Yelp is a social search site dedicated to giving you the most unbiased user reviews and information about local businesses possible. One of the problems with most sites is anyone, including the business, can go on and write anything they want. This can skew the rankings and not give you a real world view of the business.
Below is a video explaining how Yelp’s filters help to give you the most accurate reviews possible. It makes a lot of sense and helps eliminate people from signing up just to pimp their business. After the video are a few tips to get you started using Yelp to help you find local search customers.
How Their Filter Works
Yelp for small businesses
The question you are probably asking now is, How can this help me? Well, there are a few ways for small businesses can use Yelp to increase their local traffic.
- Promote your events or sales.
- Post special offers only on Yelp
- Respond to reviews.
- Use Yelp to find out more information about the people leaving reviews.
A few things you want to make sure you are doing are:
- Fill out your business profile as completely as you can. By filling in your hours of operation, email address, categories and any other bit of info, there is a greater likelihood people will find your profile.
- Check your page every day to keep on top of your reviews. These are like a report card of sorts.
- Keep the information on your page current and relevant to the rest of your marketing.
How do you use local search to drive customers to your site?
Here is a link to the Yelp business owner’s signup page.
