has! These features will give you a competitive advantage over all other local business consultants that who aren’t using Places Scout. Here is a brief list:

• Data Visualization Technology – The integrated visual mapping feature allows you to see both your local ranking penetration and potential clients drawn in real time on a map, and provides you with a visual, geographic understanding of all the data gathered

• Location Emulation technology for Rank Tracking – Allows you to track rankings without the geo-modifier and simulate browsing from any geo-coded location.

• Advanced Lead Generation and Business Intelligence Data – Client Prospecting module provides up to 54 data points for each business so you know everything about that business and their competitors

• Geo-Distance From Center – The software calculates how far each business is located from the centroid of the location being searched (in both the Client Finder and Rank Tracker), which is an important factor in the Google ranking algorithm.

• Powerful Exact Match Domain Availability Checker - Allows you to check 1000’s of domains in seconds from generated keywords, complete with Google AdWords traffic analysis.

• Attractive, Simplistic Software User Interface - Places Scout’s well designed UI makes the software extremely easy to learn how to use, and built in informative help tooltips are displayed when you hover your mouse over any program element – no need to leave the program to get help using any feature

• Accuracy of Results Verification – Accuracy of results can be easily verified by clicking on the hyperlink that is provided in the 'Keyword / Location Query' column in each grid view.

• Multi-Format Data Export - All data is fully exportable to multiple formats, including PDF, Excel, HTML, and CSV files!

• Powerful Parallel Data Processing - Provides blazing fast data gathering in seconds instead of minutes.

And Places Scout does even more!

"Discover How Places Scout Has Made Earning Lots More Money and Completing SEO Work Astonishingly Easier
for Consultants Like You!"

Read through the testimonials below. Check out the videos to see how the software saves you time and effort. I’m certain that you’ll agree Places Scout is the tool you need to completely transform the way you’re doing business and getting SEO results for your clients!

RAVE Reviews are Pouring In!

Here is a review from a Warrior who is CRUSHING
Google Places with This Software

Originally Posted by JonHascue

...This product, all by itself, with my knowledge and thinking out of the box, has located, and put me in position, to procure over 22 new clients. Now obviously, I have the knowledge and experience, to be able to market to them, and these are for a bunch of different services long term, but on the whole, and right up front, it has produced quickly, 22 $97 one-time sales. And that is just the tip of the iceberg...

And here is what people are saying about Places Scout:

Originally Posted by abrandt

I have purchased almost every Keyword Research tool and report on WF. Places Scout is on its way to becoming perhaps the most sophisticated and powerful tool of its kind available... and at a low introductory WSO price.
Without reservation, I highly recommend that "Power Users" acquire this tool at the current low WSO - to get locked in to all the power upgrades that are right around the corner.

Originally Posted by AdappMedia

Mark has released something very special with this software. I do not leave reviews very often but I just cant help myself in this case.

Places Scout has been instrumental in getting my offline marketing business off the ground. Mark could easily charge $97 A MONTH for this software and would still be giving it away for a steal!!! He provides easy to follow instructions in his videos and once you understand the software it not only helps track current client results but makes finding new ones a breeze.

And if that wasnt enough he has provided a major update since my purchase that literally TRIPLED the value of this product. I can't emphasize enough that I DO NOT LEAVE REVIEWS and that my endorsement of Places Scout is an extremely difficult recommendation for any WSO to receive.

I would like to thank Mark personally for providing the means to make my agency successful and a pat on the back. Keep up the good work!

Kind Regards,
Dennis Jeffers
CEO Adapp Media LLC and Adapp Media Forum
Adapp Media Forum - Your Marketing Headquarters . . .
Adapp Media LLC

Originally Posted by Catalyst eMarketing

I also don't leave reviews often. Plus I BETA test lots of GP software and am not easily impressed!

I was supposed to BETA test this software several times but due to time constraints never could really dive in. I just finally ran some ranking reports this weekend and was BLOWN AWAY.

Mark implemented a suggestion I gave him awhile back. The software shows what type of ranking it is. Blended, 7 pack or organic. This is a HUGE deal to me and very important for anyone that's really in the know.

You can have a client that's ranking #4 in a generic report that does not spell out the difference. A week later they drop to #22. With reports that don't show the different SERP styles, you have no way of knowing why they dropped.

I currently use what I think WAS the best for local rankings (until now). But it does not give me that added level of detail that I need, so I still have to manually spot check rankings all the time.

...

NO OTHER SOFTWARE shows you what TYPE of ranking in the reports. This is HUGE!

Thanks Mark for the constant improvements to this software! I believe if I asked you to program it to make my coffee every morning too, you're the man that could probably make it happen!

Originally Posted by Dexx

Simply amazing. Your software truly will be a requirement for offline marketers everywhere.

Cheers,

~Dexx

Originally Posted by JohnDavid

This software is a game changer for many of us. The commitment to its development is truly phenom!

Originally Posted by BestPMarketing

I've purchased the software and it has my wheels turning on the different ways I can make money with it! ...

Originally Posted by hdoyle

So what do I think of Places Scout?

It's brilliant! It is by far one of the most used tools on my desktop now.

Originally Posted by JohnSpangler

All I can say is WOW, I wish I would have had this software when I got started because this makes contacting business owners a breeze.

Originally Posted by leon1004

Great software and great support... Mark has out done himself with "GOOGLE PLACES SCOUT" easy to use... fast-up-to-date-info that will have you profiting from local clients...A must have product if you buy any WSO this year get Google Places Scout... I very rarely leave a review for products I buy because I just don't have the time...But if I didn't on this one I would feel I was letting my fellow warriors down!

Originally Posted by tlski

First, the user interface is beautiful. It is very easy on the eyes. If only other similar products had this look to them. More important, if you are familiar with the standard office apps, PlacesScout will be easy for you to learn. Most functions are very intuitive. I always like to see what I can do without reading a manual or watching instructional videos. Almost everything was doable this way. I did make a mistake on one aspect and finally figured it out relatively easily.

Originally Posted by Jeff Klein

The first thing I'll say is that the software is very well designed. It has an attractive UI and is feature rich. Places Scout is also very fast at completing each task or project...

...Overall I am very impressed with Places Scout. I think it offers a great deal of functionality and value. It is a worthy asset to add to your toolbox if you offer Local SEO services.

Originally Posted by BaySocial

I heard about Places Scount on the Online Renegades forum and decided to look into it. At first glance, it looked like the typical prospecting tool, like many other choices out there. However, I looked deeper into the reports and started to see some differences and features I had never seen before. I decided to reach out the Mark and see where he was heading with the software and just get to know him. Let me say the following:

1) Mark is the real deal as far as both online marketing AND a top rate programmer. He knows so much about the data that he had my head spinning.
2) Mark knows the issues that we all face as offliners. So he is trying to create a program that meets those needs and help run our business.
3) This software works and provides reports in such a way that both helps close deals and helps communicate your results to customers. Not just the ranking results but the map is awesome!

Lastly, while I can't say much, I will say that this is just the beginning for this program. I spoke to Mark about what I thought was missing from the software and he listened, came up with new ideas and off he went to attack.

Folks, I only write reviews when I truly believe you will benefit in both the short and long term. I believe there are great things to come with this program and for the price and set of capabilities, this can't be beat. One sale resulting from the use of this program will more than take care of the price of this program.

Originally Posted by Digital Traffic

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, well having the ability to show your potential client exactly where they rank on a visual map, and better yet exactly where their competitors rank on that map is a huge selling tool.

SEO speak tends to leave your customers with a glared look in their eyes, providing that client with a color coded picture of the landscape, breaks their SEO efforts down to a level that anybody can plainly see and understand.

Having the ability to track the 1,3,4 and 7 packs just adds to the quality of this software, being able to find their competitors citations and obtain those citations for your clients as well, saves you a lot of time and wasted effort.

Originally Posted by ronr

As others have said this software is clean, easy to use and very fast. The speed it gathers information is amazing. Your can get a list of ranks back in 5-15 seconds that could take a minute or more with other similar software. Each of the features that it contains could be a product by itself, keyword finder, potential client generator, rank tracker, client reports, citation finders. It not only saves you money it's so much quicker to having them all located in one piece of software. The rank tracker and reporter is a geeks dream. The amount of data you can provide for your own research and report to your your clients is amazing.

Originally Posted by topend

Your product is amazing. Its quality made and professionally done. Very clean and easy to use. I can spend the whole day just analyzing the data it produces.

I'm a newbie in local marketing/seo and this program will definitely give me a head start and unfair advantage. Being able to pull out the keywords in a flash and the map view was just mind blowing. To be able to see businesses next to each other with the the google places data in a visual way.... I feel like a 007 agent

NEW - Places Scout Customer Support
Portal Just Launched!

You can view Places Scout's new customer support portal here: http://www.placesscout.com/support/

Places Scout Screenshot Gallery Now Available!

Click Here to View the Places Scout Screenshot Gallery!

NEW Updated Training Videos Available!

Keyword Generator Tutorial Video:

Places Scout Keyword Generator Overview Video ...

Find Local Clients Tutorial Video:

Places Scout Find Local Clients Overview Video ...

Track Local Rankings Tutorial Video:

Places Scout Track Local Rankings Overview Video ...

Create Client Reports Tutorial Video:

Places Scout Create Client Reports Overview Video...

Citation Finder Tutorial Video:

Places Scout Citation Finder Overview Video ...

Creating and Running Reputation Reports Tutorial Video:

Creating and Running Reputation Reports Tutorial...

Analyzing Reputation Report Data Tutorial Video:

Analyzing Reputation Report Data in Places Scout...

Using Places Scout's Keyword Builder Tutorial Video:

Using Places Scout's Keyword Builder Tutorial...

Using Proxies with Places Scout Tutorial Video:

Using Proxies with Places Scout Tutorial Video

Places Scout contains 6 main modules that are packed with tons of time saving features! A Brief Summary:

Module #1 - Keyword Generator

Keyword Generator Tutorial Video

Places Scout Keyword Generator Overview Video ...

Keyword Generator Screenshot Gallery

• Click Here to View the Keyword Generator Screenshot Gallery

Key Features

• POWERFUL Keyword Generator allows you to find TONS of potential LOCAL Keywords from multiple search engine sources:

• Google Related Keywords
• Google Local Related Keywords – NEW!
• Google Suggestion Keywords
• Yahoo Related Keywords
• Yahoo Suggestion Keywords
• Bing Related Keywords
• Bing Suggestion Keywords

• Import Google AdWords Traffic Data feature from generated keywords allows you to perform Local Keyword Traffic Analysis

• Easily choose keywords that will drive the most traffic to your client’s website
• Importing traffic data from Google AdWords ensures the data is 100% accurate

• NEW MONEY MAKING FEATURE! - Mass Exact Match Domain Availability Analyzer allows you to find PROFITABLE exact match domains that have high monthly search volumes and/or CPC’s.

• Designed to allow MASS analysis of thousands of keywords in seconds
• Checks .COM / .NET / .ORG / .INFO / .BIZ / .MOBI / .CA / .EU extensions for each keyword
• You can easily hand pick keywords with high monthly search volumes that also have available domains, purchase these domains, and profit from them.

• Customizable keyword filters allow you to easily narrow down the results to your target market. The following filters are available:

• Negative Keyword(s) Filter
• Positive Keyword(s) Filter
• Phrase Length Filter
• Must Contain Seed Keyword Filter
• Domain Availability Filters for supported extensions
• AdWords Traffic Data Filters for:
  • Minimum Local Monthly Searches
  • Minimum Global Monthly Searches
  • Minimum Avg. CPC
  • Minimum AdWords Competition
    

• Full parallel processing support allows you to generate 1000’s of keywords in seconds

• Results can be exported to a wide variety of formats, including:

• TXT (Text File)
• CSV
• Excel
• HTML

• Generated Keywords can be sent to other program sections to find targeted local leads, track rankings, and find citations from generated keywords.

Benefits of the Keyword Generator

• Easily find targeted local keywords with high traffic volumes to recommend to your client
  

• Purchase exact match domains with high traffic volumes – Ways to profit:

• Setup niche rental sites that will easily rank for the keywords
• Sell advertising space to local businesses
• Generate leads that you can sell to local businesses
• Sell the domain or niche site outright on flippa.com or other domain selling outlets

• FAST parallel data gathering saves you much time in finding the proper local keywords to target

Module #2 - Local Client Finder / Lead Generator

Local Client Finder Tutorial Video

Places Scout Find Local Clients Overview Video ...

Local Client Finder Screenshot Gallery and Sample Reports

• Click Here to View the Local Client Finder Screenshot Gallery and Sample Reports

Key Features

• Easily finds Targeted RED HOT Leads from Google Places for your Offline Consulting Business

• No matter what business consulting services you offer, Places Scout's lead generator can provide you with the data necessary to find targeted leads for your services

• BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DATA UNLEASHED - With up to 100 different data items provided for each business in the Google Places Results, you will know EVERYTHING about each business, such as:

• Is their Places Page Owner Verified?

• Does the Business have a Facebook Fan Page?
  • Is the Facebook Fan Page Owner Verified?

• Does the Business have a Mobile or Flash website?

• All Places Page Business Data
  • Name, Address, Phone, Categories, Reviews, Rating, Photo/Video Count, and More

• Complete Social Media Metrics – Number of likes, comments, shares, diggs, ect

• Business Owner Name

• PLEASE NOTE: Proxies are required to gather business owner name data for 20+ results
  

• Business Email Address

• Number of Citations

• Average Citation Rating (e.g. the average online reputation of the business)

• Complete Off-Page and On-Page SEO Analysis, including:

• Google Page Rank of Business Website

• SEOMoz Competition Metrics for Business Website

• Is Keyword in Places Page Categories?

