Small Business Help – use Yelp for better local internet search results

In my last post we looked at how to use Yelp for better local internet search results.

using Yelp can help your small business seo

This was the quick and easy process of claiming you local business listing. Now to turbo charge your listing you need to get reviews. As Jon writes on Noobpreneur.com ‘But the most useful part of Yelp is the review section that allows customers to leave reviews for others to read.’

Why use Yelp for better local internet search results

Even if your website already ranks on page one of Google for your local search terms, wouldn’t it be nice to have more than one listing on that page?  Yelp ranks very well for local search terms, and often business’ pages on Yelp are showing up on the first page of the search results as well.  This will give you two ways for a searcher to find your business and it will give your website more traffic.

 

And

You should ask your customers if they are already on Yelp, and if they are ask them to leave a review for your business.  This is a great way to receive feedback from your customers.  Don’t be afraid of negative feedback either.  Always reply to anything negative and try to correct the problem.  This is a great way to better your business and your relations with your customers as well.

Use Yelp to engage with your customer base and also with potential customers as well.  Remember that if people are leaving reviews on Yelp about your business then they are also talking about your business with their family and friends as well, so if you don’t address their concerns it will only hurt your business.Click here to read full post

Sarah in her article on ‘3 ways not to run your business‘ gives a great personal insight on why to actively encourage customers to leave reviews on Yelp.

 Online review sites like Yelp! have been seeing higher and higher traffic, and with so many people using these sites to make their decisions, negative reviews could be absolutely killing your chances at scoring business.

As a personal anecdote, I can tell you that planning a wedding 6 hours away from where I live would have been nearly impossible without online review sites. When I was looking for a florist, I looked at a few different review sites to see what past customers thought of them. Three florists consistently had 2-3 stars, and one ranked consistently higher at 5 stars. Guess which florist got my business?

Consumers don’t always have time to do intensive research on their own. (I can certainly vouch for that!) Help them end up with your company, first by giving great service that will be reflected in your customer’s reviews, and then by keeping tabs on your online reputation.

 

Rebecca, The Connector Gal  commented on the previous post ‘It is important that you actually become an active user of yelp for other businesses for your reviews to be taken seriously. Google Places is giving a log of credence to this site Yelp!! and people even have the app on their phones.’

Try not to dismiss Yelp customer reviews as too hard, while you may find it uncomfortable to ask, in the long term this strategy will pay off with more potential customers being made aware and recommended to use your small business. You can use Yelp for better local internet search engine results.