With the growing success of Yelp.com, more and more businesses are starting to recognize Yelp’s importance. A quick check of Quantcast.com shows that Internet traffic to Yelp has doubled between October 2008 to March 2009. Here are some tips for business owners on how to optimize the business opportunities presented by Yelp.com:
Step One: Get your business on the list. Start by registering on Yelp.com and searching the directory for a listing for your business. If you find one, claim it and set up your business’ profile. If you don’t find a profile, you can also create one. The best part? It’s free.
Step Two: Start Yelping. Review your favorite coffee shop, your local hardware store, and the restaurant on the corner. Take the time to read reviews of these places that are left by others so you can get a sense of the community. Plan on spending an hour a day yelping for at least a week.
Step Three: Get reviewed. After getting listed, a lot of business owners are tempted to email their close friends and business partners and ask them for a friendly Yelp review. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with this – in fact, I highly recommend it – Yelp.com has a system for deleting these types of reviews if you’re not careful.
Yelp.com’s platform works against spam reviews by deleting reviews from users who don’t “act” like regular users, i.e. leaving only one review, never visiting the site more than once, only leaving positive reviews, etc. If you’re going to solicit reviews from people close to you, make sure they act like “normal” Yelpers – ask them to review half-a-dozen or so other businesses (along with your business) over the course of a couple of weeks. This will likely keep Yelp’s system from deleting reviews.
Step Four: Build a good profile. Many business owners are too busy to take the time to create a good, interesting, and informative Yelp.com profile, yet that’s exactly what they should do to be successful. Simply providing your business hours and listing off your products won’t do.
Step Five: Keep in touch with the community. You can always help others in business. Yelp allows each business profile to link to 5 other businesses, regardless if they’re related to your business or not. It’s best to choose your five links wisely. Quality should come first, and it’s smart to recognize active Yelpers (who have more ability to help you) instead of just friends and family.
Step Six: Keep the reviews coming. Spread the word around – ask your loyal patrons to stop by Yelp.com and leave a friendly review. Yelp gives your satisfied clients a venue to compliment you where they might otherwise be too shy to do so in person. Tell everyone that your business is on Yelp.com, and they will just do the rest.
Step Seven: Use the network. Take advantage of Yelp.com’s social network by building and maintaining a network of friends. Build relationships with other business owners and help each other out by exchanging good reviews and becoming each other’s fan. Not only will you maintain a good profile, but you’ll also be using networking at its best.
As Yelp continues to grow, complete business profiles with good reviews are leading to more and more new customers. Participating on Yelp.com now, and encouraging your customers to leave you positive reviews, will pay big dividends later as Yelp continues to grow.
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