WhiteSpark Review & Alternatives — A Rank Tracker That Focuses on Local Search
WhiteSpark is a rank tracker that takes on a rather interesting approach. Instead of trying to offer a robust, all-in-one rank tracking tool that does a little bit of everything, WhiteSpark hones in one specific aspect of rank tracking and aims to cater to a narrow target audience.
In a market crowded with dozens of rank trackers, the approach WhiteSpark took makes perfect sense. Instead of trying to compete with every rank tracker out there, the company created a tool specifically for local businesses that seek advanced local search capabilities such as citations and reviews.
In this review, we’ll take a detailed look at WhiteSpark’s features to show you exactly what this tool can offer to your business and help you determine how well it integrates with your existing workflows.
Why You Should Listen to Us About WhiteSpark
We know SEO, and we understand how Google really works. And we’re not just saying that — we got the results to prove it.
In the last year alone, we took three different projects from next to no organic traffic to over 100,000 monthly organic search visitors!
DoNotPay (B2C SaaS)
CampusReel (B2C SaaS)
If you’re looking for B2C SEO, check out our CampusReel case study.
Doggypedia.org (Publisher)
See how we took Doggypedia to 18,500,000 Pinterest impressions and over 5,700 hours watched on YouTube in 2019.
The main reason why we’re sharing these results is that we want to show you that the recommendations we give aren’t based on what we believe works. When it comes to keyword research, SEO, and keyword tracking, we focus on raw data that provides reliable, consistent results.
On top of that, we won’t tell you whether a rank tracker is inherently good or bad — we’ll give you an unbiased review and let you draw your own conclusions.
We reviewed 35+ of the most popular rank trackers, so if you WhiteSpark isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, you can always check out one of its alternatives.
About WhiteSpark
WhiteSpark isn’t your typical rank tracker. Instead, this tool puts the emphasis on local search and offers advanced capabilities that help businesses that target a specific geographic area get the most out of their SEO efforts.
The tool only does one thing, but it does it well. Through precise local rankings and a variety of features, WhiteSpark gives you valuable insights to help you both understand and improve your local search visibility.
There are two ways to check out the tool before making a commitment and paying the monthly subscription. From WhiteSpark’s homepage, you can either start a free trial or click a preview to get a quick idea of what type of information WhiteSpark provides and how the tool displays it.
WhiteSpark Preview
At a glance, you can see that the tool provides a pie chart of the ranking distribution for the keywords the business is ranking for (Action Muffler, in the example they provide), as well as the visibility score and keyword progress. You can also select the timeframe you’d like to see the rank changes for, as well as set up various filters and get more insights for each individual query.
Apart from the rankings, the preview shows competitor and keyword comparison, both of which can be incredibly useful for tracking the progress of your SEO campaign and improving your rankings.
When it comes to the free trial, we have to share a word of caution. While the tool does offer a fourteen-day free trial, it also requires you to share your billing information to create a free account.
In order to create an account, you have to select one of the payment plans. After the free period, you will be automatically billed for the corresponding monthly subscription fee. They do offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so it isn’t too big of an issue if you forget to cancel your subscription before the free trial ends.
Another drawback of WhiteSpark is the fact that there is no option to access all of the different “tools.” These are all individual features, mind you, but they are artificially broken down into separate tools, making you pay a monthly subscription for each!
The tools in WhiteSpark’s arsenal include:
- Local Citation Finder
- Local Rank Tracker
- Reputation Builder
- Review Checker
- Review Handout Generator
- Google Review Link Generator
The first three are paid tools, while WhiteSpark markets the others as “free tools.” In reality, these should all be features of the same tool, accessible to a user once they pay the monthly subscription.
The cheapest options for the Citation Finder, Local Rank Tracker, and Reputation Builder add up to $86/month. If you opt for the Reputation Builder, you’ll essentially be paying $55 a month for a single feature that allows you to see the customer feedback on your business and lets you send them review requests.
And that’s the most affordable option for WhiteSpark’s Reputation Builder, plus it’s $55/month per location, and you’re limited to 3,000 email requests and 300 SMS text messages per month.
We’ll talk about the Reputation Builder and other “tools” WhiteSpark offers in detail in the following section, but first, here’s a quick overview of the tool.
|
WhiteSpark Overview |
|
| Monthly cost | From $86/month ($14 for the Local Citation Finder; $17 for the Local Rank Tracker; $55 for the Reputation Builder) |
| Number of keywords | From 100 to 2,500 |
| Search frequency | 30 |
| Actual searches per month | 3,000 – 30,000 |
| Cost per keywords/monthly | $0.0040 |
| Year funded | 2005 |
| Number of employees | 11 – 50 |
| Capterra reviews | 3.8/5 stars |
| g2 reviews | 4.6/5 stars |
| Facebook followers | 1,725 |
| Twitter followers | 4,094 |
WhiteSpark Tools & Features
Given WhiteSpark’s interesting take on rank tracking, we have to slightly deviate from the standard rank tracker review structure we typically stick to.
We’ll be reviewing the different “tools” the company offers and talking about the features/capabilities each of them offers.
