Part 1: Yelp Reviews – How Are Reviews Displayed For My Business?

Posted by Jack Smith in Social Media | View Comments

Welcome to Part 1 of  3 on Yelp.  The titles are listed below so be sure to check back or subscribe here for Parts 2 & 3!

• Part 1: Yelp Reviews – What’s On My Profile – How Reviews Are Displayed For My Business
• Part 2: Yelp Reviews – Responding To User Reviews – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
• Part 3: Yelp Reviews – It’s All Up To YOU – How To Be A Good Reviewer and Community member (Yelper)

Before starting this post, I want to say that I am a fan of Yelp and what they do.

• I think they have a very cool community site that is organized well and provides some great functionality.
• I have been to several Yelp events which have been AWESOME for both attendees and vendors, the most recent one being Yelp In Bloom at the Desert Botanical Gardens.
• And I have met several of their employees from San Francisco, New York and Phoenix and have always been impressed with their professionalism and passion they have for their company.  One of my favorites is Gabi, the Community Manager for Yelp Phoenix (Twitter @YelpAZ).

That being said, I know there are business owners who are not fond of Yelp and/or don’t understand what it can mean to their business.  Yelp has also been in the news lately and the The New York Times puts it this way – “Running Yelp, The Site Business Owners Love to Hate“.

However, I am still surprised how many blank stares I get from business owners when I ask how many of them know about Yelp.  If your business has been reviewed on Yelp, there is a good chance that when someone searches/Googles your business, a Yelp link will be displayed somewhere on the first page (usually towards to top).  That means the first exposure potential customers may have of your business may be via Yelp!

But for those not familiar with Yelp,

Yelp is an online urban city guide that helps people find cool places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, 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.

And here are the Top 10 things you should know about Yelp.

For those business owners that know about Yelp, there are two questions that get asked most often. The first being, “How do the reviews work?” and secondly, “What do I do if I get a bad review?”.  Here is the answer to the first and we’ll have the second tomorrow.

How Does The Review Process Work?

Unless you were ‘in the know’, this has been a mystery to a lot of people.  However, I am very excited to see that Yelp has created a video that gives a great explanation of the review process that is very helpful and is better than anything I have read.  I hope you find it as helpful as I did.

I hope this clears up some questions and sheds some light on the Yelp review display process.  I will also say that when it comes increasing the number of reviews on your business, you should let it happen naturally.

I have talked to several Yelp people about this and they all agree that reviews that happen naturally are typically the best reviews for your business.   Encouraging a customer who is not familiar with Yelp to leave a review will NOT be as effective as a Yelper (Yelp Community Member) leaving a review – it’s just not the same.  As a business owner, do what you do best in running your business and taking care of customers and the reviews will come.

You might also want to contact Gabi and see about getting your business involved in one of their amazing events!  I highly encourage that course of action as every event I have been to has been amazing.

If you have any Yelp stories or questions, leave them below in the comments!  As they end their messages at Yelp…

SYOY – (See You On Yelp)