• Is Keyword in Title Tag of Website?

• Is Keyword in Website Domain?

• Is Keyword in META Description Tag of Website?

• Is Keyword in Header Tags of Website?

• Is Location in Title Tag of Website?

• Business Geo-Distance from Center of Location being Searched

• Business Reputation Ratings and Reviews from the Top 15 Major Review sites, including Overall Summary Metrics

• Split Address Fields with extremely accurate address parsing capabilities (even with international addresses) allow you to view the address data split into individual parts (i.e. street address, city, state, zip), making it easy to export this data and import it into any other software

• And much more!

• Gather an UNLIMITED Amount of Leads, with up to 200 results per keyword / location search query!

• Unlike other lead generation programs, Places Scout allows you to enter the EXACT SEARCH QUERY to generate leads from, giving you 100% targeted leads based on your desired niche.
  

• You are NOT limited to selecting predefined categories or locations to generate leads from. This gives you the flexibility to gather leads from any niche and location you desire.
  

• You can also ENTER AS MANY TARGETED SEARCH QUERIES AS YOU'D LIKE, with up to 200 results per query, allowing for UNLIMITED LEAD GENERATION WITHOUT ANY LIMITATIONS!

• Customizable Data Filters allow you to filter out results that do not meet your requirements, leaving you with a list of targeted leads tailored to your liking. The following filters are available:

• Hide Owner Verified Results – Hides results whose Google Places page is owner verified.

• Hide FB Fan Page Verified Results – Hides results whose Facebook Fan page is owner verified.

• Hide Results with a Website - Hides results that have a website associated with their Places Page

• Hide Results with a Mobile Website - Hides results that have a mobile website

• Hide Results without a Flash Site - Hides results that do not have a flash-based website
  

• Hide Results Without Email Address – Hides results that do not have an email address.

• Min Google Reviews – Hides results that do not contain the a minimum number of specified Google Reviews

• Min Google Rating - Hides results that do not contain the a rating higher than what you specify.

• Custom Filtering - If any of the above filters do not meet your needs, you can use custom filtering logic to filter the data down using any custom logic

• Integrated Map View allows you to view the results visually on a fully featured map!

• This allows you to visualize where the business is located geographically on the map as well as where their competitors are located.

• Map markers are added to the map view for each business’ location

• Markers are color coded based on whether that listing is owner verified or not

• The business’ ranking is drawn on each map marker for visual ranking identification

• Dig deep in Google Places

• Gather up to the top 200 results per keyword / location to find businesses that are ranking beyond the first page of results

• Pertinent data is color coded so that you can easily identify prospects and the strength of various metrics for that business

• Gathered Data can be exported to PDF, CSV, Excel, or HTML files

• Gathered Data can be saved to XML files and loaded for future analysis so you don’t have to keep gathering the same data over and over again

• Customizable grid view allows you to re-arrange the data columns in any manner you like, and hide columns that you do not want to see

• This gives you full customization of exactly how you want to view the data

• New column grouping feature allows you to group results together by any data column and allows you to better visualize the data based on results that contain the same values for any column!

Benefits of Local Client Finder

• Advanced Lead Generation and Business Intelligence Data allows you to hand pick the best potential clients for your offline consulting business

• With this data, you can choose to offer these businesses a wide range of offline consulting services depending on your experience and comfort level

• The new data provided for each business will position you as an EXPERT in the field, and make landing clients a breeze!

• You WILL sound so much more INTELLIGENT with this data

• You WILL know everything the business doesn’t currently know about their online presence

• You WILL know everything about the business’ competitors that they don’t know

• This makes the rapport and trust building phase of the selling process extremely easy because you will sound like an EXPERT, and businesses WILL TRUST that you know what you are doing, making it easy to gain their business.

• Business Owner Name allows you to know who you need to ask for and talk to when approaching these potential leads

• UNLIMITED Lead Generation that is FLEXIBLE and allows you to TARGET ANY NICHE AND LOCATION, with no limitations on having to select a predefined category and location.

• You can enter AS MANY KEYWORDS AND LOCATIONS AS YOU'D LIKE, and gather up to 200 results per search query.

• Use the integrated map to talk to clients with a location orientated sales approach regarding their rankings and where nearby competitors are ranking.

• With this technology, it is very easy to obtain new clients with your sales pitch because you can mention nearby competitors who are outranking them.

• This is an easier method to landing clients because these leads will certainly want to beat their competitors who are located nearby!

• They will NEED your services because you can help them outrank nearby competitors, but more important, you can help drive them more business.
  

• Combining all the data provided for each business with the geographical knowledge that the Map View provides will make cold calling easy!
  

• Your conversion rates will skyrocket with this sales approach that is only possible using the data and technology provided in Places Scout.

• Places Scout provides easy identification of what is necessary to improve your client’s rankings

• Full Off-Page SEO Factors and On-Page Keyword Analysis give you a sense of how well the business’ website is optimized for the given keyword

• Citation Count, Total Reviews, and Average Citation Rating offers insight on how many citation sources each business has and what the business’ online reputation is

• Easily understand how many citations you will need to generate and the reviews you will need to create for each business with these metrics

• Social Media metrics for each business gives you an understanding of how socially active the business is online

• Once you obtain new clients, use Modules #3, #4, #5, and #6 that offer an automated solution to provide them with up to date rank tracking reports, AND improve their rankings by easily finding citation sources to leave reviews on, as well as provide complete reputation monitoring and analysis for their business
  

Module #3 - Local 4-Way Rank Tracker

Rank Tracker Tutorial Video

Places Scout Track Local Rankings Overview Video ...

Rank Tracker Screenshot Gallery

• Click Here to View the Rank Tracker Screenshot Gallery

Key Features

• Tracks your client’s rankings over time for unlimited keywords and locations in ALL Areas your client’s website can appear in Google:

• Google Places Rankings

• Organic 7-Pack Rankings

• Organic Blended Results Rankings

• Organic Results Rankings

• For an organic search, the software provides whether a 7-Pack or Blended Results appear for each keyword location query.

• Track Rankings by either Site URL or Phone Number

• Location Emulation Rank Tracking Technology Allows you to Change the Google Location Setting for each Search Query - Allows you to track rankings in specific locations without using the location (geo-modifier) in the search query.

• This is the same thing as changing your Google location in the browser to desired search location, and searching for just your keyword without the location in the query.

• EXTREMELY USEFUL for comprehensive rank tracking reports around the entire geographic region your client is located in, and for all use-cases for different ways users search for businesses in Google (i.e. both with and without the location in the search query)

• Track Rankings for up to the top 500 results so you can track your client’s rankings beyond the first page

• Rankings are color coded based on how well you rank for easy visual interpretation of results
  

• Places Scout displays multiple rankings for each keyword if the tracked site has multiple rankings for the given search query

• NEW - Ability to gather screenshots of the SERP pages when gathering data!

• This feature provides an actual screenshot of each SERP result page when gathering data and provides even more proof that the rankings gathered by Places Scout are 100% accurate, as there is visual proof with the provided screenshots!

• Ranking Reports can be scheduled to run on a periodic basis, with customizable outlook-style run intervals
  

• Reports can be run multiple times, and your ranking for each keyword and location is tracked over time.

• Weekly and monthly changes in rank are provided, as well as change in rank since the report was last run

• Changes in rank are color coded to easily identify which results have changes in rank

• Each result includes full Competitor data for Google Places Results and Organic Search Results, broken down and color coded by result type - 7-Pack, Blended, Organic, and YouTube results.

• This gives you a sense of exactly what the SERP looks like to a user who performs this search, and who your client is competing against in the rankings

• Ranking Graphs are provided for each keyword / location so you can visualize your change in rank over time.

• You can save these graphs as images and send them to clients!

• View the ranking results visually on a Map!

• The Map View gives you a visual geographic representation of your Local Ranking coverage for each keyword and location

• Polygons (derived from US Census Bureau location data) are drawn around the boundaries of each city location, and are color coded based on how well the site ranks in that location

• Extremely useful for a visual geographic view of how well your client’s website ranks in various locations

• Ranking Reports can be edited after they have been run

• Report Runs can be deleted

• Useful in case the results for a given report run do not come back favorable for any reason and you want remove the unfavorable report run

• Gathered Data can be exported to PDF, CSV, Excel, or HTML files

Benefits of the Local Rank Tracker

• Powerful rank tracking capabilities allow you to track client rankings in ALL areas of a Google Search for unlimited keywords and locations

• Easily understand who your competitors are by viewing the data of all websites that are ranking for the keyword location query

• Track your rankings over time and see how well your ranking optimization efforts are paying off

• Ranking graphs provide a visual analysis of changes in rank over time

• Gain a visual, geographic understanding of your client’s rankings with the integrated Map View

• Provide comprehensive rank tracking reports using Location Emulation Rank Tracking Technology for all the various ways users can search in Google
  

Module #4 - Client HTML / PDF Report Generator

Client HTML / PDF Report Generator Tutorial Video

Places Scout Create Client Reports Overview Video...

Client HTML / PDF Report Generator Screenshot Gallery and Sample Reports

• Click Here to View the Client HTML / PDF Report Generator Screenshot Gallery and Sample Reports

Key Features and Benefits

• Easily create attractive, professional HTML or PDF ranking reports in seconds from ranking data gathered in the Local Rank Tracker Module

• Provides a more simplistic ranking report that your client will easily understand

• Helps bridge the gap between the technical ranking and competitor data that you need to know and the ranking information that your client needs to know and understand.
  

• Saves tons of time providing your clients with up to date ranking reports

• You will no longer have to manually create ranking reports to send to your clients. This module does it for you in seconds!

• Reports are customizable and you can add your own branding by including a custom logo that will appear in the header of the ranking report

• You can also add personalized notes to your client in the Client HTML / PDF Report

Module #5 - Citation Finder

Citation Finder Tutorial Video

Places Scout Citation Finder Overview Video ...

Citation Finder Screenshot Gallery

• Click Here to View the Citation Finder Screenshot Gallery

Key Features and Benefits

• POWERFUL Citation Finder digs up ALL citation sources that you can leave reviews on for your clients AND verifies all your clients citation sources
  

• NEW Citation Verification feature analyzes and verifies all citation sources found to ensure they contain the business' name, address, and phone number!
  

• With this feature, Places Scout actually visits all potential citation sources found, and checks to see if the business' name, address, and phone number are contained in the body text of the citing website.

• This gives you a true count of the actual citation sources for your client as seen by the eyes of Google
  

• Citation sources returned for each result are segmented between those that are verified and those that at least one mention of the business was found on

• Each source found also tells you whether the business' name, address, phone number, and/or website URL were found on the citing website in an easy to read yes / no format

• This helps you identify potential citation sources that have incorrect business data (wrong address, phone number, ect) so that you can work on fixing this information on these sites. Fixing incorrect citation information is important so that Google picks it up as a citation source for your business

• Analyzes both your client’s citations and your client’s competitor citations
  

• Allows you to compare your client’s citations in relation to their competitor’s citations and learn where they have citations

• New settings allow you to crawl ALL Available Google results for potential citation sources and mentions of your business

• This is very powerful because Places Scout will find ALL mentions of your business and then go on to tell you which are verified citation sources!

• NEW SEO Metrics allow you to gauge the strength of each citation source, so you know what citation sources to focus on first

• Google PageRank and SEOMoz Data are provided for each citation source

• NEW Citation Metrics Data gives you the ability to easily offer Online Business Reputation Management Services

• Average Citation Rating across all citation sources is provided, as well the individual rating for each citation source

• Citation Sources are hyperlinked so you can easily view the reviews left for each business

• Saves you a ton of time analyzing your client’s and competitor’s citations

• Places Scout’s updated Citation finder algorithm is based on a similar algorithm that Whitespark’s citation finder uses (more info here: Phone Number Co-Citation Analysis for Local Link Builders | Ontolo : Ontolo Link Building Blog)

• Two Different Data Views are Provided:

• A Combined Results View shows the most popular citation sources that your competitors have obtained citations from.

• You can click on each citation source to go directly to that source's website and leave a citation for your business on it.

• Google PageRank and SEOMoz Metrics for each citation source allow you to gauge the strength of each source
  

• The Individual Citations Details View provides top level average citation metrics, and hierarchical data shows the individual citations that each result has obtained

• Top Level Data Provided for each business result:

• Total Citation Sources – The total number of Google indexed citations (ones that have ratings in the SERPs) found for the result.

• Total Reviews – The total number of reviews from all citation sources found.

• Avg. Rating – The average rating across all citation sources found.

• EXTREMELY USEFUL for determining the business' online reputation across all citation sources.

• Avg. Citation PR – The average Google Page Rank of all citations found for the result.

• Avg. Domain PR – The average Google Page Rank of each citation's domain homepage found for the result.

• Avg. Domain mozRank – The average mozRank of each citation's domain homepage found for the result, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Avg. Domain Backlinks – The average number of backlinks of each citation's domain homepage found for the result, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Avg. Domain Page Authority – The average Page Authority of each citation's domain homepage found for the result, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Avg. Domain Authority – The average Domain Authority of each citation's domain homepage found for the result, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Hierarchical Data Provided for each Citation Source Found for each Result:

• Citation Name – The name / title of the citation source. Clicking the link will take you to actual citation page for the business.

• Reviews – The total number of reviews that the business has for the given citation source.

