When it comes to making your business known, there are a lot of ways to establish yourself online and off. Businesses are becoming successful using social networking and blogging, but Yelp is a somewhat less known, but powerful way to make yourself known online and expand your business.
Yelp was launched in 2009, but the concept behind it has been around as long as businesses have.
Yelp has several different webpages, all for different cities. It’s a listing of businesses, but it also includes the ability to rate and review the businesses.
When it comes down to it, word-of-mouth advertising is generally better than an everyday, average advertising campaign. The reason? Anyone can make a claim about their business. But no matter how good that claim is, there’s no real guarantee that it’s true because the business owner is making it themselves. With word-of-mouth advertising, someone else is telling the consumer that the claim is true.
Whether it’s someone they trust, or simply someone who doesnít profit from what they’re saying (or even if they do), this is taken as a much more trustworthy source. This way, you’re not only getting your name out there, you’re also getting your reputation out there.
So how can you use Yelp to your advantage? First, make sure your business is in there. That way, even if there are no reviews, at least you’ve got your name out. You can then use your Yelp page to add details, pictures, and even updates, and special offers about your business.
That way, new customers know what to expect, and have some extra incentive to come in along with previous customers’ experiences that assure them they’re getting what you advertise.
Once you’re listed, make sure you’ve got quality reviews. While some people may get family and friends to plant positive reviews, these are often easy to spot to the trained eye. Why not just encourage customers to go online and write a review? Just be sure not to post fake reviews or pay for reviews. You will get found out!
Yelp is not only good for finding new customers, you can also use it to communicate with current customers to keep them coming back. You can talk to them privately, or communicate with them publicly so other customers can not only get answers, but also see that you take care of your customers even after you’re done providing services.
Another advantage of Yelp is that it allows you to recommend other businesses and more importantly, allows them to recommend you. You can offer reciprocal links to local businesses, or provide them some other incentive for promoting you. The more successful the other businesses, the better the links you’ll get from them.
The best part about Yelp is that once you set up your listing, it’s fairly easy to maintain. You’ll need to update when you make business changes and keep up communication, but it only takes a few minutes and is well worth the benefit.
