Are you and your business Yelping?
In the past years the influence created by social media portals across the web on businesses and customers alike is huge and it is only getting bigger. One of the biggest influencers on this growing frenzy is Yelp, a social portal that gives customers/visitors the ability to give any business a rating and review based on a previous experience with the business. Visitors of the portal as well can search for businesses, services and/or products they are thinking of acquiring. With over 4 million visitors per day it’s a great place to gain visibility, however if not maintained it can also be something that can hurt your authority and ability to sale greatly. We have seen for some of our customers that up to 70% of their sales are directly affected by this portal.
When correctly utilized and optimized Yelp can definitively be a tool that can increase your revenue exponentially in a relatively small period of time if used correctly. However, to begin you will have to first and foremost confirm your listing or create a new one using their Business Center. After confirming your listing it is very important to go over each of the sections on your listing and complete them as thoroughly as possible. Get creative as customers are usually looking for someone that they relate to, give them your full story and allow them to meet you even before they contact you. Take advantage of their multimedia tools like adding photos and videos as customers are much more likely to respond if you do. Another very important factor of having a successful listing is staying in constant contact with you customers and to make sure that all of their reviews are answered.
A great and useful tool that they offer for free is the ability to add coupons for your customers. Many times this will increase your conversion rate, and it might just give you that edge as well that you need to beat your local competitor. Another great tool they offer for free is their listing statistics, which are very complete including how many visitors have seen your listing, how many have called your business number and how many have clicked to go into your website.
There are other ways as well in which Yelp can indirectly assist you to get more customers which is by increasing your overall business inline authority. This will assist you in many ways, for example to get better rankings in the different search engines across the web. The majority of times your listing will be listed as well usually higher than any other citations on the SERP’s, this will assist you to create more a more reliable image as they will see your name multiple times one the results.
Let us know how Yelp has affected your business, and what actions you are taking to improve the quality of your listing on the comment section below.