• Rating – The business' rating for the given citation source, if available.

• Citation Page Rank – The Google Page Rank for the actual link of the citation source.

• Domain Page Rank – The Google Page Rank for the domain homepage of the citation source.

• Domain mozRank – The mozRank for the domain homepage of the citation source, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Domain Backlinks – The number of backlinks to the domain homepage of the citation source, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Domain Page Authority – The Page Authority for the domain homepage of the citation source, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Domain Authority – The Domain Authority for the domain homepage of the citation source, sourced from SEOMoz.

• Gathered Data can be exported to CSV, Excel, or HTML files

• Places Scout’s Citation Finder makes finding and analyzing citations a breeze – no longer will you have to find citations and business ratings manually!

NEW! Module #6 - Reputation Manager

Reputation Manager Tutorial Videos

Creating and Running Reputation Reports Tutorial Video:

Creating and Running Reputation Reports Tutorial...

Analyzing Reputation Report Data Tutorial Video:

Analyzing Reputation Report Data in Places Scout...

Key Features and Benefits

• Gathers and Monitors Reviews from Google and 15 Top Review Sites for any Business, including:

• Yelp
• TripAdvisor
• Kudzu
• Urbanspoon
• YellowPages
• InsiderPages
• YahooLocal
• YahooTravel
• Citysearch
• Judysbook
• Zagat
• OpenTable
• DemandForce
• MerchantCircle
• SuperPages
• More Supported Review sites coming soon!

• Provides a complete picture of any business’ reputation online with overall summary metrics as well as individual metrics for each review source. The following overall summary metrics are provided:
  

• Total Reviews across all sources

• Avg. Review Rating across all sources

• Avg. Page 1 Review across all sources

• Extremely important metric tells you the average rating of all reviews that are on the first page of each review site

• Avg. Sentiment Score across all sources

• Change in avg. rating since last run, in the last week, and last year

• New Reviews in past week, month, and year

• Avg. Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Reviews

• Review Rating Distribution Widget displays the total number of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0 star reviews

• For each review gathered, Places Scout provides the following information:

• Review Source

• Review Position - where the review lies on the review site (i.e. 1 means its the first review on the site, ect)
  

• Review Page - The page the review lies on on the review site

• Review Date

• Review Rating

• Review Text

• Sentiment Score - Places Scout performs sentiment analysis for each review, providing a score that tells you whether the written review has negative or positive connotation associated with it
  

• Multiple Views are Available for Analyzing the Data Gathered

• Activity Feed - displays the most recent activity for the business, including social media posts

• Google Reputation - displays all Google Reviews and average summary metrics

• Reviews - 2 views are available:

• Summary View by Source - Allows you to view a summary of all reviews for each source, with average metrics for that particular source displayed (avg rating, avg page 1 rating, ect)

• You can expand each source to view all the reviews for that particular source

• Individual Reviews View - Allows you to view all reviews in a single grid view, and filter down the all reviewed based on customizable filters

• New review alerts let you know when new reviews are found for the monitored business

• Various views allow you to view only new reviews since the last run

• All reviews gathered from all sources are integrated into one easy to use interface

• You can view all data gathered in one interface, making it easy to analyze all data across all sources

• Powerful filtering capabilities allow you to narrow down the data based on any metric (rating, date, position, ect), including custom review text search functionality. You can filter the data down by the following variables:
  

• Review Source
• Review Position
• Review Page
• Review Date
• Review Rating
• Review Sentiment Score
• You can also search all reviews using any search term
• You can sort the grid data by any of the above values

• A visual word cloud allows you to see the phrases that people are using the most when talking about the monitored business online

• This incredible feature displays a visual word cloud of the most common things people are saying about the business based on all the text of all reviews

• The most common phrases used in all review text appear in larger, bolder fonts

• You can click on a particular phrase, which will filter all reviews down and display only reviews that contain that phrase

• Reviews gathered are saved over time, and lost review alerts are provided when reviews are deleted from monitored sites – allowing you to view reviews that were deleted

• You can easily view historical data for any given report run simply by clicking on that given report run

• Easily find businesses that have bad ratings across all supported sources using the Find Local Clients Module

• This feature allows you to generate large lists of businesses for any niche, and then gather all the ratings for each business on all supported review sites

• You can then filter the data down and easily find businesses who have bad ratings on particular sites, and an overall average rating across all sites is provided

• Social Media data gathering from Facebook and Twitter allow you to read what people are saying about the business on these social media sites

• Reputation Reports can be scheduled to run on a periodic basis, with customizable outlook-style run intervals

• Data gathered can be exported to multiple formats, including CSV, Excel, HTML, and PDF
  

• Charts of metrics show you how any metric changes over time*

• Powerful Client Reporting Capabilities allow you to easily create custom reputation reports that you can send to your client*

*Feature coming soon

• Places Scout's new reputation management module provides you with all the tools necessary to easily provide reputation management services to a wide range of businesses

• Each License of Places Scout allows you to manage and run up to 10 reputation reports (you can run each report as many times as you'd like, but you cannot have more than 10 reports at a time). If you need to run more than 10 reputation reports, please open up a support ticket and let us know how many reports you will need and we will provide you with a quote right away.

General Program Features

• Full parallel processing support provides blazing fast data gathering

• Parallel settings can be configured and optimized depending on your computer speed and internet connection speed, or turned off completely

• Automatic Hassle-Free updates – Places Scout will automatically update itself if an update is available

• Existing customers will receive all future updates free of charge until their current license expires

• Data visualization technology with fully featured integrated map views provide you with a visual geographic understanding of all the data gathered

• No need to adjust any browser settings or log out of Google in your browser - Everything is taken care of and automatically managed behind the scenes for hassle-free data gathering

• Full customization of the exact search query used in the Google Places / Organic Search in all sections is supported

• Accuracy of Results can be easily verified by clicking on the hyperlink that is provided in the 'Keyword / Location Query' column in each grid view.

• Option to use real browser simulates human behavior when gathering data and preserves the integrity of your IP address with data providers

• Support for Auto-Solving CAPTCHAs using DeathByCaptcha

• Works with the new Google+ Local Page Format

• Frequently Updated to ensure it works with the lastest changes

• Simplistic software user interface makes it extremely easy to learn how to use the software

• Informative help tooltips are displayed when you hover your mouse over any program element

• These tooltips provide an explanation of what each feature is and how to use it, and are built right into the program itself so you don’t have to leave the software to get help on how to use each feature
  

• All data is fully exportable to multiple formats, including Excel, HTML, and CSV files

• All-in-one solution for all your Local SEO Needs

• Places Scout contains support for the following countries:

• United States (google.com)
• Australia (google.com.au)
• Canada (google.ca)
• United Kingdom (google.co.uk)
• Bahamas (google.bs)
• Belize (google.com.bz)
• Ireland (google.ie)
• Jamaica (google.com.jm)
• Malaysia (google.com.my)
• New Zealand (google.co.nz)
• Singapore (google.com.sg)
• South Africa (google.co.za)
• Virgin Islands - British (google.vg)
• Virgin Islands (google.co.vi)
• Support for other countries will be added soon!

• NOTE: Places Scout will work for other countries that the ones officially supported - it will just use the google.com server instead of the country specific Google server.

• For the countries that are officially supported above, it will use your country's specific Google server as denoted in parentheses above.

And Now...An Incredible Offer For
An Incredible Group of Warriors


Full Retail Price: $497 / year
Special Introductory Price: $297 / year


RIGHT NOW YOU CAN GET
PLACES SCOUT FOR ONLY






THAT’S RIGHT, THE CURRENT PRICE WORKS OUT TO ABOUT $16/MONTH, WITH A 100% 14-DAY
MONEY BACK GUARANTEE!

AND NO AUTOMATIC PAYMENT SUBSCRIPTIONS!


THIS WARRIOR SPECIAL PRICE WILL NEVER BE OFFERED AGAIN, SO ORDER TODAY BEFORE THE PRICE GOES UP

This Price includes:

• Free future updates and new features
• Excellent customer support and fast response times
• 100% no questions asked 14-day money back guarantee
• DISCOUNTS ON YEARLY RENEWALS!
• No automatic payment subscriptions…order for 1-year, and you be the judge if Places Scout is worth paying for again next year!

So don’t delay, order Places Scout today and change the way you do
local SEO forever!





Special FREE Bonus WSO Offer -
Jobless Dad Secrets Revealed (a $27 Value!)

Fellow Warrior John Spangler has been gracious enough to offer his WSO titled “Jobless Dad Secrets Revealed” free of charge to all customers who purchase Places Scout! His WSO training videos outline his exact step by step blueprint and offline marketing success guide that he has used to generate a consistent $5,000+ a month residual income and growing. You will get a link to access to his WSO in your order confirmation email. Thanks John!



Places Scout System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / 7 or 8 – 32 or 64-Bit
• At least 1GB of RAM is recommended
• Minimum Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768
• .NET 4.0 Framework (automatically installed when running the Places Scout installer)
• Microsoft VC++ 2010 Redistributable Package (automatically installed when running the Places Scout installer)
• Active Internet Connection

Any questions, feel free to open a support ticket in our newly launched customer support portal here: http://www.placesscout.com/support/- I will respond as quickly as possible and work to address your needs.

Places Scout Commitment to Continuous Product Improvement

• The development team at Places Scout is dedicated to making the software program the best possible, and plans on continually improving and upgrading the product based on customer feedback.

• We assure you that this software will not be a useless icon on your desktop in a couple of months. Our commitment to this product is truly phenomenal and we plan to continually update and support Places Scout for many years to come

• We welcome and encourage your feedback! Places Scout will only get better as we receive feedback and requests on how to improve the software, so feel free to open a support ticket here: http://www.placesscout.com/support/ and we will do our best to accommodate your requests!

FAQ's

Q: Can I install Places Scout on both my PC and laptop?
A: Yes, you can install and use the same license key on up to two machines. The license key is hardware locked, so it knows how many machines the key has been activated on, and won’t allow activating on more than two machines. But it will remember these machines in case you have to reformat your computer and install again on the same machine.


Q: Will Places Scout work on a Mac?
A: Places Scout will not work natively on a Mac. However, if you install Parallels (Virtualization & Automation Solutions for Desktops, Servers, Hosting, SaaS) on your Mac, then you can run windows applications such as Places Scout on your Mac. I have several customers who are doing this and Places Scout works just fine in the Parallels virtual environment.


Q: I want to promote Places Scout. Do you have an affiliate program?
A: Yes, Places Scout's affiliate program is managed using WSO Pro. We are currently offering 50% commissions for all affiliates - Click Here for More Information on Places Scout's Affiliate Program


Q: Can Places Scout gather email addresses for each business?
A: Yes, Places Scout’s new email gathering algorithm is successful in gathering an email address for each result 60+% of the time.


Q: Are the results gathered in real time?
A: Yes, the results are gathered in real time, and they are as recent as a live search which is what the software does


Q: Can Places Scout gather Facebook Fan Page data for each business?
A: Yes, Places Scout will gather Facebook Fan Page metrics for each business and provides a link to the business’ Facebook fan page, whether or not it has been claimed by the owner, the number of likes, and the number of checkins for the fanpage.


Q: Does Places Scout provide the full business address for each result so I can easily send out mailings to each prospect?
A: Yes, Places Scout does provide the full business address for each result.


Q: Is there a built in feature to automatically contact the leads generated?
A: Not yet, however, this is coming soon to Places Scout. When I do release this feature, the price for Places Scout is going to go up substantially. All existing customers will get this new feature free of charge, so I recommend you take advantage of the current pricing if you are interested in this upcoming feature.


Q: I didn’t receive my license code after purchasing Places Scout…What gives?
A: After purchasing Places Scout, you should automatically receive an email with your license code and a link to download Places Scout. If you didn’t receive this email, please check your SPAM folder to see if they email was delivered there. If it isn’t there, then send us an email and we will take care of getting you your order information right away.

Testimonials From Fellow Warriors

Originally Posted by abrandt

Hello WF Members:

50% of my time is spent in research for new strategies, new thinking and new power tools.

When I discovered Places Scout last week, I carefully read the entire WSO sales copy and then PM'd the programmer, Mark, to discuss many of the technical features of the software.

Within just a few days, Mark promptly inserted a number of the power features that I recommended in a new upgrade. Please be aware that enormously powerful upgrades are just on the horizon!

I have purchased almost every Keyword Research tool and report on WF. Places Scout is on its way to becoming perhaps the most sophisticated and powerful tool of its kind available... and at a low introductory WSO price.

In my opinion, Places Scout is not a tool for newbies... it's too sophisticated. For Power Users... it will have awesome capabilities that even some of the considerably more expensive tools are lacking.

Without reservation, I highly recommend that "Power Users" acquire this tool at the current low WSO - to get locked in to all the power upgrades that are right around the corner.

I hope this proves helpful, sooner than later. =)


Positively,

Alan


ABOUT: I fly way under the radar as an Offline Marketing Consultant. Marketing professional 30+ yrs.; Software Apps & Eval Consultant specializing in Windows business apps 8+ years (Microsoft down to small shareware houses). I now specialize in offpage optimization strategies which yield 3 to 8 rankings on Google 1ST Page SERPS without interfacing with business client's website. Google Places: 81% keywords 7-boxes - (46%) 1-boxes.

