Why Yelp.com Can Be A Business Owners Best Friend
We all like to be complimented for a job well done. It not only feels good, it also helps spur us on to continue performing. Best of all, compliments from satisfied customers are some of the best advertisements a business can hope for. What better way to let the world know how well the company is doing than by publicizing good compliments on our company website?
But like everything else, praise needs to be transparent to be truly effective. When someone says something nice to you on your birthday, do you wonder if the compliment was sincere? While the compliment might be genuine, it might also be someone being nice “because it’s your birthday.” For the same reasons, it’s hard to give testimonials on a company website a lot of weight. While they might be correct, how can we really trust a nice compliment we find on a company website? Yelp.com is a website that can help address this issue.
What Yelp.com is: Yelp.com is a website that allows users to search for and then rave, rate, and critique a business. The possibilities are endless. You can review your favorite bookstore, favorite restaurant, even your family doctor. But Yelp.com is more than a simple review website – it’s also a social networking site where people can make friends, compare favorites businesses, and more. While Yelp.com originally became well-known as a source of accurate restaurant reviews, it is becoming a haven for reviews on just about any type of consumer oriented company.
Why Yelp.com is important: Yelp is experiencing phenomenal growth ? according to QuantCast.com, they’ve almost doubled in popularity between between October 2008 and March 2009. In March 2009, Yelp.com had more than 5.9 million visitors. Nuff’ said.
Why Yelp works: Yelp.com is successful because it’s more than just a review site, it’s a social network where you can evaluate both businesses AND reviewers. If I read a review on Yelp that I like, with one click I can see what the reviewer has had to say about other businesses too. I can read all of this person’s reviews and decide if they’re someone I want to trust. This feature is what separates Yelp from the pack.
How Yelp.com can help your business: Many people are using Yelp to find places to do business, and you can add your business (including a link to your website) to Yelp’s directory free of charge. But free advertising is just the beginning – if your business listing on Yelp.com has some positive reviews, you can expect some new customers. Finally, you can link to your Yelp profile and show potential clients that you’ve earned some good reviews on an independent and reputable website.
How Yelp.com can hurt you: Bad reviews, of course. Reviews aren’t moderated on Yelp, so if an unhappy customer leaves you a scathing review, you’ll have to deal with it. Yelp does give you a chance to respond to reviews, however, so make the most of it. Be honest if your business made a mistake, and do your best to fix the problem for the future. Take the high road no matter what you do when responding to a bad review.
Now that you know the low down on Yelp.com, it’s time to get started on your company’s Yelp profile.
