YELP

The Truth About YELP

December 10, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

“We’re living in an era where word-of-mouth is on steroids. People aren’t just talking to their neighbors and the folks they run into around town; they’re talking to the world via social media.”

Gary Vaynerchuk

 

YELP

I have seen so much lately on the web about small businesses being mad at YELP.  Rants on Facebook and other pages, and quite frankly, many of them are just small business owners who do not understand how YELP or social review and referral platforms work.

Is YELP perfect? NO! Is any social platform perfect? NO. But these platforms can be used for good, and my suggestion is to learn more about them, and to realize they are here to stay, whether you “like” them or not.

So here is my attempt to clear up any misunderstandings and hopefully inspire you to take the energy you are using to hate on YELP and turn it towards understanding YELP and how it can empower and gorw your business.

The Facts
1. YELP has more than 15 million reviews and over 40 million visits to its site every month.

2. Five star reviews lead in terms of percentage of reviews given.

3. YELP uses a formula called an “algorithm” to catch fake reviews or pages that get several reviews in a short period of time from new YELPERS, and filters them in an attempt to keep the site as authentic as possible.

4. Most frequent YELPERS know about filtered reviews and check them out.

5.  YELP is one of the number one new traffic drivers to small business, both online and offline.

6. You DO NOT need to advertise on YELP to make it work for you, just like Google or Facebook, you have the choice of PAID discovery and/or ORGANIC discovery.

Here is a graphic that shows the average number of reviews by star.
YELP ratings My friends Pilates Studio in Los Angeles, Whole Body Method, who I have the pleasure to work with has received over 1500 visits to their website this year alone directly from YELP.

  • Over 60% of those visits were first time visits.

  • They stayed on the website over 2 minutes and viewed 2.5 pages, more than any other social or digital referral visit.

  • Many of those visits have turned into new clients, as in hundreds of new clients.

  • In fact, besides existing client referrals and traditional word of mouth, YELP is their number one referral tool.

  • One of the keys to this is they also offer online booking and the ability to purchase packages online.

  • Their business is up over 50% from last year. While there are several factors that made this happen, their choice to embrace the social + digital web is a significant part of their success.

My tattoo shop here in LA, Velvet Grip Family, attributes over 90% of new client traffic to YELP.  How do they know?  It’s the first question they ask when you walk in. “How did you hear about us?” Nine times out of ten the answer is YELP.

So here’s the deal. You can choose to NOT do business with YELP, whatever that means. But you must understand your business will remain on YELP, Citysearch, Google Places and all over the Internet.  That is the reality of social business, and it’s not going away.

So you have a choice, bury your head in the sand, or take advantage of these powerful platforms, begin paying attention to what people are saying about your business on the web, and use them to grow.  Your choice.

If you want to learn more about YELP and the other social referral platforms on the web, click here to see if our one-on-one mentoring program is right for you. You can also visit our YouTube channel PassionSquaredTV to view a webinar on YELP we did several months ago.

(shared with LOVE from your passionista Nina)

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