Here's a nano sample of the results being generated via my offpage optimization... (initial optimization and percolating upwards - first 3 week results - GEO-modifiers have been removed.)

save my house from foreclosure
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 4,260,000 results - 1, 2, 3, 4

we buy ugly houses
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 474,000 results - 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10

sell house fast
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 37,000,000 results- 2, 5, 6, 7

sell my house fast
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 21,200,000 results - 6, 7, 8

Originally Posted by AdappMedia

Mark has released something very special with this software. I do not leave reviews very often but I just cant help myself in this case.

Places Scout has been instrumental in getting my offline marketing business off the ground. Mark could easily charge $97 A MONTH for this software and would still be giving it away for a steal!!! He provides easy to follow instructions in his videos and once you understand the software it not only helps track current client results but makes finding new ones a breeze.

And if that wasnt enough he has provided a major update since my purchase that literally TRIPLED the value of this product. I can't emphasize enough that I DO NOT LEAVE REVIEWS and that my endorsement of Places Scout is an extremely difficult recommendation for any WSO to receive.

I would like to thank Mark personally for providing the means to make my agency successful and a pat on the back. Keep up the good work!

Kind Regards,
Dennis Jeffers
CEO Adapp Media LLC and Adapp Media Forum
Adapp Media Forum - Your Marketing Headquarters . . .
Adapp Media LLC

Originally Posted by Catalyst eMarketing

I also don't leave reviews often. Plus I BETA test lots of GP software and am not easily impressed!

I was supposed to BETA test this software several times but due to time constraints never could really dive in. I just finally ran some ranking reports this weekend and was BLOWN AWAY.

Mark implemented a suggestion I gave him awhile back. The software shows what type of ranking it is. Blended, 7 pack or organic. This is a HUGE deal to me and very important for anyone that's really in the know.

You can have a client that's ranking #4 in a generic report that does not spell out the difference. A week later they drop to #22. With reports that don't show the different SERP styles, you have no way of knowing why they dropped.

I currently use what I think WAS the best for local rankings (until now). But it does not give me that added level of detail that I need, so I still have to manually spot check rankings all the time.

WHY is it important to know if your clients is ranking with a Blended, 7 pack or organic result?

They could have ranked high in 7 pack but then drop due to G switching that KW to a blended. They may have had lots of citations and ranked in pk, BUT you have not optimized site yet, so that's why they don't rank high now that G switched to blended.

OR you see a client ranking for a long time in blended and then suddenly they don't, they only rank organic. That tells you Google lost the connection between the site and Place page. That also tells you the client has now lost the benefit of their reviews, etc. so you need to investigate. (If you've read my recent post about the Proximity LOckout Algo this will make more sense)

NO OTHER SOFTWARE shows you what TYPE of ranking in the reports. This is HUGE!

Thanks Mark for the constant improvements to this software! I believe if I asked you to program it to make my coffee every morning too, you're the man that could probably make it happen!

Originally Posted by JonHascue

For those that are still on the fence, and personally, I would want you to stay there. =)

This product, all by itself, with my knowledge and thinking out of the box, has located, and put me in position, to procure over 22 new clients. Now obviously, I have the knowledge and experience, to be able to market to them, and these are for a bunch of different services long term, but on the whole, and right up front, it has produced quickly, 22 $97 one-time sales. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

I have 1 sales person I put on to this detail, and she, following my directions, personally made 19 of those sales.

The software works, you just have to have a plan, get a WSO that can help you with a plan of action to be able to use this data to your benefit. There are some good WSO's in this area, or use your imagination. There are countless ways to use this data to make it. Bottom line is to DO IT!

Cheers =)

Originally Posted by Dexx

Simply amazing. Your software truly will be a requirement for offline marketers everywhere.

Cheers,

~Dexx

Originally Posted by leon1004

Great software and great support... Mark has out done himself with "GOOGLE PLACES SCOUT" easy to use... fast-up-to-date-info that will have you profiting from local clients...A must have product if you buy any WSO this year get Google Places Scout... I very rarely leave a review for products I buy because I just don't have the time...But if I didn't on this one I would feel I was letting my fellow warriors down!

Originally Posted by BaySocial

I heard about Places Scount on the Online Renegades forum and decided to look into it. At first glance, it looked like the typical prospecting tool, like many other choices out there. However, I looked deeper into the reports and started to see some differences and features I had never seen before. I decided to reach out the Mark and see where he was heading with the software and just get to know him. Let me say the following:

1) Mark is the real deal as far as both online marketing AND a top rate programmer. He knows so much about the data that he had my head spinning.
2) Mark knows the issues that we all face as offliners. So he is trying to create a program that meets those needs and help run our business.
3) This software works and provides reports in such a way that both helps close deals and helps communicate your results to customers. Not just the ranking results but the map is awesome!

Lastly, while I can't say much, I will say that this is just the beginning for this program. I spoke to Mark about what I thought was missing from the software and he listened, came up with new ideas and off he went to attack.

Folks, I only write reviews when I truly believe you will benefit in both the short and long term. I believe there are great things to come with this program and for the price and set of capabilities, this can't be beat. One sale resulting from the use of this program will more than take care of the price of this program.

Originally Posted by maveric

Just wanted to throw out a quick review. I wish I had more time to leave a more complete one, because that's what this offering deserves.

Software:

The Rank Tracker is AWESOME... literally the best out there that I've seen at giving you a birds eye view of all of your client's rankings, AND the details right down to the nitty gritty- who's on the first page, is it a 7 pack or organic blended or just organic? You NEED to know this stuff!

And your clients will love you because you'll be showing them just about every combination of their keywords, so you'll be able to show them MORE rankings then you could before! Ex: If you're not showing them rankings for kw city, city kw, kw city ST, kw city state (spelled out), and ALL the combinations... you're not showing them all that you've done for them!

Imagine being able to go to a client with DOUBLE the number of keywords ranked... do you think they will like this news? Who wouldn't?!

OK.. and that's just the Rank tracker... there are still 4 other modules that I don't have time to get into.

Support: Absolutely Top Notch!

I've written Mark a few times about small tweaks I would like to see, and a minor bug. They were responded to within minutes or a couple hours at most... with REAL answers, not just "yeah, we'll get to it." The bug was fixed asap and he even sent me a working beta before he pushed out the final so I could get up and running.

And let me tell you... this guy LISTENS to his customers! I made a suggestion of a feature I'd like to see, gave him the reasons why I thought it would benefit the user base, and I guess he thought it was a good idea because there it was in the next release! (He even told me it was directly because of my suggestion).

Anyway, needless to say I can't wait to see where this software goes in the near future. It's already so much more than I've been able to find anywhere 'out there'... and believe me I've looked. (I'm a bit of a tool junkie- some of you know what I mean.)

Great job Mark... looking forward to more developments.

Eric

Originally Posted by mw8020

Best software I've ever seen with google places. THis guy is a master programmer who's done an awesome job, and he explains how it works very well in his tute videos also. Bought it as soon as a GP expert I know recommended it. Read all the posts too. Seems as though Mark really responds well to customer feedback and makes his product better because of it.

Glad I got this software - will make a my job a lot easier - keep up the good work Mark

Originally Posted by ebusiness

Purchased This early and all i have to say is I HAVE NEVER SEEN a wso with a product developer SO DEDICATED to customer request and then QUICKLY INTEGRATING THEM in the existing product.

Keep up the GREAT WORK and i for one REALLY APPRECIATE ALL YOUR EFFORTS. At double or triple the price this WSO is worth it and more.

ebusiness

Originally Posted by Jon Shawcross

Hey Mark,

You already know what I think of Places Scout, it's as they say here in New Zealand - AWESOME!!! For those of you thinking should I or shouldn't I - just DO IT. I have used several Places tools and this one is so superior it's not true. Being a Brit in exile (!), our main business is UK, Aus and NZ and it works great.

Jon

Originally Posted by JohnDavid

This software is a game changer for many of us. The commitment to its development is truly phenom!

Looking forward to seeing more of it, and all the best!

Originally Posted by JohnDavid

First off, I take my hats off to Mark for creating this software...WOW!

Once he adds the email within the program this thing will stand heads and shoulders above anything else out there. It's truly that good!

Thanks again for creating this my friend!

John

Originally Posted by BestPMarketing

I've purchased the software and it has my wheels turning on the different ways I can make money with it! AMAZING!

Originally Posted by abrandt

Hello Mark:

Places Scout is shaping-up to become a professional power-user Internet marketing research solution.

If you're like me, I had acquired all of the following lighter-weight applications (and more)... all of which perform well (for their limited purposes):

Rankerizer (Brad Callen)
SEO Equalizer (Charles Kirkland)
Hot URL Spy (Chris Egan)
Google Maps Listing Locator (Chris Ramsey)
Citation Finder (srtyker)
Rank Tracker (srtyker)
Google Places Rank Tracker (srtyker)
Google Places Pack Finder Software (webfighter)
Keyword Sniper Pro (Jack Duncan)
Incoming Keyword Scraper (Jim Iannelli)
Dojo Niche Hunter (Joe Fin)
Power Leads Pro (Matthew Iannotti)
Competition Fighter (webfighter)
Keyword Fighter (webfighter)


To have a professional-level power-user tool based on parallel processing speed technology address all the above on an almost fully automated basis... at a remarkable low price point... is a remarkable achievement... with more coming our way!

I'm looking forward to the future upgrade which includes organic results in the Find Local Clients Module!

Hey, Mark! Places Scout is becoming an 800 lb gorilla. Keep up the great work.

With gratitude,

Alan

Originally Posted by JNFerree

Hey Mark, you might send Linda Buquet a TY note. As you probably know, Linda is a Local Search Marketing Pro. She manages a Scoop.it content curation page that tracks pretty much all things related to local search marketing with an obvious bias toward Google Maps | Places and her most recent blog entry that highlights the new features you've added was all I needed to convert from reader to buyer.

BTW, your video demo on "find local clients" was excellent.

Your software is my Christmas present to myself. Strong work Mark!

Originally Posted by Jeff Klein

I was fortunate to be asked to review of the PlacesScout software.

I apologize that it has taken me so long to complete my review but here it is.

Places Scout is a PC based software application to help you manage your local seo efforts. I ran in on a MAC using Parallels without any problems.

The software author includes several tutorial videos that are well done and informative. I recommend you check them out if you purchase this software. They will help get you up to speed using this software quickly.

The first thing I'll say is that the software is very well designed. It has an attractive UI and is feature rich. Places Scout is also very fast at completing each task or project.

The Keyword Generator is a powerful tool that scrapes Google, Bing, and Yahoo related search and suggest search functions. This quickly allows you to cast a wide net and then refine your list from there. There are also numerous import and export functions through the application.

The Find Local Clients section scrapes data for businesses that are ranking in the top results for the keywords and locations you enter. One use for this is to identify businesses that have not verified their Google Places page. You could then contact the business and offer your services

The Track Local Rankings function allows you to track your rankings in both Google Places and Organic results. The report interface is very clean and straightforward as are the report results. You define the site URL, keywords, and location.

The Create Client Reports function takes the data you gathered in the Track Local Rankings section and allows you to easily create an HTML report showing your client's ranking progress.

The Citation Finder function scrapes the citation sources from your competitor's listings based on the keyword and location you define. This allows you to quickly uncover targeted places where you can leave citations for your own site. A future enhancement will provide a link from with the Places Scout that will take you directly to the citation site. The Citation Finder is very powerful and in my opinion is one of the best features of Places Scout.

Summary

Overall I am very impressed with Places Scout. I think it offers a great deal of functionality and value. It is a worthy asset to add to your toolbox if you offer Local SEO services. I look forward to seeing the application add new features in the future.

Jeff Klein

Originally Posted by topend

Hi Mark,

Your product is amazing. Its quality made and professionally done. Very clean and easy to use. I can spend the whole day just analyzing the data it produces.

I'm a newbie in local marketing/seo and this program will definitely give me a head start and unfair advantage. Being able to pull out the keywords in a flash and the map view was just mind blowing. To be able to see businesses next to each other with the the google places data in a visual way.... I feel like a 007 agent =) With this program we can definitely work for the highest bidder. I am looking forward to generating reports and doing further analysis thus will give me further insights to my prospects business.

Thanks for replying to my emails so quickly and your advised regarding the WSO local course program. I agree when mixed together makes it a deadly combination for closing customers. I will start on the industries that you suggested for easy pickings.

It will be good to see the email and other functionality that you will be adding in future updates. All in all its a thumbs up for me. Thanks for sharing this program to everyone and making it affordable. Looking forward to the training course.


Cheers,
Miguel

Originally Posted by termn8er

I heard about Places Scount on the Online Renegades forum and decided to look into it. At first glance, it looked like the typical prospecting tool, like many other choices out there. However, I looked deeper into the reports and started to see some differences and features I had never seen before. I decided to reach out the Mark and see where he was heading with the software and just get to know him. Let me say the following:

1) Mark is the real deal as far as both online marketing AND a top rate programmer. He knows so much about the data that he had my head spinning.
2) Mark knows the issues that we all face as offliners. So he is trying to create a program that meets those needs and help run our business.
3) This software works and provides reports in such a way that both helps close deals and helps communicate your results to customers. Not just the ranking results but the map is awesome!

Lastly, while I can't say much, I will say that this is just the beginning for this program. I spoke to Mark about what I thought was missing from the software and he listened, came up with new ideas and off he went to attack.

Folks, I only write reviews when I truly believe you will benefit in both the short and long term. I believe there are great things to come with this program and for the price and set of capabilities, this can't be beat. One sale resulting from the use of this program will more than take care of the price of this program.

