What’s your Yelp rating? If you don’t know, it’s time to get with it. Review sites like Yelp – but Yelp in particular – are becoming more and more important for small businesses every day. While word-of-mouth may help to get you new customers, it’s word-of-mouth via online review sites that really drive traffic. If your Yelp rating is poor, you can practically guarantee that no Yelp user (and there are more than 66 million of them) will ever come to your business. On the other hand, if it’s high, you’ll no doubt find yourself with new customers on a regular basis.
And if you don’t use Yelp or don’t have a rating, it’s almost as bad as having a poor one. People who are searching for your type of business will be shown yours last in their search results. It’s much more than just simple ratings, however. Here are some of the important things about Yelp and why they matter to your small business.
Search Results
Search Results
If you know the value of search engine optimization (and you should), you’ll be even more psyched to get on board with Yelp. For one thing, businesses with high Yelp ratings are ranked higher on Google search results. There’s also another very important SEO factor – Siri of the iPhone 4S takes Yelp ratings into account when recommending businesses to her users. People commonly use businesses from high up on the search engine results page (SERP), so you want to use Yelp to increase your chances of being one of them.
Ratings and Traffic
As mentioned earlier, if you have high ratings, you’re much more likely to gain new customers, and if your ratings are low, you definitely won’t. More and more people are consulting Yelp before choosing a business, and it’s not just about restaurants. Yelp users can review all types of small businesses, from contractors to dentists and everything in between. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring Yelp because you don’t sell food. In order to get ratings, you should ask your customers to write a review for you. If they do it, they’re much more likely than not to write a favorable review. In fact only about one-third of ratings on Yelp are less than four stars.
Promotion and Customer Service
One of the best ways to use Yelp is to get involved by claiming your business. When you verify ownership, you can edit your page (you can’t delete or edit reviews). If you add lots of information like a menu or list of services; photographs; details like opening and closing times; and links to your website and other pages, you’re more likely to get customers. Announce promotions or discounts on Yelp, and you’ll further convince new customers. Additionally, you can use Yelp as a way to engage with customers and do a little customer service. Get a bad review? Contact the reviewer and offer to do something to right their bad experience with you, and you’ll look like the good guy after all.
Charlie Adams is a tech guru, marketing professional, and entrepreneur who enjoys analyzing the use of the internet in advertising strategy.
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