BrightLocal Skill — Citation Management and Reputation Monitoring at Scale

LocalSEOData tells you where citations are broken. BrightLocal fixes them. LocalSEOData tells you review velocity is declining. BrightLocal runs the campaigns to reverse it. The brightlocal-tool skill is the execution layer for citation and reputation workflows — it connects Claude to BrightLocal’s citation building network, review aggregation dashboards, and rank tracking infrastructure so that analysis translates into action without leaving the LocalSEOSkills environment.

This is not a replacement for LocalSEOData. It is a complement. LocalSEOData audits. BrightLocal builds. The two skills work in sequence, and dispatch knows when to fire each one.

What This Skill Does

The brightlocal-tool skill gives Claude access to BrightLocal’s operational capabilities: submitting citations to directories, monitoring reviews across 80+ platforms, tracking local rankings over time, and managing these workflows across multiple client accounts simultaneously.

Prompt: "My citation audit found 14 missing directories and 9 with wrong phone numbers.
Build a BrightLocal campaign to fix everything."

Skills fired: dispatch → local-citations + brightlocal-tool
Actions: Campaign creation with correction list for 9 directories,
submission list for 14 new directories, NAP data specification, priority ordering.

Output: BrightLocal campaign configured with major directories (Google, Yelp, Facebook,
Apple Maps) prioritized first, followed by industry-specific and general directories.
Estimated completion: 4-6 weeks for full propagation.

Dispatch routes to brightlocal-tool when the request involves building, submitting, monitoring, or managing — the operational verbs. When the request involves checking, auditing, or analyzing, dispatch routes to localseodata-tool instead.

Citation Building and Monitoring

BrightLocal’s Citation Builder is the core of this skill’s value. Rather than manually submitting business information to 50+ directories one at a time, the skill coordinates bulk submissions through BrightLocal’s established network.

The Citation Campaign Workflow

A complete citation campaign runs through three phases, each touching different skills:

Phase 1: Audit (LocalSEOData)

Prompt: "Run a full citation audit for Riverside Family Dental,
4200 Market St, Riverside CA 92501"

Skills fired: dispatch → local-citations + localseodata-tool
Data pulled: citation_audit, business_listings

The audit returns a categorized list: directories with correct NAP, directories with errors, and directories where the business has no listing at all.

Phase 2: Build (BrightLocal)

Prompt: "Create a BrightLocal citation campaign based on this audit.
Fix the inconsistencies and build the missing listings."

Skills fired: dispatch → local-citations + brightlocal-tool
Actions: Campaign creation, directory prioritization, NAP standardization

Claude generates the campaign specification with the correct NAP format, prioritizes high-authority directories (Google, Yelp, Facebook, Healthgrades for dental), and queues the submissions. BrightLocal’s team handles the actual directory submissions and follow-up.

Phase 3: Verify (LocalSEOData)

Prompt: "Re-run the citation audit for Riverside Family Dental
to check if the BrightLocal campaign completed successfully."

Skills fired: dispatch → local-citations + localseodata-tool
Data pulled: citation_audit, business_listings

Run this 4-6 weeks after campaign launch. The before/after comparison shows exactly which citations were corrected, which new listings are live, and whether any submissions are still pending.

Ongoing Citation Monitoring

Citation data degrades. Aggregators push old data. Duplicate listings appear. Directories change formats. BrightLocal’s monitoring catches these issues before they erode ranking signals.

Prompt: "Check BrightLocal citation monitoring for all clients
and flag any new inconsistencies since last month."

Skills fired: dispatch → local-citations + brightlocal-tool
Output: Per-client summary of citation health changes,
new inconsistencies detected, and recommended corrections.

For agencies, this monthly check replaces the manual process of re-auditing every client. BrightLocal watches continuously; the skill surfaces what changed.

Reputation Management Dashboards

BrightLocal aggregates reviews from Google, Yelp, Facebook, and 80+ industry-specific platforms into a single feed. The brightlocal-tool skill connects this feed to Claude’s review analysis and response generation capabilities.

Multi-Platform Review Monitoring

Prompt: "Pull this week's new reviews from BrightLocal for
Valley Plumbing and draft responses for anything under 4 stars."

Skills fired: dispatch → review-management + brightlocal-tool

Output:
NEW REVIEWS THIS WEEK (7 total)

Requiring response:
1. Google — 3 stars — "Fixed the leak but left a mess in the bathroom"
   [Draft response addressing cleanup concern, offering to make it right...]