Originally Posted by eRockstar

I'm pissed off!!! I take pride in knowing about the best software, techniques, strategies, and courses about GP! I can't believe I haven't seen this until today, and I'm on the WF almost daily! Anyway, this a little too good to be true. Just bought today and will leave a more comprehensive review in the next few days. Thanks!

Originally Posted by OneSiteResource

I'll come back with a full review but I'm so excited after seeing the videos and having a look around. I am massively impressed with the features that you have managed to incorporate!

Originally Posted by happyches

Purchased this last night and stayed up until 3am playing around - I love this.. and this software can be summed up in one word : WOW!!!

Originally Posted by ronr

Disclaimer: I received a review copy.

My apologies to Mark to taking so long.

Pros: As others have said this software is clean, easy to use and very fast. The speed it gathers information is amazing. Your can get a list of ranks back in 5-15 seconds that could take a minute or more with other similar software. Each of the features that it contains could be a product by itself, keyword finder, potential client generator, rank tracker, client reports, citation finders. It not only saves you money it's so much quicker to having them all located in one piece of software. The rank tracker and reporter is a geeks dream. The amount of data you can provide for your own research and report to your your clients is amazing.

Cons: I really can't find any serious cons. The music in some of the videos in a little annoying and at this time one of the video tutorials is missing, but it's probably being updated. It would be nice if email were included in the client finder, but I know that isn't easy to do anymore since Google removed them from showing in places.

As most people know Google has been throwing everyone a curve with it's recent changes it's been making to google places, but it looks like Mark has is keeping on top of it and finding work arounds and has many improvements and additions to the software. I've just about stopped offering places SEO with all of google's changes but with this software I can continue to service my current clients and I just may take on a few new ones.

Ron

Originally Posted by tlski

Time to add my views after using this software.

First, the user interface is beautiful. It is very easy on the eyes. If only other similar products had this look to them. More important, if you are familiar with the standard office apps, PlacesScout will be easy for you to learn. Most functions are very intuitive. I always like to see what I can do without reading a manual or watching instructional videos. Almost everything was doable this way. I did make a mistake on one aspect and finally figured it out relatively easily.

The second things is the speed. Because it is multi threaded, it works quickly. For example, in the keyword generator, it comes up with several hundred terms within seconds. Any number of these can easily be selected and passed on to the find local clients feature. It would very helpful in the keyword generator to have a couple of filters to quickly filter through so many possible keywords.

There are many very useful functions in the software. The rank tracking is very helpful. Powerful eye appealing reports that a client can understand can be generated quickly. The citations finder is another one that is even more important now with the changes that Google has made on the places page.

There are other features that are coming that will make this software even more useful. The developer has indicated that these will be in the 1.1 release coming out within the week.

If you don't already have software like this, this can be very useful for you and may be the only one you will need. On the other hand, if you already have one of the other places software, PlacesScout may be worthwhile just for the reporting and tracking features.

Originally Posted by Vrs

Why did you do this?

I'd decided NO MORE WSO's for awhile - but how could I pass this up? No way. I got it!

Originally Posted by hdoyle

I've been working with businesses in my area as a Place Specialist for just over a year now. One of my biggest stumbling blocks has been keeping track of the keywords and areas my clients were ranking, let's face it, it's a pain. When I saw Kabana Soft was looking for a few beta testers for a product that promised to make my life as a local maps consultant easier I jumped all over that opportunity.

So what do I think of Places Scout?

It's brilliant! It is by far one of the most used tools on my desktop now.

I used to dread doing my stats reports for clients because it took so long entering keywords and locations. Now all I have to do is set up a report for my client by adding their targeted keywords and locations and press a button. Places Scout shows me exactly what words we're ranking for and and where. If it's report that has been run in a previous week, I can even see if our rankings have gone up or done, which is a great visual to show clients.

Recently I've been shifting my attention more towards offering mobile websites to businesses because they are less of a hassle than map pages but now that I have Places Scout, I'm having fun with them again and I've gone out and actively looked for new accounts.

Thanks so much for a product that does everything that you said it would and more AND is making my business fun again!

Originally Posted by dlink

Here's my review on this software:

This software, in my opinion, is absolutely fantastic! Before this software, I was finding local clients the manual labor way, by having to click through to each places page, and click to see who has owner verified listings, etc. This software has cut down dramatically, the amount of time I spend finding clients and looking for keywords. I'd say I've cut down around 30 minutes of work of shuffling through tabs and tabs of places pages to find a handful of clients, to around maybe maximum 5 minutes to find 10 handfuls of clients. For me, this includes using Keyword Generator, Finding Local Clients, taking a screenshot I create using Jing of a clients non-verified listing, and shooting off an email for my initial contact sequence.

If you offer Google Places as a service to help local businesses, you need this software. If you want to start offering GP as a service, get this software, learn how to use it and start making money by contacting these businesses that need your help.

I hope the OP doesn't mind this suggestion, but if you're a complete newbie and you want to start in the offline arena, there are 2 WSO's I recommend you get to make money TODAY!

The first one is this one to get the software & learn how to use it, so scroll back up and hit the buy button.

The 2nd one is Garret's $500/day WSO, and that is not an affiliate link, the guy doesn't even know I purchased his WSO or that I'm talking about it, but he probably will now. The timing for these 2 WSO's is uncanny, because they go together perfectly.

So, really I wouldn't recommend hesitating if you're on the fence about this one.

Lastly, in my opinion, as long as the updates keep coming to go along with any changes that will come with Google's algorithm changes, this is a piece of software that I'm going to purchase year after year, it's really THAT good.

Originally Posted by Digital Traffic

I was lucky enough to be one of the beta testers for this software, so I know that this software is uniquely tailored to meet the needs of local SEO providers.

One of the first things I consider before I purchase a piece of software is the customer service of the provider. Like many on the forum, I have lots of out dated software that was never updated or delivered as promised.

I have received at least 7 emails form this warrior during the beta stage, answering every question that I had. Many emails were answered in less than two hours.

I know there are more tools being added to this software that will only increase it's potential. Locating keywords is nice, discovering unverified Places listings is golden.

No more manually clicking through the listings searching for them, plus you can dig down to 100 Google Places locations. The businesses that are on the first page of Google get hit all the time by SEO'ers, not many will take the time to dig down 100 places deep to locate clients.

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, well having the ability to show your potential client exactly where they rank on a visual map, and better yet exactly where their competitors rank on that map is a huge selling tool.

SEO speak tends to leave your customers with a glared look in their eyes, providing that client with a color coded picture of the landscape, breaks their SEO efforts down to a level that anybody can plainly see and understand.

Having the ability to track the 1,3,4 and 7 packs just adds to the quality of this software, being able to find their competitors citations and obtain those citations for your clients as well, saves you a lot of time and wasted effort.

Thanks again.

Originally Posted by joecarson1

I have not yet purchased this product, but I already have a review of customer service and in one word it is OUTSTANDING! I am looking for the "perfect" product for my needs and it does not exsist. Having said that, and after all of my questions being answered concerning Places Scout functions and capabilties. I WILL be a future customer of Places Scout. The recently added "is there a mobile version of the website" feature puts this product over the top for me. I will post a review after some fast and heavy use.

Originally Posted by joecarson1

Review! I am not using Places Scout for direct SEO, yet. I am using it for local business search info and the ability to download and forward that info to partners. I just used the product for the first time and I give Places Scout a 10 out 10!

Originally Posted by regenerect

Purchased Places Scout and had trouble installing. Mark ( Kabanasoft ) and his coustomer service was outstanding, to the point of resolve shortly thereafter. I am excited to work with Mark as well as this super software because of his integrity, which isn't seen too much around here lately. Thanks Mark and people, if you are serious about your offline business, just buy it...it's that good!

Originally Posted by JohnSpangler

Hi Folks,

This is John Spangler from the jobless dad thread, I have been working offline now for 3years as my sole source of income for me and my family.

All I can say is WOW, I wish I would have had this software when I got started because this makes contacting business owners a breeze.

If you use just the find clients module which shows google places accounts that haven't been verified yet you could be rich by this afternoon.

Seriously, many of these local companies have no idea about google places and many that do know of google places have no idea how to claim their business.

Here is a straight up strategy that you can use today that will net you clients, all you need to do is run a quick search for say plumbers chicago, ( just a sample, you can pick any city in the US) and look for businesses that haven't verified their listing.

Give them a call and let them know that they have a website google built for them that they haven't claimed yet.

For instance you could say Hi Mr. Plumber, this is John and I work with local plumbers helping them get more clients, are you familiar with (here you can name the person or business that is number 1 in google places, because they know who their competition is especially the big boy on the block) and they usually say yeah, well I can show you how you can be getting a lot of their business starting today, do you have a few minutes- bam-

Short and sweet and it works because they want to beat their competitor, plus Mark's software shows a graphical view so you can even talk their language with the city street names etc.

The bottom line is this software WILL get you clients and does all the hard work for you and hands you a viable way in to talking to these business owners and that is only one of his modules, he has a number more to help your offline business.

Now take action because nothing happens until you do.

To your success,
John

Originally Posted by JohnSpangler

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to give a quick update because Mark was nice enough to allow me a sneak peak at his upcoming software updates.

What I can tell you folks is this is going to be a game changer in the industry.

Many of you may know me as the jobless dad and I have been in offline marketing professionally for the last 3 years.

I own just about every piece of software on the market and each has their pluses and minuses but this update I can honestly say will be the ace in your pocket.

I have been outsourcing for the last 3 years and this will allow me to get rid of at least 2 of my outsoucers. Not to mention allow me the opportunity to open markets that I otherwise wouldn't have tried without the knowledge I gained from
the new places scout.

He really should seriously look at increasing the amount he's charging because just one of the updates I know someone who does this particular chore manually and he just netted $10k and he did everything by hand.

I can only imagine what you will be able to do with an automated solution.

The only downside I can see is someone buying the program and then just letting it sit and not using the program.

I see that time and time again where someone buys a piece of software but then never uses the program.

Folks this software will make you money IF you use the program, Mark really did a nice job and I can tell you the wait will be worth it and if you haven't already purchased the program I would jump on the program before the next price rise.

To your success,
John

Originally Posted by JohnSpangler

Man Mark You Are A MAD Scientist!!!

This update is seriously incredible, being able to retrieve the owner of the business so that as I make calls the name is there in front of me or my cold callers is AWESOME!!!

This is a GAME CHANGER, not only do you provide the business owners name but whether there google places account is claimed not to mention whether their facebook page has been claimed.

Not to mention the google places info such as reviews, number of videos and pictures and citations.

Plus the competition analysis is just plain SICK, man, there is everything here to be successful starting today.

I don't care who you are, if you call up a few of these businesses say restaurants in chicago or furniture store in tampa and say hey Mr or Mrs such and such(now that you provide the owners name right there)noticed you have a google places page you haven't claimed, did you know you had a google places page?

Just start asking questions and you will succeed, and the exact match domain finder is icing on top of the cake, wow, Mark, great job buddy, this is a fantastic piece of software and well thought out and designed.

Folks, I have strongly suggested that Mark raise his price on this or at least go to a $97/monthly price because this program is outstanding.

If any of you have been following my jobless dad thread in the offline marketing section I talk about taking action and with this software you can take action today and have money in your pocket by the end of the day.

Mark has taken all of the guess work out and Man I wish I had this program when I first started but no worries, I have Places Scout now.

Great job,

John

Originally Posted by JonHascue

Well, here is my take on this software.....This takes all the work out of manually sorting through GP to find businesses you could approach.

Now, with that said, obviously, there are multitudes of ways to approach businesses and a lot of services we can offer them. The 2 biggest services you can offer them are, one that will come with very minimal objection, will be the service that THEY want and are looking for. And the other would be something YOU know they need and can present to them.

To fill the gaps, if you are totally new to any of this offline marketing stuff, is to look for one of the great WSO's that deal with products and services to offer to these potential clients. And maybe a WSO that can help you with what to say or how to outsource that. I know quite a few, and you can search for them as well.

I have my own process, sales team, marketing team, and outsource team, so for me it is very easy. But one thing this tool does, it make the research that much easier, for me, and my teams.
Below me, I have some other quotes from reviews listed above me, in case you need to read them again, they are full of great info, and really give you a good look at what it does, and how it can help you.

Cheers

[JonHascue]

Sent you a PM. Look forward to taking a look.

Cheers

[Peter Helps]

I just sent you a pm, thanks.

Peter

[Vibrant Warrior]

PM Sent

[hikmah10]

can this software use in non USA country?
which country covered by this software?
thanks
ps: please send me pm

[Jeff Klein]

PM Sent. Thanks

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by hikmah10

can this software use in non USA country?
which country covered by this software?
thanks
ps: please send me pm

Thanks for your interest in Places Scout.

EDIT: Places Scout now supports Australia, the UK, and Canada!

[dlink]

Here's my review on this software:

This software, in my opinion, is absolutely fantastic! Before this software, I was finding local clients the manual labor way, by having to click through to each places page, and click to see who has owner verified listings, etc. This software has cut down dramatically, the amount of time I spend finding clients and looking for keywords. I'd say I've cut down around 30 minutes of work of shuffling through tabs and tabs of places pages to find a handful of clients, to around maybe maximum 5 minutes to find 10 handfuls of clients. For me, this includes using Keyword Generator, Finding Local Clients, taking a screenshot I create using Jing of a clients non-verified listing, and shooting off an email for my initial contact sequence.

If you offer Google Places as a service to help local businesses, you need this software. If you want to start offering GP as a service, get this software, learn how to use it and start making money by contacting these businesses that need your help.

