Love it or hate it relationship: Yelp

Did you know that before Yelp founders came up with the name, they were thinking about calling it “Yocal”, a play on local yokel, someone who is a native townie? The idea of Yelp centers around sharing first-hand experiences and reviews of local businesses and to help people shop local rather than something like McDonald’s. We want to lay out ways that you can use Yelp to your advantage, but first, make sure you are in control of your business’ Yelp page. If not, obtain the rights so that a random person isn’t improperly branding your business. Here are the top facts about Yelp that will help you bring in more customers:

• A study shows that with every 1 star increase on Yelp, the business’ revenue increased by 5-9%
• The most reviewed category in not restaurants, although that is the assumption most people make. Of all the categories, shopping’s the top rated.
• 4 out of 5 Yelp users are ready to spend their money as soon as they search a business.
• If a customer has a positive customer service experience, they are 5 times more likely to post a review. However, negative experiences go hand in hand.
• What about bad reviews? Business owners are encouraged to message reviewers to settle disputers in private on the off chance that they revoke their bad review, and this is done all the time!
• You are also able to post public replies to a Yelp review. This is your chance to be considerate and polite in ameliorating something said that you may not think holds true to your business.

There may be a couple of resources out there that say that Yelp is bad for small businesses, but the fact of the matter is, it’s not going to go away. The best advice we can give is to take control of it and use it to your advantage. Post your pictures and descriptions and allow Yelp to be one of the many ways you become discovered by the local yokel.

Have more questions or would like to see how we can help your business? Feel free to send us an email at email@arkcontent.com