We’ve already listed the six different tools users have at their disposal in the section above, so let’s jump right in.
Local Citation Finder
The Local Citation Finder, as one would assume, allows you to find all online mentions of your brand, address, or phone number. The tool lists all of your citations, alongside the links to the domain that is citing you, their domain authority, and the date of each citation.
Whitespark also allows you to discover new citation opportunities. It does so by providing you with a list of citations for your highest-ranking competitors. With a single click, you can reach out to domains that are citing content within your niche and submit your website to gain new citations.
The results are sorted by “submitability” — a variable that’s WhiteSpark’s way of showing you which domains are the most likely to accept your submission and generate new citations for your business.
The tool also includes competitor citation analysis, as well as reporting and tracking features, so you can always stay on top of your citations and take actionable steps towards improving your business’ online visibility.
Local Rank Tracker
We’ve gotten to the meat of things, and the primary reason why anyone would choose WhiteSpark over any other rank tracker — its location tracking tool.
The main features of WhiteSpark’s Local Rank Tracker are:
- Geo-location tracking
- Competitor monitoring
- Keyword segmentation
- YouTube and social rankings
- Screenshot capturing
- White-labeling
Geo-Location Tracking
The Local Citation tracker supports Google and Bing, allowing you to search the results for Local Pack, Local Finder, Maps, and organic rankings.
One thing to note is that the tool will show results for the first five pages of Google and Bing only. If the tool doesn’t show a particular keyword you’re tracking, you’ll have no way of knowing if your business ranks for it under 50, or if it doesn’t rank for that particular keyword at all.
The localization is where WhiteSpark truly shines. The Local Rank Tracker enables you to filter your search and narrow it down to a specific country, city, zip or postal code, or even specific geo-coordinates.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the tool enables you to track from multiple locations to see how you rank in different areas of a particular city, for example. While the tool supports unlimited locations, each of them will count as a separately tracked keyword towards your monthly maximum. The cheapest option allows you to track up to 100 keywords, so you’ll quickly reach the limit if you’re tracking for multiple locations.
Competitor Tracking
This feature allows you to add your top competitors and see how they rank for the keywords you’re tracking.
You can also run a quick comparison report to see how your business stacks against theirs, as you’ll be able to see both your and your competitors’ rankings for every keyword on the list.
Keyword Segmentation
This feature goes a bit beyond simply creating keyword groups and generating separate reports for specific groups for convenience.
It also enables you to see how your rankings differ across each pack type:
- Organic
- Pack
- Local
- Maps
This will show you how each keyword is performing in different areas, so you can identify optimization opportunities and take action to improve your overall rankings.
YouTube and Social Rankings
The ability to track how you’re ranking in YouTube search is invaluable for local businesses that heavily rely on promoting their brand and products on the platform and driving traffic from YouTube to their website.
WhiteSpark’s Local Rank Tracker supports these capabilities and shows you how your YouTube videos are ranking in Google and Bing.
Apart from that, it also allows you to see how your brand’s social media profiles are ranking in these search engines. It doesn’t provide any insight apart from the rank itself, such as impressions and engagement, which practically means that this feature simply performs the Google/Bing search for you.
Screenshot Capturing
Another feature of the Local Rank Tracker is screenshot capturing. It’s a simple built-in screen capture tool that allows you to screenshot graphs, charts, and lists, and save them for future reference.
White-Labeling
The Local Rank Tracker allows you to generate fully customizable reports. You can either save them as PDFs or generate a unique URL that you can quickly share with anyone.
While this feature can be useful for agencies working with a lot of clients that want to add their brand’s name, logo, and colors to the reports, we don’t see how it’s relevant for small businesses that are predominantly interested in local rankings.
Unless you’re an agency primarily working with local businesses, you’ll likely just ignore the white-labeling option.
Reputation Builder
This is where things get tricky with WhiteSpark. While the Reputation Builder is a fantastic tool that enables you to manage all your customer feedback and online reviews in one place, it is, in our opinion, unreasonably priced.
We don’t mean to diminish the effort of the developers behind this tool, but for functionality as simple as connecting different platforms — like Google, Facebook, Urban Spot — and allowing you to respond to customers and see their reviews, the $55 monthly subscription fee is a bit steep.
If you have stores in different parts of town or in several cities, the situation gets progressively worse. The $55/month is per location, meaning you will only be able to see the feedback and reviews for a single store or branch of your business.
While other features gave off a subtle vibe of being costly, the Reputation Builder is clearly overpriced. Overall, while WhiteSpark offers a decent collection of tools, we don’t believe that the astronomical price is justified.
If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative, check out how WhiteSpark stacks against the competition.
Review Checker, Review Handout Generator, and Google Review Link Generator
All three of these tools should be features within the Reputation Builder, as far as we’re concerned.
The Review Checker simply lets you see all of the online reviews of your business across different platforms:
- Yelp
- Tripadvisor
- Yellow Pages
This “tool” is free, but there’s still the fact that it isn’t integrated as a feature into an already existing tool that’s supposed to handle online reviews. This just makes it so that you have to open a different tab and sift through the same information in two different places.