I hope the OP doesn't mind this suggestion, but if you're a complete newbie and you want to start in the offline arena, there are 2 WSO's I recommend you get to make money TODAY!

The first one is this one to get the software & learn how to use it, so scroll back up and hit the buy button.

The 2nd one is Garret's $500/day WSO, and that is not an affiliate link, the guy doesn't even know I purchased his WSO or that I'm talking about it, but he probably will now. The timing for these 2 WSO's is uncanny, because they go together perfectly.

So, really I wouldn't recommend hesitating if you're on the fence about this one.

Lastly, in my opinion, as long as the updates keep coming to go along with any changes that will come with Google's algorithm changes, this is a piece of software that I'm going to purchase year after year, it's really THAT good.

[AussieT]

Originally Posted by KabanaSoft

Thanks for your interest in Places Scout. Currently, Places Scout only supports the US, no international support yet. The reason is because there is no location polygon data available outside the US.

In version 1.1, i will include preliminary international support for a handful of countries, and use rectangles around locations instead of detailed polygons. I will keep this WSO post updated when such functionality becomes available.

Will Australia be one of the handful of countries?

[NRM]

Hi,

Look Good. it will good to have it working in UK

[Digital Traffic]

I was lucky enough to be one of the beta testers for this software, so I know that this software is uniquely tailored to meet the needs of local SEO providers.

One of the first things I consider before I purchase a piece of software is the customer service of the provider. Like many on the forum, I have lots of out dated software that was never updated or delivered as promised.

I have received at least 7 emails form this warrior during the beta stage, answering every question that I had. Many emails were answered in less than two hours.

I know there are more tools being added to this software that will only increase it's potential. Locating keywords is nice, discovering unverified Places listings is golden.

No more manually clicking through the listings searching for them, plus you can dig down to 100 Google Places locations. The businesses that are on the first page of Google get hit all the time by SEO'ers, not many will take the time to dig down 100 places deep to locate clients.

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, well having the ability to show your potential client exactly where they rank on a visual map, and better yet exactly where their competitors rank on that map is a huge selling tool.

SEO speak tends to leave your customers with a glared look in their eyes, providing that client with a color coded picture of the landscape, breaks their SEO efforts down to a level that anybody can plainly see and understand.

Having the ability to track the 1,3,4 and 7 packs just adds to the quality of this software, being able to find their competitors citations and obtain those citations for your clients as well, saves you a lot of time and wasted effort.

Thanks again.

[Catalyst eMarketing]

I was a BETA tester for this program but am ashamed to say I just didn't really have time to test it at the time. However I'm going to try to make time to work with it again this weekend.

What I can tell you is Mark is very committed to the product, support and updates. He's asked me for feedback several times and always responds right away.

It looks like a great program, especially at the low introductory price.
Some other tracking programs are 100+ PER MONTH!

[JohnSpangler]

Hi Folks,

This is John Spangler from the jobless dad thread, I have been working offline now for 3years as my sole source of income for me and my family.

All I can say is WOW, I wish I would have had this software when I got started because this makes contacting business owners a breeze.

If you use just the find clients module which shows google places accounts that haven't been verified yet you could be rich by this afternoon.

Seriously, many of these local companies have no idea about google places and many that do know of google places have no idea how to claim their business.

Here is a straight up strategy that you can use today that will net you clients, all you need to do is run a quick search for say plumbers chicago, ( just a sample, you can pick any city in the US) and look for businesses that haven't verified their listing.

Give them a call and let them know that they have a website google built for them that they haven't claimed yet.

For instance you could say Hi Mr. Plumber, this is John and I work with local plumbers helping them get more clients, are you familiar with (here you can name the person or business that is number 1 in google places, because they know who their competition is especially the big boy on the block) and they usually say yeah, well I can show you how you can be getting a lot of their business starting today, do you have a few minutes- bam-

Short and sweet and it works because they want to beat their competitor, plus Mark's software shows a graphical view so you can even talk their language with the city street names etc.

The bottom line is this software WILL get you clients and does all the hard work for you and hands you a viable way in to talking to these business owners and that is only one of his modules, he has a number more to help your offline business.

Now take action because nothing happens until you do.

To your success,
John

[JonHascue]

Well, here is my take on this software.....This takes all the work out of manually sorting through GP to find businesses you could approach.

Now, with that said, obviously, there are multitudes of ways to approach businesses and a lot of services we can offer them. The 2 biggest services you can offer them are, one that will come with very minimal objection, will be the service that THEY want and are looking for. And the other would be something YOU know they need and can present to them.

To fill the gaps, if you are totally new to any of this offline marketing stuff, is to look for one of the great WSO's that deal with products and services to offer to these potential clients. And maybe a WSO that can help you with what to say or how to outsource that. I know quite a few, and you can search for them as well.

I have my own process, sales team, marketing team, and outsource team, so for me it is very easy. But one thing this tool does, it make the research that much easier, for me, and my teams.
Below me, I have some other quotes from reviews listed above me, in case you need to read them again, they are full of great info, and really give you a good look at what it does, and how it can help you.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Digital Traffic

I was lucky enough to be one of the beta testers for this software, so I know that this software is uniquely tailored to meet the needs of local SEO providers.

One of the first things I consider before I purchase a piece of software is the customer service of the provider. Like many on the forum, I have lots of out dated software that was never updated or delivered as promised.

I have received at least 7 emails form this warrior during the beta stage, answering every question that I had. Many emails were answered in less than two hours.

I know there are more tools being added to this software that will only increase it's potential. Locating keywords is nice, discovering unverified Places listings is golden.

No more manually clicking through the listings searching for them, plus you can dig down to 100 Google Places locations. The businesses that are on the first page of Google get hit all the time by SEO'ers, not many will take the time to dig down 100 places deep to locate clients.

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, well having the ability to show your potential client exactly where they rank on a visual map, and better yet exactly where their competitors rank on that map is a huge selling tool.

SEO speak tends to leave your customers with a glared look in their eyes, providing that client with a color coded picture of the landscape, breaks their SEO efforts down to a level that anybody can plainly see and understand.

Having the ability to track the 1,3,4 and 7 packs just adds to the quality of this software, being able to find their competitors citations and obtain those citations for your clients as well, saves you a lot of time and wasted effort.

Thanks again.

Originally Posted by JohnSpangler

Hi Folks,

This is John Spangler from the jobless dad thread, I have been working offline now for 3years as my sole source of income for me and my family.

All I can say is WOW, I wish I would have had this software when I got started because this makes contacting business owners a breeze.

If you use just the find clients module which shows google places accounts that haven't been verified yet you could be rich by this afternoon.

Seriously, many of these local companies have no idea about google places and many that do know of google places have no idea how to claim their business.

Here is a straight up strategy that you can use today that will net you clients, all you need to do is run a quick search for say plumbers chicago, ( just a sample, you can pick any city in the US) and look for businesses that haven't verified their listing.

Give them a call and let them know that they have a website google built for them that they haven't claimed yet.

For instance you could say Hi Mr. Plumber, this is John and I work with local plumbers helping them get more clients, are you familiar with (here you can name the person or business that is number 1 in google places, because they know who their competition is especially the big boy on the block) and they usually say yeah, well I can show you how you can be getting a lot of their business starting today, do you have a few minutes- bam-

Short and sweet and it works because they want to beat their competitor, plus Mark's software shows a graphical view so you can even talk their language with the city street names etc.

The bottom line is this software WILL get you clients and does all the hard work for you and hands you a viable way in to talking to these business owners and that is only one of his modules, he has a number more to help your offline business.

Now take action because nothing happens until you do.

To your success,
John

[Vrs]

Why did you do this?

I'd decided NO MORE WSO's for awhile - but how could I pass this up? No way. I got it!

Any idea or timeframe you can give on the updates you mentioned? When they're coming out?

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by AussieT

Will Australia be one of the handful of countries?

Originally Posted by NRM

Hi,

Look Good. it will good to have it working in UK

I am going to add Australia, the UK, Mexico, and maybe one or two other countries for the 1.1 release...

EDIT: Places Scout now supports Australia, the UK, and Canada!

[netgain1]

This looks outstanding..Very professional, aside from slightly botched video recording quality : ) What I don't see is a focus on finding new local opportunities, ala niche research in which to build leased sites around, unless I am missing something.

The date extraction functionality seems to be top notch, EXCEPT no email extraction or built in contacting of leads. Good ole fashion export leads and fire up your list manager or bang on your call center is good but we are in a massive digital swing here. This would take the app over the top IMO. Maybe even a available domain finder based upon seed keyword.

Otherwise, this is certainly on the right track and you can tell much thought and work has gone into this app. With Google P changing so frequently, you certainly have your work cut out for you.

Christopher

[pspro]

I've been working with businesses in my area as a Place Specialist for just over a year now. One of my biggest stumbling blocks has been keeping track of the keywords and areas my clients were ranking, let's face it, it's a pain. When I saw Kabana Soft was looking for a few beta testers for a product that promised to make my life as a local maps consultant easier I jumped all over that opportunity.

So what do I think of Places Scout?

It's brilliant! It is by far one of the most used tools on my desktop now.

I used to dread doing my stats reports for clients because it took so long entering keywords and locations. Now all I have to do is set up a report for my client by adding their targeted keywords and locations and press a button. Places Scout shows me exactly what words we're ranking for and and where. If it's report that has been run in a previous week, I can even see if our rankings have gone up or done, which is a great visual to show clients.

Recently I've been shifting my attention more towards offering mobile websites to businesses because they are less of a hassle than map pages but now that I have Places Scout, I'm having fun with them again and I've gone out and actively looked for new accounts.

Thanks so much for a product that does everything that you said it would and more AND is making my business fun again!

[xiaozhuozi]

Thanks for your interest in Places Scout. Currently, Places Scout only supports the US, no international support yet. The reason is because there is no location polygon data available outside the US.

In version 1.1, i will include preliminary international support for a handful of countries, and use rectangles around locations instead of detailed polygons. I will keep this WSO post updated when such functionality becomes available.[img]http://*************/1.jpg [/img]
[img]http://*************/3.jpg [/img]

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by Vrs

Any idea or timeframe you can give on the updates you mentioned? When they're coming out?

@Vrs – Its difficult to commit to an exact date as to when the next major update for Version 1.1 will be available (because its going to contain many many new features and not sure how long it will take to develop everything), but I am shooting towards the end of august / first week of September.

I will be releasing minor intermediary updates in the meantime before then to add some new features and functionality…I’ve have already added some neat things that I want to release via an automatic update soon…such as drawing the actual rankings on the map markers for each result in the map view of the find local clients section…as well as drawing the rankings on the polygons themselves in the ranking reports map view.

Want to get this update out soon so I can reveal a super effective offline marketing technique for closing leads that I call the “Backyard Competitor” technique. Basically, with the rankings now drawn on the map makers in this upcoming update, you will want to look for a green marker (non-owner verified business) that isn’t ranking too well and a red marker that is ranking in the top 3 that are right next to each other on the map (will be easy to see now that the ranking are drawn on the map marker themselves, right now you can do it by checking the map marker tooltips, this will just make it easier to see visually).

What this means is that this business has a competitor that is outranking them right in their backyard or close nearby geographically. So you can call the lead, and using your favorite sales pitch, throw in a line such do you know who so and so is (referring to the competitor outranking them), and of course they will because they are right in their backyard…and say something like how would you like to get the people who are calling so and so to call your business instead? More to come on this…

Originally Posted by netgain1

This looks outstanding..Very professional, aside from slightly botched video recording quality : ) What I don't see is a focus on finding new local opportunities, ala niche research in which to build leased sites around, unless I am missing something.

The date extraction functionality seems to be top notch, EXCEPT no email extraction or built in contacting of leads. Good ole fashion export leads and fire up your list manager or bang on your call center is good but we are in a massive digital swing here. This would take the app over the top IMO. Maybe even a available domain finder based upon seed keyword.

Otherwise, this is certainly on the right track and you can tell much thought and work has gone into this app. With Google P changing so frequently, you certainly have your work cut out for you.

Christopher

@Christopher – I knew someone would point out the audio in the first 2 training videos…going to fix soon and remove the hissing sound in the bg .

In regards to your comments, eventually I will have a full video training course on how to use Places Scout to effectively close leads, manage these clients, and how to keep them updated and happy with all the powerful features in Places Scout. You can easily do this know if you’ve done Local SEO client management and have learned how to use the software…Places Scout will make this process so much faster and easier for you…but I’d like to have a training course that focuses specifically on this and not just on program features. That way you don’t have to buy a separate WSO to learn how to close leads and manage them . But of course when I add this the price will go up as well, those who get in early will get it for free.

As far as the email goes for the listings, Google removed the business’s email from the Places Page listings, so not much I can do about that…if you have any ideas on how I can find each listings email shoot me a PM and I’ll see if I can find a way to include this. Domain availability based on seed keyword or any keyword is easy, already have coded that before and have the code ready, not sure where I would put such a feature though…ill consider the idea though. Maybe just have a domain availability checker feature somewhere in the keyword generator.

All the Best,
Mark

[kingcup]

Hi Mark,

I'm very interested in Places Scout as I'm really delving into my local market.
I'm in the UK.
So would love to test it out when it rolls out here.
cheers
If you could pm me. Thought I had enough posts - but not yet !
Kaz

[outsourcetoday]

I just sent you a PM, please check it

Thanks
Remy

[moana]

Please let me know when this is available for Australia.

