Yelp: Pros & Cons

Yelp Pros & Cons - What You Need to Know About Yelp for Business

Yelp is ubiquitous. If you have a business, the chances are you have a Yelp profile and reviews, whether you like it or not. But what are the Yelp pros and cons that matter to your business and how can you make sure that Yelp is helping and not hurting your business reputation?

Here's what you need to know about Yelp for business, both the benefits of Yelp and the things to look out for.

Why Are Reviews Important?

Online reviews are a relatively new phenomenon in business, but they have taken the business world by storm. Reviews are now one of the most important aspects of your marketing campaign.

  • As many as one-third of American adults buy something using their phone or computer at least once a week. They may order directly or they may use the internet to help them find a brick-and-mortar business to visit.
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  • Because people are often unsure about whether a business that they find online is quality or legitimate, they are likely to look up a business that they are considering purchasing from. If they can't find any reviews on a business, they may be less likely to visit or purchase from it. Online review participation ensures that reviews about your business come up when a potential client searches for it.
  • In 2019, as many as 90% of consumers of small businesses used the internet to find a local business near them, and as many as 33% looked for a local business online every day.
  • For most people, it takes about 10 reviews for them to deem a business trustworthy. If they do read a bad review, most people are willing to give the business a chance by reading the businesses’ response to the negative review.
  • 93% of consumers between the ages of 35 and 54, which covers most of the market for most businesses, always read an online review before deciding whether to visit or purchase from a business.

Yelp Pros and Cons

These are some important yelp pros and cons worth considering. While you may not be able to opt-out of Yelp, understanding the pertinent Yelp pros and cons can help you to make the most of this platform.

Yelp Pros

  1. Reviews tend to be trusted. As many as 93% of people say that online reviews affect their buying decision. That means that if you have good reviews on Yelp, there's a very good chance that consumers who read the reviews will choose your business.
  2. Exposure. Yelp is a massive company with an extensive range. Thousands of people regularly check Yelp deliberately in order to get a review, so being listed on this website is important if you want to make the most of your exposure.
  3. Ranking. Yelp tends to rate very well in Google, especially if there isn't a lot of other competition for your business name. If you want the first couple of entries on Google to be your website and positive reviews about your website, maintaining great reviews on Yelp is a good idea.
  4. It's free. While there are costs to customizing and optimizing your Yelp profile, simply setting up and managing it is free. It's pretty hard to turn down free advertising, especially if you're a smaller business.
  5. It establishes credibility. Having reviews on Yelp will help to establish your credibility, even if you already have reviews on other websites. Some users may trust Yelp over whatever other sites you're using, so it's a good idea to have as many positive reviews on as many platforms as possible.

Yelp Cons

  1. Bad reviews. The most obvious reason not to have a profile on Yelp is that not all reviews are good. You don't have control over whether someone leaves you an unfair review or not. While you can answer them, you may have a hard time undoing the damage of a very negative review.
  2. Reviews aren’t always trustworthy. A recent study found that as many as 16% of the reviews on Yelp are false. Most of the fake reviews came from restaurants who wanted to undo the damage from negative write-ups.
  3. Yelp filters reviews. Yelp has a very rigorous algorithm in order to capture fake reviews, but it may also filter out positive reviews and fail to catch some fake reviews.
  4. Enhance profiles can be expensive. Paying for all of the features that Yelp has to offer in order to make the most of their services can get expensive, especially since Yelp algorithms for determining the success of your profile can be misleading and difficult to understand.
  5. Your business can get bad reviews even if it hasn't been claimed. If you want to stay off Yelp, tough luck. Your business can be listed and receive reviews whether you claim it or not.
  6. Yelp can be pushy. Lawsuits have been filed against Yelp for aggressive advertising, as well as extortion. Accusations have been made that Yelp offers an expensive advertising subscription in order to get negative reviews lower on the page for businesses. There have been all sorts of complaints like this filed against Yelp over the years. It is uncertain how much truth there is in various claims, but there does seem to be evidence to suggest that Yelp can be pushy to say the least when encouraging business owners to pay for more advanced advertising.

How to Combat Bad Reviews

  • More reviews. The best way to combat a bad review is to wash it out with good and mediocre reviews. The more reviews your business has, the less impact the negative ones will have.
  • Respond. Most people read a business's response to a bad review. By being gracious, understanding, and trying to make it up to the customer publicly, you can alleviate the impact of a negative review.

Can I Avoid Using Yelp?

Unfortunately, regardless of what you think about the Yelp pros and cons, you're stuck with Yelp whether you like it or not. Regardless of whether you claim your business or want your business to be listed, as long as your business existence is a matter of public record, Yelp lists is most likely listed on their website - it may have "unclaimed" status.

Once your business is listed, you can receive reviews, both positive and negative. Therefore, you really don't have a choice about whether you want to use Yelp or not. You only have a choice of whether you want to pay or work to make Yelp useful for you or take a gamble that the reviews posted on Yelp will be damaging to your business.

Each star on Yelp is worth between a 5% and 9% increase in revenue for your business, according to one study, so it's probably worth your while to put some effort into your Yelp profile.

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Should You Ask for Reviews for Yelp?

It has long been recommended practice for businesses to ask satisfied customers to leave them a positive review on Yelp or another review site. After all, the more reviews you have, the less likely bad reviews will be to affect your reputation.

However, businesses being pushy about asking for reviews can have downsides. You may be more likely to get a negative review if your customers feel like they have to write it. Yelp may also be more likely to filter out such reviews. Yelp discourages you from encouraging customers to leave reviews.

In the end, the best compromise may be to gently encourage your customers to leave Yelp reviews and mention that you're listed there, but not go over the top creating incentives or get pushy about asking your customers to leave reviews.

Alternatives to Yelp

You really can't get away from Yelp. Your business will remain listed on Yelp as long as it is public and operational, and there's isn't much that you can do about it.

However, you can choose to limit your involvement with Yelp, ignore their attempts to encourage you to pay for additional advertising, and instead choose a viable alternative to build up reviews about your business.

  • TripAdvisor. This is a great way to make sure that anyone visiting your area checks out your business, but it can also be a good way to reach locals. Users can list and review your business on TripAdvisor and therefore recommend it to anybody else using this site and come up in search engines.
  • Foursquare. This site is very similar to Yelp, but they allow only brief business reviews and reviewers are rated more complexly based on how often they use the website and how involved they are.
  • Angie's List. This local business directory lets users put in a comprehensive review and grades companies like a report card on five important categories. You have to sign up for Angie's List, but because it lets you offer discounts and offers to your customers it may be worth it to you.
  • Google reviews. Google reviews are popular for Google enthusiasts and others as well. Because a real person's name is attached to it, reviews are sometimes more accurate and honest. Furthermore, photos can be attached. This is probably the most important review source anyway.

Get Yelp Help with Perfectly Optimized

Perfectly Optimized can help you to create and maintain a Yelp profile that will work for your business without having to give in to the high cost of advertising offered by Yelp. If you do want to pay for Yelp advertising, Perfectly Optimized can make the most out of every cent.

From setting up your profile, to responding to negative reviews, to encouraging positive reviews in the right way, Perfectly Optimized can help. We can also help with your overall online presence and gettting reviews - call us or use our Contact Form today!