2. Yelp — 2 stars — "No-show on the first appointment"
   [Draft response acknowledging scheduling failure, explaining corrective steps...]

Already responded: 2 reviews
No response needed: 3 reviews (5-star, generic praise)

The skill pulls review data from BrightLocal’s aggregated feed, filters by criteria (star rating, platform, date range), and feeds relevant reviews to Claude’s review-management skill for response drafting.

Review Generation Campaigns

BrightLocal’s review request system sends email and SMS messages to customers asking for reviews. The brightlocal-tool skill can configure these campaigns:

Prompt: "Set up a BrightLocal review generation campaign for Valley Plumbing.
Target Google first, then Yelp. Send requests 2 days after service completion."

Skills fired: dispatch → review-management + brightlocal-tool
Actions: Campaign configuration with platform targeting,
timing rules, and message templates.

The skill handles campaign setup. BrightLocal handles the sending, tracking, and follow-up.

Rank Tracking

BrightLocal tracks local pack and organic rankings over time for specified keywords and locations. This is ongoing tracking, not one-time checks — it builds the historical data that shows whether optimization efforts are working.

Prompt: "Show me BrightLocal rank tracking trends for Valley Plumbing's
top 10 keywords over the last 90 days."

Skills fired: dispatch → local-reporting + brightlocal-tool
Output: Per-keyword ranking trend with direction indicators,
average position changes, and local pack inclusion rates.

For geogrid-level geographic analysis, use the geogrid-analysis skill with LocalSEOData instead. BrightLocal’s rank tracking covers position over time; geogrid analysis covers position across space.

When to Use BrightLocal vs LocalSEOData

This is the most common question, and the answer is straightforward:

Use LocalSEOData when you need to know what’s happening. Citation audit results. Current review metrics. Ranking snapshots. Competitive gaps. LocalSEOData is the diagnostic layer — it tells you the current state.

Use BrightLocal when you need to do something about it. Build citations. Monitor reviews across platforms. Track rankings over time. Run review generation campaigns. BrightLocal is the operational layer — it executes and monitors.

Specific routing:

Task	Tool	Why
Check citation consistency right now	LocalSEOData	One-time audit, instant results
Submit corrections to 20 directories	BrightLocal	Directory submission network
Pull Google reviews for analysis	LocalSEOData	Single-platform review data
Monitor reviews across all platforms	BrightLocal	Multi-platform aggregation
Check current local pack position	LocalSEOData	Point-in-time ranking check
Track ranking changes over 6 months	BrightLocal	Historical trend data
Run a competitor gap analysis	LocalSEOData	Comparative audit
Generate review request campaigns	BrightLocal	Customer outreach system

The two tools are not interchangeable. They serve different phases of the same workflow. Dispatch handles the routing automatically based on whether your request is diagnostic or operational.

When to Use BrightLocal vs Whitespark

Both tools build citations. The difference is specialization:

BrightLocal is broader — citations plus review monitoring plus rank tracking plus agency management tools. It is the operational hub for agencies running multi-client local SEO programs.

Whitespark is deeper on citations specifically — its citation discovery finds opportunities BrightLocal may miss, and its local search audit provides a different analytical lens. See the Whitespark Skill page for details.

If you use one platform for everything, BrightLocal covers more ground. If you want the best citation discovery and are willing to use multiple tools, add Whitespark.

Connecting BrightLocal to LocalSEOSkills

Step 1: BrightLocal account. Sign up at BrightLocal.com. Citation Builder and review monitoring require paid plans. The API is available on Agency plans and above.

Step 2: Get API credentials. In BrightLocal, go to Settings > API to generate your API key.

Step 3: Add the MCP server to Claude Code.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brightlocal": {
      "url": "https://api.brightlocal.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 4: Add clients. Configure your client accounts in BrightLocal with complete business details — name, address, phone, categories, service areas, and website.

Step 5: Verify the connection.

Verify BrightLocal connection and list all configured client accounts.

Get Started

Run this as your first prompt after connecting BrightLocal:

Run a citation audit with LocalSEOData for [Business Name] at [Address],
then create a BrightLocal campaign to fix any issues found.

This fires the full audit-to-build workflow and confirms both tools are connected and communicating through dispatch.

Learn More

To learn what this skill can do for your local SEO workflow, see the skill overview.