Thanks,

[PeterB206]

Thank you for informing me it will currently only cover the US soon as you having it working for Germany Please email me on per PM

[flipper]

Please add Canada to your list of countries for future releases. I will buy for sure.

[greatscot]

Hi, I have just come accross your WSO and I am in the market for a piece of software like you have. As I see it only works in the US just now.

What I am wondering is,
1. When do you think it will work in the UK?
2. Will I still be able to buy it at the current price when you introduce it for the UK?

thanks

Greatscot

[TheBoyz]

hi friend, i interest on your product but your limited this product or no ? because if too many buying this sofware, I think the American market will be saturated & can make high competior to get client for local seo services. thanks

[KCNL]

Hi, i tried the software in another country than the usa and it also returns results for it..

Strange thing was that i`ve found a lot of big companies, museums etc.. with no claimed pages but with reviews on them..

newbie question:
{So how do you sell the service to them and convince them to claim their page when there is already information about them on it ?}

Thanks for any tips..
Charles

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by greatscot

Hi, I have just come accross your WSO and I am in the market for a piece of software like you have. As I see it only works in the US just now.

What I am wondering is,
1. When do you think it will work in the UK?
2. Will I still be able to buy it at the current price when you introduce it for the UK?

thanks

Greatscot

@greatscot -

1) I've started working on the code international support...will be testing indepth later on this week, but not 100% sure when it will be ready. I'd say 2-3 weeks...maybe sooner if i don't run into any problems.
2) Unfortunately I cannot guarantee the price will be the same once i have international support...

Originally Posted by TheBoyz

hi friend, i interest on your product but your limited this product or no ? because if too many buying this sofware, I think the American market will be saturated & can make high competior to get client for local seo services. thanks

@TheBoyz - I really don't know what your trying to ask here? the product is only limited now in that it only supports the US...but support for other markets will be added soon. I also highly doubt that if too many people buy this the offline consulting market will become saturated...there is nearly endless client opportunities in offline local seo consulting, this software just makes your life easier finding them and keeping them happy

Originally Posted by KCNL

Hi, i tried the software in another country than the usa and it also returns results for it..

Strange thing was that i`ve found a lot of big companies, museums etc.. with no claimed pages but with reviews on them..

newbie question:
{So how do you sell the service to them and convince them to claim their page when there is already information about them on it ?}

Thanks for any tips..
Charles

@KCNL - The current Version 1.0 will probably work on a limited basis for other countries, but right now all queries are on US based servers...so its not offically supported until i can add the each countries respective servers and handle different languages properly.

For your "newbie question", the free bonus WSO i am offering has many training vidoes on how to do offline consulting, and there are plenty of other WSO's out there that will teach you how to land clients and manage them...just look around and check out the "Offline Marketing Discussions" sub-forum for more help.

EDIT: Places Scout now supports Australia, the UK, and Canada!

[TheBoyz]

thanks for you answer mark , btw can you give for monthly subscription ? so i can try you software , thanks for care

[tlski]

Time to add my views after using this software.

First, the user interface is beautiful. It is very easy on the eyes. If only other similar products had this look to them. More important, if you are familiar with the standard office apps, PlacesScout will be easy for you to learn. Most functions are very intuitive. I always like to see what I can do without reading a manual or watching instructional videos. Almost everything was doable this way. I did make a mistake on one aspect and finally figured it out relatively easily.

The second things is the speed. Because it is multi threaded, it works quickly. For example, in the keyword generator, it comes up with several hundred terms within seconds. Any number of these can easily be selected and passed on to the find local clients feature. It would very helpful in the keyword generator to have a couple of filters to quickly filter through so many possible keywords.

There are many very useful functions in the software. The rank tracking is very helpful. Powerful eye appealing reports that a client can understand can be generated quickly. The citations finder is another one that is even more important now with the changes that Google has made on the places page.

There are other features that are coming that will make this software even more useful. The developer has indicated that these will be in the 1.1 release coming out within the week.

At the same time, there are features not in this software that I hope the developer will include in future versions. Among these would include competitive analysis aspects such as the number of reviews, citations, photos, and videos which are found in some of the google places software.

If you don't already have software like this, this can be very useful for you and may be the only one you will need. On the other hand, if you already have one of the other places software, PlacesScout may be worthwhile just for the reporting and tracking features.

[ronr]

Disclaimer: I received a review copy.

My apologies to Mark to taking so long.

Pros: As others have said this software is clean, easy to use and very fast. The speed it gathers information is amazing. Your can get a list of ranks back in 5-15 seconds that could take a minute or more with other similar software. Each of the features that it contains could be a product by itself, keyword finder, potential client generator, rank tracker, client reports, citation finders. It not only saves you money it's so much quicker to having them all located in one piece of software. The rank tracker and reporter is a geeks dream. The amount of data you can provide for your own research and report to your your clients is amazing.

Cons: I really can't find any serious cons. The music in some of the videos in a little annoying and at this time one of the video tutorials is missing, but it's probably being updated. It would be nice if email were included in the client finder, but I know that isn't easy to do anymore since Google removed them from showing in places.

As most people know Google has been throwing everyone a curve with it's recent changes it's been making to google places, but it looks like Mark has is keeping on top of it and finding work arounds and has many improvements and additions to the software. I've just about stopped offering places SEO with all of google's changes but with this software I can continue to service my current clients and I just may take on a few new ones.

Ron

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by tlski

...PlacesScout will be easy for you to learn. Most functions are very intuitive. I always like to see what I can do without reading a manual or watching instructional videos. Almost everything was doable this way. I did make a mistake on one aspect and finally figured it out relatively easily....

...It would very helpful in the keyword generator to have a couple of filters to quickly filter through so many possible keywords....

...At the same time, there are features not in this software that I hope the developer will include in future versions. Among these would include competitive analysis aspects such as the number of reviews, citations, photos, and videos which are found in some of the google places software...

@tlski (Terry) - Thank you for your wonderful review, wanted to follow up on a few of your comments:

Comment 1 - I'm glad to hear you found the software easy to learn, that was one of my main goals when designing the UI...as i know i'm not a huge fan of always having to look up a help file or watch a video everytime i want to do something with a software program.

Comment 2 - The software does have keyword filtering, perhaps this part wasn't as easy to find lol...there is a "Keyword Filters" tab right next to the Main Settings tab in the keyword generator that allows you to filter by Negative Keywords (words the resulting keywords should not contain), Positive Keywords (words the resulting keywords must contain), Phrase Length Filtering, and Must Contain Seed Keyword filtering.

Comment 3 - In version 1.1, i am going to add a full set of competitive analysis data for each result (and not just the result, # of reviews, and rating as i am now)...so look for that in when 1.1 is released (looking like early September). Also you can find your competitor citations using the citation finder for now until i integrate everything into the other sections.

Originally Posted by ronr

...Each of the features that it contains could be a product by itself, keyword finder, potential client generator, rank tracker, client reports, citation finders....

...The music in some of the videos in a little annoying and at this time one of the video tutorials is missing, but it's probably being updated....

...It would be nice if email were included in the client finder, but I know that isn't easy to do anymore since Google removed them from showing in places....

...I've just about stopped offering places SEO with all of google's changes but with this software I can continue to service my current clients and I just may take on a few new ones...

Ron

@Ron - Thank you for the great review, wanted to follow up on your comments as well:

Comment 1 - This was another goal of the software...having everything in one program...that way you don't have to waste time and money learning 5 separate software programs, so i'm glad you pointed this out.

Comment 2 - The videos are going to get a makeover next week, was waiting until the 1.01 update is done (tomorrow) before i re-did them. I'll consider removing the BG music or maybe just having it at the very beginning and end.

Comment 3 - Email gathering for each result in the Local Client Finder module has been added and will be deployed in the 1.01 auto-update tomorrow .

Comment 4 - I'm glad the software has helped you to continue offering Local SEO services...want to note too that i will stay on top of any changes and once they occur my software can be easily updated to address anything that may change and break the way things currently work. Auto-update feature will come in handy in the future for these changes .

[friendlytf]

I want to promote this product as and I am a member of warrior plus. Please pm me with information please

[Chris Beatty]

I've purchased the software and it has my wheels turning on the different ways I can make money with it! AMAZING!

Quick question...I'm new to the offline game so when I find these "unverified" google places pages, how do you sell that to the offline customers?

I'd be interested to hear a few successful offliners' angle they take on selling this service?

Also, what is the benefit of having it "Verified" if it's already ranking #2 or #3 in the places rankings?

[seoikon]

What do you guys typically charge for this GP service for local biz?

Thanks

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by BestPMarketing

I've purchased the software and it has my wheels turning on the different ways I can make money with it! AMAZING!

Quick question...I'm new to the offline game so when I find these "unverified" google places pages, how do you sell that to the offline customers?

I'd be interested to hear a few successful offliners' angle they take on selling this service?

Also, what is the benefit of having it "Verified" if it's already ranking #2 or #3 in the places rankings?

Originally Posted by seoikon

What do you guys typically charge for this GP service for local biz?

Thanks

@BestPMarketing and @seoikon:

These are all excellent questions...right now i am working on a full training course to complement the Places Scout software, it should be ready by the end of next week and all current customers will get it at no additional cost.

The problem with answering your questions is that there is so many ways to approach businesses and convert them into clients...and there are many many different levels of service packages that you can offer that it would be difficult to try and answer your questions quickly...as i'd have to type up my whole training course to provide an appropriate response that would be useful to you...

So that is why i am making this training course so that it will answer these types of questions properly and give you everything you need to make money with this software and offline consulting. Just give me some time to get everything together...i'm working hard to help you guys out =).

Right now the software greatly benefits people who already have IM and offline consulting experience and offers many valuable time saving features.

In the meantime, i think that you guys would greatly benefit from purchasing another WSO that covers these concepts in great detail. You can find this WSO here called Offline Ice Breaker:

Offline Ice-Breaker: Your Complete "1st Client" Arsenal

There are several other WSO's that cover offline marketing techniques and how to land clients and what to charge ect...

In my training course, i am going to reveal some great techniques and secrets on how to use this software to start earning money fast and easily. I will also cover how to make top dollar by offering full package SEO services...but for now i recommend buying one the above WSO as i went through it and the content is great.

Use the concepts in the above WSO with my software and you will start realizing how powerful this software is in helping you do your offline marketing and services and making you money fast.

Again you will get my training course at no additional cost if you order before i release my training course.

All the Best,
Mark

[Jeff Klein]

I was fortunate to be asked to review of the PlacesScout software.

I apologize that it has taken me so long to complete my review but here it is.

Places Scout is a PC based software application to help you manage your local seo efforts. I ran in on a MAC using Parallels without any problems.

The software author includes several tutorial videos that are well done and informative. I recommend you check them out if you purchase this software. They will help get you up to speed using this software quickly.

The first thing I'll say is that the software is very well designed. It has an attractive UI and is feature rich. Places Scout is also very fast at completing each task or project.

The Keyword Generator is a powerful tool that scrapes Google, Bing, and Yahoo related search and suggest search functions. This quickly allows you to cast a wide net and then refine your list from there. There are also numerous import and export functions through the application.

The Find Local Clients section scrapes data for businesses that are ranking in the top results for the keywords and locations you enter. One use for this is to identify businesses that have not verified their Google Places page. You could then contact the business and offer your services

The Track Local Rankings function allows you to track your rankings in both Google Places and Organic results. The report interface is very clean and straightforward as are the report results. You define the site URL, keywords, and location.

The Create Client Reports function takes the data you gathered in the Track Local Rankings section and allows you to easily create an HTML report showing your client's ranking progress.

The Citation Finder function scrapes the citation sources from your competitor's listings based on the keyword and location you define. This allows you to quickly uncover targeted places where you can leave citations for your own site. A future enhancement will provide a link from with the Places Scout that will take you directly to the citation site. The Citation Finder is very powerful and in my opinion is one of the best features of Places Scout.

Some areas for improvement:

I'd like to see the query being done. I enter the keywords, and city name(s) but I don't know if the results are for city name keyword or keyword city name.

I'd like the ability to customize the query being done. I may want to search using city name keyword or keyword city name. Places Scout should allow me the flexibility to choose.

I couldn't figure out how to edit a report once I had created it. What if I want to add another city for example?

The tutorial video instructs you to enter the location in city, state format. This is used in the map view to define the geographic area of the business. The problem is that this location format is also used in the search query so the search query is keyword city, state. In many cases however, users don't enter the state when searching. They just search for the keyword city or city keyword. As a result, that is what I want to track. You can choose to just enter the city and not the state if you want. I'm not sure what impact this has on the map reporting.

Accuracy of results - I generated a two reports (for two different sites). In one case the organic ranking data was inaccurate when I tried to validate it using another browser and going right to Google (I was not logged in). The rankings weren't totally inaccurate, but they were different. I think the issue might be that even if I am logged out of my Google account, Google is still filtering the results based on my city and state location. So a non logged in user in Iowa doing a local search for my target term will see different results than some one non logged in user doing the same search in Florida. I suppose it would be helpful to know where Places Scout is pulling its data from.

Scheduling - It would be nice if the Places Scout allowed me to schedule my reports to run on a predefined date/time. If I have a lot of clients, managing the reports can be a hassle.

Client Reports - It would be nice to be able to customize the client report (logo, title, remove references to Places Scout). It's not clear on the report the query done. Is it keyword location or location keyword? Clients like to validate the stats you show the. If they don't know the query, they won't be able to reproduce the results.

Summary

Overall I am very impressed with Places Scout. I think it offers a great deal of functionality and value. It is a worthy asset to add to your toolbox if you offer Local SEO services. I look forward to seeing the application add new features in the future.

