Yelp for Business
I get the question about business reviews almost weekly. Business owners often do not realize the power of reviews. As a business owner myself, I know that we have limited rime to spend on the Internet. However savvy potential clients have way more time and the time spent researching a purchase is greater. People love to research a local business before making the purchasing decision. They often do the research before even coming to your actual website!
Negative Reviews
I have had business owners tell me they will not participate in Review sites because of the thought of a negative review. However what they do not understand is a negative review can be found on a business even if the business owner is opting to not participate in the review site. It does not matter – the reviewer can still leave a bad review. it is doubly bad because you the business owner has no idea it was left and do not have the opportunity to respond to the review. By creating your Business Account (or claiming the account already there) then you will also get the opportunity to respond to the negative review. This can turn into a positive!
Most people know that a business can not please everyone. No one is perfect. If all you have are positive reviews it could look to be faked. Also if you can turn a negative review around by responding and addressing the issues then not only will that customer be happy but your response will always be attached to the negative review. Other people can see that you care about your clients and want to work with them to make them happy. These types of situations can often carry more weight in a potential clients eyes than just reading all positive reviews.
How to use Yelp!
Yelp is one of the original review sites. It started as just a restaurant review site but has grown into a site for all business reviews. People shop service industries on Yelp. I know this because my business has been shopped a great deal on Yelp. There are a few things your business needs to do on Yelp:
- Make sure your business account is complete. If there is very little information about your business then Yelpers are likely to move onto your competition. People like to know who they are dealing with for services and having a robust business account can go along ways to satisfying that need.
- Put up both your logo and your personal image (professional headshot). This will not only build trust and consistency but it will let people know they are on the right site when they visit your site and it also visually connects you and your business to other websites they may have seen you on.
- Respond to all negative reviews – and if possible respond publicly. This goes along way towards building trust and confidence in both you and your business.
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Yelp Review Badge
If you have your own website use the Yelp Review Badge. This will make it easy for your clients to leave you a review as well as connect your website to your Yelp page. If you make it as easy as possible then you will get more reviews. It also keeps that thought top of mind for you.
- Remember not all reviews or reviewers are equal. Yelp filters reviews based upon their own algorithm. Although the review system for Yelp is secret – I can share my observation. Yelp displays 3 reviews for me and filters 30. The filtered ones do not show on the main page and are not considered in the star rating. I have observed that my filtered reviews are from people that have only left 1 or 2 reviews. I assume Yelp considers these solicited by the business owner and disregards them. If you have ever left a review for a company then not gone in and reviewed other businesses then you are not helping that company. To fix this problem log back into your personal Yelp account and start to leave reviews for local businesses you like and use. This will help everyone!
- Businesses can recommend other businesses ~ and you should! It shows you also support local business and you are not just in it for yourself. Also if someone has a great experience with your business they are likely to take your recommendations seriously. This is another win-win strategy.
If I have helped you in any way feel free to leave Premium Websites, Inc. a review on Yelp. But remember if you have never left a review (or very few) then please also review several other companies so that your review does not get filtered.
