Are you on YELP? If you are unfamiliar with this website, Yelp is an online urban city guide that helps people find cool places to eat, shop, drink, relax, play, and find pretty much any service you can think of based on the informed opinions of a vibrant and active community of locals in the know.
“Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great — and not so great — in your world.”
Yelp currently has 63 million unique visitors! There has been a 54% increase in traffic this past year…and it is continually growing at a rapid pace. Yelp users have added more than 1 million new reviews in the past 30 days. If you think it can’t benefit you, think again!
There are many benefits to having your business on this website such as:
- People can find basic information including the hours of your business, your contact information and your website using the site.
- People can search for your type of business in your area that they might not easily find on other local search sites (such as Google Places).
- People can read the opinions of other people who have gone to your place of business or used your services which can give others an impression of what it would be like to use your services and whether or not they would like the place.
- People can initiate discussions through the “talk” section of Yelp which lets them ask for specific or more detailed information about the business or about the topic in general.
- People can add their own opinions to improve the site and to support the local businesses that they really like – which can be you!
Are there any cons to being on Yelp?
When it comes to the Internet, it’s free game…meaning that people can pretty much write whatever they wish for the world to see. The important thing to know is though – even if you as the business owner don’t add YOURSELF to Yelp…ANYONE can add your business. So in sum…even if you are worried about receiving a bad review, and this may be preventing you from adding your business…in reality – anyone can add your business to Yelp with your permission or not. So, in my opinion, I think the saying “If you can’t beat them, join them” applies to this. May as well make the best of a website and become a participant (encourage customers to review you) and hopefully gain more customers because of it! Look at it as the glass half full vs. half empty.
Think of it this way – if you are a dentist and someone goes to Yelp to look for a dentist – and you are not listed, you are potentially losing a client.
Also, if someone goes to Yelp and there are 5 dentists to choose from and one has 5 great ratings…and the rest have no ratings, the one who is going to stand out from the rest is the one with the great reviews. They will have the upper hand in most cases of getting that new potential client.
So, my vote is YES to Yelp! Add yourself and encourage your customers to post reviews!
Lastly, an incoming link to your website from a highly authoritative website such as Yelp can help with SEO efforts! If you have a website and do not have search engine optimization, you are not getting found online – bottom line. Contact our Vancouver SEO company – Web Warrior Marketing – and we’ll email you a proposal as to how we can get you online visibility in the search engines like Google. Check us out now! We can help companies anywhere in Canada and the United States.