Jeff Klein

[JonHascue]

Sent you a PM....had an issue....nothing to do with how product works...just a license issue.

For those that are still on the fence, and personally, I would want you to stay there.

This product, all by itself, with my knowledge and thinking out of the box, has located, and put me in position, to procure over 22 new clients. Now obviously, I have the knowledge and experience, to be able to market to them, and these are for a bunch of different services long term, but on the whole, and right up front, it has produced quickly, 22 $97 one-time sales. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

I have 1 sales person I put on to this detail, and she, following my directions, personally made 19 of those sales.

The software works, you just have to have a plan, get a WSO that can help you with a plan of action to be able to use this data to your benefit. There are some good WSO's in this area, or use your imagination. There are countless ways to use this data to make it. Bottom line is to DO IT!

Cheers

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by Jeff Klein

I was fortunate to be asked to review of the PlacesScout software.

I apologize that it has taken me so long to complete my review but here it is.

Places Scout is a PC based software application to help you manage your local seo efforts. I ran in on a MAC using Parallels without any problems.

The software author includes several tutorial videos that are well done and informative. I recommend you check them out if you purchase this software. They will help get you up to speed using this software quickly.

The first thing I'll say is that the software is very well designed. It has an attractive UI and is feature rich. Places Scout is also very fast at completing each task or project.

The Keyword Generator is a powerful tool that scrapes Google, Bing, and Yahoo related search and suggest search functions. This quickly allows you to cast a wide net and then refine your list from there. There are also numerous import and export functions through the application.

The Find Local Clients section scrapes data for businesses that are ranking in the top results for the keywords and locations you enter. One use for this is to identify businesses that have not verified their Google Places page. You could then contact the business and offer your services

The Track Local Rankings function allows you to track your rankings in both Google Places and Organic results. The report interface is very clean and straightforward as are the report results. You define the site URL, keywords, and location.

The Create Client Reports function takes the data you gathered in the Track Local Rankings section and allows you to easily create an HTML report showing your client's ranking progress.

The Citation Finder function scrapes the citation sources from your competitor's listings based on the keyword and location you define. This allows you to quickly uncover targeted places where you can leave citations for your own site. A future enhancement will provide a link from with the Places Scout that will take you directly to the citation site. The Citation Finder is very powerful and in my opinion is one of the best features of Places Scout.

Some areas for improvement:

I'd like to see the query being done. I enter the keywords, and city name(s) but I don't know if the results are for city name keyword or keyword city name.

I'd like the ability to customize the query being done. I may want to search using city name keyword or keyword city name. Places Scout should allow me the flexibility to choose.

I couldn't figure out how to edit a report once I had created it. What if I want to add another city for example?

The tutorial video instructs you to enter the location in city, state format. This is used in the map view to define the geographic area of the business. The problem is that this location format is also used in the search query so the search query is keyword city, state. In many cases however, users don't enter the state when searching. They just search for the keyword city or city keyword. As a result, that is what I want to track. You can choose to just enter the city and not the state if you want. I'm not sure what impact this has on the map reporting.

Accuracy of results - I generated a two reports (for two different sites). In one case the organic ranking data was inaccurate when I tried to validate it using another browser and going right to Google (I was not logged in). The rankings weren't totally inaccurate, but they were different. I think the issue might be that even if I am logged out of my Google account, Google is still filtering the results based on my city and state location. So a non logged in user in Iowa doing a local search for my target term will see different results than some one non logged in user doing the same search in Florida. I suppose it would be helpful to know where Places Scout is pulling its data from.

Scheduling - It would be nice if the Places Scout allowed me to schedule my reports to run on a predefined date/time. If I have a lot of clients, managing the reports can be a hassle.

Client Reports - It would be nice to be able to customize the client report (logo, title, remove references to Places Scout). It's not clear on the report the query done. Is it keyword location or location keyword? Clients like to validate the stats you show the. If they don't know the query, they won't be able to reproduce the results.

Summary

Overall I am very impressed with Places Scout. I think it offers a great deal of functionality and value. It is a worthy asset to add to your toolbox if you offer Local SEO services. I look forward to seeing the application add new features in the future.

Jeff Klein

@Jeff - In response to your comments:

You do make some very valid points here, and i already knew about some of issues...but i think that some are important enough that i am going to release another intermediary 1.02 update by Friday of next week (EDIT: ETA now 09/09) to address these items.

In terms of query customization, i just came up with a great idea on how to go about implementing this (i had this in the original version, but i found what i was doing before was confusing so i removed it, and there was issues with geo-coding the locations if they were not entered in this format, but i have since fixed the geo-coder in the 1.01 update so that it is alot more forgiving and can handle any type of query now).

What i am going to do, is still have the user enter keywords and locations, but will have several options for query customization based on the inputted keywords and locations.

I have found that users may do several variations of a localized search, using works like "in", "near", "around", ect...so i will have options that will generate these queries based on these variations. There will be options for the following query customizations:

location keyword
location, state keyword
keyword location
keyword location, state
keyword in location
keyword in location, state
keyword near location
keyword near location, state
keyword by location
keyword by location, state
keyword close to location
keyword close to location, state
keyword next to location
keyword next to location, state
keyword around location
keyword around location, state

For each option selected, these queries will be auto-generated based on inputted keywords and locations so you don't have to type them all out. I think the above pretty much covers all variations that people may search for, let me know if i have left anything out.

I will also have a "Computed Search Queries" box where you can see all the exact queries to be performed, and modify if necessary. The program will use the exact search phrases in this box to gather data in both the Find Local Clients and Track Local Rankings section. This should alleviate the current issue with the queries always defaulting as keyword city, state.

Then, as far as accuracy of results go, to confirm that they are indeed accurate, for each result in the grid view, there is a column for "Keyword / Location". I am going to hyperlink the query text to open the exact query the program is using in your web browser so you can cross check in the browser that the results the program is generating is indeed the same as what you see in the browser.

I have yet to see the results be inaccurate, but i feel that it all may tie back to this issue that the default query is keyword city, state, and that you may be entering something slightly different when verifying the results in the browser. But by hyper-linking the actual query, you should be able to confirm that the results are indeed correct.

As far as report scheduling goes, i am considering it, but that won't make it into the new 1.02 update, perhaps it will get done for version 1.1.

But for the ability to customize the Client Reports header image with your own company's logo, this has been requested several times, and i think it is important that i provide this functionality as soon as possible in the 1.02 update. I will also include a section where you can type customized notes to your client in the HTML report.

So look forward to seeing these updates included by the end of next will...i will roll out an automatic update to address these issues.

Thank you for your great review and i wish you the best.

-Mark

[Jeff Klein]

You're very welcome Mark. Thanks for your reply and considering my suggestions. You have done a great job with this software. It is really impressive. I look forward to using it in the future.

[princesharky]

i run a single website for personeel use, is this software for google places? im trying to rank highly for that.

[topend]

Hi Mark,

Your product is amazing. Its quality made and professionally done. Very clean and easy to use. I can spend the whole day just analyzing the data it produces.

I'm a newbie in local marketing/seo and this program will definitely give me a head start and unfair advantage. Being able to pull out the keywords in a flash and the map view was just mind blowing. To be able to see businesses next to each other with the the google places data in a visual way.... I feel like a 007 agent With this program we can definitely work for the highest bidder. I am looking forward to generating reports and doing further analysis thus will give me further insights to my prospects business.

Thanks for replying to my emails so quickly and your advised regarding the WSO local course program. I agree when mixed together makes it a deadly combination for closing customers. I will start on the industries that you suggested for easy pickings.

It will be good to see the email and other functionality that you will be adding in future updates. All in all its a thumbs up for me. Thanks for sharing this program to everyone and making it affordable. Looking forward to the training course.


Cheers,
Miguel

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by princesharky

i run a single website for personeel use, is this software for google places? im trying to rank highly for that.

Yes, this software was made specifically for Google Places, and you can use the citation finder to find new citations sources where you can leave reviews for your business. This will help you improve your rankings in Google Places. You can also view all of your rankings and improvements over time using the rank tracker module.

Shoot me a PM if you have any other questions.

[BaySocial]

I heard about Places Scount on the Online Renegades forum and decided to look into it. At first glance, it looked like the typical prospecting tool, like many other choices out there. However, I looked deeper into the reports and started to see some differences and features I had never seen before. I decided to reach out the Mark and see where he was heading with the software and just get to know him. Let me say the following:

1) Mark is the real deal as far as both online marketing AND a top rate programmer. He knows so much about the data that he had my head spinning.
2) Mark knows the issues that we all face as offliners. So he is trying to create a program that meets those needs and help run our business.
3) This software works and provides reports in such a way that both helps close deals and helps communicate your results to customers. Not just the ranking results but the map is awesome!

Lastly, while I can't say much, I will say that this is just the beginning for this program. I spoke to Mark about what I thought was missing from the software and he listened, came up with new ideas and off he went to attack.

Folks, I only write reviews when I truly believe you will benefit in both the short and long term. I believe there are great things to come with this program and for the price and set of capabilities, this can't be beat. One sale resulting from the use of this program will more than take care of the price of this program.

[Ashley Gable]

Can you just add a state and a keyword? Or do we need to enter in each city we want it to find leads for.

Basically is there an easy way to make it look for unverified listings in a bunch of small town at once? Without having to enter in each city/town separately.

Also in the reports that are generated, is there anyway to remove the Places scout logo in the top left corner?

Thanks

[abrandt]

Hello WF Members:

50% of my time is spent in research for new strategies, new thinking and new power tools.

When I discovered Places Scout last week, I carefully read the entire WSO sales copy and then PM'd the programmer, Mark, to discuss many of the technical features of the software.

Within just a few days, Mark promptly inserted a number of the power features that I recommended in a new upgrade. Please be aware that enormously powerful upgrades are just on the horizon!

I have purchased almost every Keyword Research tool and report on WF. Places Scout is on its way to becoming perhaps the most sophisticated and powerful tool of its kind available... and at a low introductory WSO price.

In my opinion, Places Scout is not a tool for newbies... it's too sophisticated. For Power Users... it will have awesome capabilities that even some of the considerably more expensive tools are lacking.

Without reservation, I highly recommend that "Power Users" acquire this tool at the current low WSO - to get locked in to all the power upgrades that are right around the corner.

I hope this proves helpful, sooner than later.


Positively,

Alan


ABOUT: I fly way under the radar as an Offline Marketing Consultant. Marketing professional 30+ yrs.; Software Apps & Eval Consultant specializing in Windows business apps 8+ years (Microsoft down to small shareware houses). I now specialize in offpage optimization strategies which yield 3 to 8 rankings on Google 1ST Page SERPS without interfacing with business client's website. Google Places: 81% keywords 7-boxes - (46%) 1-boxes.

Here's a nano sample of the results being generated via my offpage optimization... (initial optimization and percolating upwards - first 3 week results - GEO-modifiers have been removed.)

save my house from foreclosure
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 4,260,000 results - 1, 2, 3, 4

we buy ugly houses
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 474,000 results - 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10

sell house fast
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 37,000,000 results- 2, 5, 6, 7

sell my house fast
Thu, 23 June 2011: organic: About 21,200,000 results - 6, 7, 8

[JohnDavid]

This software is a game changer for many of us. The commitment to its development is truly phenom!

Looking forward to seeing more of it, and all the best!

P.S. Did you release the course or info you had planned, just wondering if I missed it over the past few weeks. I know it will be good!

[julianna]

Hi,
Does this software capture emails as well?

Thank you

[KabanaSoft]

Originally Posted by Ashley Gable

Can you just add a state and a keyword? Or do we need to enter in each city we want it to find leads for.

Basically is there an easy way to make it look for unverified listings in a bunch of small town at once? Without having to enter in each city/town separately.

Also in the reports that are generated, is there anyway to remove the Places scout logo in the top left corner?

Thanks

@Ashley - you could just enter in a keyword and state...but then it will give you results from all over that state and the max you could get per state would be 100 results (it would be same as going to google places and typing in keyword + state)...

i think what you should do is use a search for cities by radius tool (ex here: Local SEO Tools and Resources: Find Cities Within Radius In US, AU, CA and GB From A Starting Point | StudioKraft Creative Web Services, LLC) and export a bunch cities in your given radius that a tool like that generates and then copy and paste into places scout. You can then easily filter out the owner verified results with the built in filtering options that are available in my software.

I have considered adding a search by radius feature into Places Scout but it won't make it into the next update (looking like friday the next update should be ready).

As far as the logo goes, in the new update, i am by default removing the places scout logo...but i have also built in a feature where you can specify your company's logo to be used in the header of the HTML ranking report.

Originally Posted by JohnDavid

This software is a game changer for many of us. The commitment to its development is truly phenom!

Looking forward to seeing more of it, and all the best!

P.S. Did you release the course or info you had planned, just wondering if I missed it over the past few weeks. I know it will be good!

@JohnDavid - Working on getting the update done first...once its done (hopefully by friday or sooner) then i am going to remake all the tutorial videos and in those there will be some training on various techniques to use to land clients...check back early next week and there should be some better training videos ready.

Originally Posted by julianna

Hi,
Does this software capture emails as well?

Thank you

@julianna - yes, the software will capture email addresses from yellowpages if the places result has a yellow pages listing with an email address. There is an option to capture emails in the Find Local Clients section if you want to do this. After the new update is released the software will also gather Manta.com business data, which includes the business owner name, number of employees, and years in business.

Hope this helps,
Mark