The same goes for the Handout and Google Review Link Generators. All they do is create a simple review form and provide you with a link that you can share with your customers to generate reviews.
The fact that WhiteSpark is presenting these as “outstanding tools” that are free to boot, rather than simple features of a reputation management tool is a bit odd.
It seems that the company wants prospects to believe that they’re receiving something of incredible value for free, while in reality, any reputation management software should have these capabilities as built-in features.
Check all the SERP trackers we reviewed
| Review Link | Monthly from price | G2/Capterra Reviews | Keywords |
| SERPRobot | $4.99 | / | 300 – 3,000 |
| Wincher | $11.32 | 4.9 | 100 – 5,000 |
| Serpfox | $10 | / | 100 – 60,000 |
| RankWatch | $29 | 4.3 | 250 – 1,000,000 |
| SerpBook | $24 | / | 100 – 1,500 |
| Dragon Metrics | $99 | 4.5 | 1,000 – 10,000 |
| Tiny Ranker | $19 | / | 100 – 2,000 |
| Nightwatch | $19 | 4.8 | 100 – 10,000 |
| White Spark | $86 | 4.6 | 100 – 2,500 |
| SerpWatcher | $29.90 | 4.4 | 100 – 1,200 |
| Rankedy | $29 | 4.3 | 100 – 1,000 |
How to Automate Keyword Research Before Using WhiteSpark
Regardless of whether you choose WhiteSpark or one of its alternatives, it’s essential to do proper keyword research so you would know exactly what keywords to track.
The problem is, the way most people do keyword research nowadays is broken.
- Doing high-quality keyword research is a tedious, manual task that takes a ton of time and a considerable amount of SEO experience
- It’s typically based on intuition and what “feels” right — nobody is using raw data to make keyword decisions
- Human errors are always a possibility, making keyword research a lengthy trial-and-error process that costs companies a ton of money
- It’s next-to-impossible to delegate high-level keyword research to junior SEOs with limited experience
Thankfully, there’s a better way to do keyword research. With ClusterAi, you can turn keyword research from an unpredictable art into an exact science.
ClusterAi gives you the option to take on a data-driven approach and base your keyword decisions on accurate data from Google, rather than on your gut feelings.
Here’s how ClusterAi can help ensure that your keyword research is perfect every time:
- ClusterAi pulls data from Google — this eliminates the possibility of human error and allows you to make informed decisions based on relevant, accurate, up-to-date data
- The entire process is completely automated, saving your weeks-worth of work
- Since the tool does all the heavy lifting, anyone can use it to perform expert-level keyword research in minutes
- The tool groups together related keywords to create unique content topics, showing you exactly what keywords you can rank for with each page
Keyword Research Has Never Been Easier
Let us give you an example to show you just how easy it is to do high-quality keyword research with ClusterAi.
Say we wanted to start an affiliate website in the pet niche, or we already have one but want to create more content to attract a larger number of organic visitors.
One of the main topics we want to create content around is dog food. First, we need to pull a list of keywords related to our topic.
We can do this by:
- Firing up the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and typing in the term “dog”
- Navigating to the “Having same terms” feature and typing in “food”
The tool will give us a list of over 455,000 search queries that meet our criteria.
Now, we can export the top 25,000 keywords with the highest monthly search volume and import that list into ClusterAi. The tool will take care of the rest.
- ClusterAi scrapes the top ten results on the first page of Google
- It compares each of the 25,000 keywords against every other keyword on the list
- ClusterAi looks for keywords that share three or more URLs
- It clusters them into groups based on the main keyword and related keywords and creates unique content topics
We can just lay back and let ClusterAi work its magic. In minutes, the tool will provide us with a list of over 1,000 unique content topics. The data is shown by:
- Main keywords
- Total search volume
- Keyword variations
You can click any cell to expand it and see the full list of variations.
This is as data-driven as it gets! The entire process is based on data from Google, and it’s fully automated, meaning you can perform perfect keyword research every single time, even if you have no SEO background.
Did You Find This WhiteSpark Review on the First Page of Google?
This is a testament to the power of ClusterAi. Our agency relies on this powerful tool daily, and we couldn’t imagine doing keyword research without it. Combined with our proven processes, ClusterAi enables us to consistently rank on the first page of Google — outranking competitors with higher domain authority, bigger budgets, and more backlinks.
Across our different projects, we’ve managed to rank on the first page of Google for over 100,000 keywords, in a variety of different niches.
With that in mind, imagine how big of an impact ClusterAi would have on your business!
DoNotPay (B2C SaaS)
If you want to learn how to do effective SEO and rank on the first page of Google, check out free guides below:
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- How to use Brand Jacking to “steal” your competitors’ traffic
- How Google Actually works
- Where to find and how to hire affordable, high-quality writers
- How to turn your writers into expert SEO content writers
- How we crush B2B SaaS SEO
- How we dominate B2C SaaS SEO
- How to get the fastest SEO results
- SEO ROI Calculator
- How to consistently rank high without backlinks
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