Yelp for business owners: How to stay on top of the review site

As a local business directory and crowdsourced review site, Yelp has become so influential that many businesses are taking the site into account when it comes to marketing.

Some 92% of Yelp visitors are seeking a business they can use several times, while 9 in 10 visitors make some type of purchase transaction within one week of visiting the site, according to a SurveyMonkey study commissioned by Yelp. Meanwhile, new business openings on Yelp went up by 8% in 2021, reports the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Aside from the findings stated above, the benefits of establishing a Yelp presence for your business include making it easier to find online, attracting the interest of new customers and solidifying brand identity.

Your first step to succeed at Yelp should be to list your business on the website, assuming it is not already listed. However, note that your business may already be listed on Yelp and garnering reviews there, as the platform sometimes lists business from database firms and other third-party services. In the event your business is already listed on Yelp, claim your business page by going to biz.yelp.com.

Once you claim ownership of your business’s page, you will be able to control its content. Further, your site will rank higher for its relevant search terms. Keep in mind that to increase the SEO for your business profile on Yelp, it’s important to stay active and follow a few key practices, as outlined below.

Four ways to optimize your business’s Yelp page

1. Fill out your business’s profile

Keep your company profile, including your business’s name, address, phone number, email address and website URL, accurate and up to date. Mentioning a brief history of the business, areas of specialization and operating hours can have a huge impact on search results. “Without hours of operation, your business won’t show up in searches if users are looking for local businesses that are open right now,” John Carroll, Yelp manager of local business outreach, told Forbes.

2. Upload and manage photos

Showcase your products or services through images to encourage people to visit your business page. Adding photos of your business to Yelp can help customers easily find you, thus boosting your search engine rankings. Yelp metrics indicate that business pages with up to five Yelp reviews and 10 photos get 200% more views than those with no photos.

3. Incorporate backlinks

Incorporate backlinks to your business’s Yelp profile to boost your ranking on the platform as well as other search engines. For example, include a link from your social media profiles and website to your Yelp business profile.

4. Respond to reviews, inquiries and messages

Always respond to customer reviews, whether positive or negative, as well as inquiries and messages. By thanking a happy customer or offering to rectify a poor experience, business owners can improve customer engagement. Monitoring Yelp reviews can also help business owners to spot trends or weak spots and improve service.