3 Ways Yelp is Helping or Hurting Your Business

So, you’re the best — you know you’re the best– and you want EVERYONE ELSE to know you’re the best! But nobody likes a person who always self-promotes, and most people who yell “I’m the expert” disqualify themselves  from the very thing they claim to have mastered.

So how do you determine where the REAL experts are? How can you find the trusted source? Many people have turned to “customer reviews,” because we can trust our peers. After all, they have nothing to gain when writing about a positive or negative experience.

That’s why businesses like Yelp have become so popular. Yelp is one of the most respected online review sites, and continues to grow in popularity. IPhone took notice of this trend and began to incorporate Yelp in their products back in 2011. Now Siri, “the personal assistant” on iPhones, uses Yelp to find and locate local businesses.

According to House Hunt, Marci James, Social Media Manager of Obeo stated that 28% of people conduct searches for brokers and real estate agents on their mobile devices. Why is this important fact important to you?

Anytime someone with an iPhone says “Siri, find me a restaurant in Danville,” Siri find me a gas station near Livermore, or more importantly “Siri find me a Realtor,” it relies on Yelp’s results. So if you are NOT on Yelp, you WON’T come up on Siri’s results, and you could potentially LOSE a client!

To ensure this does not happen to you,  follow these 3 simple steps:

1- Make sure your local business is listed on Yelp. If  it is not you can go to their business center and sign up. If you are listed but your business is unclaimed, check the claim local business link and claim your business. 

2- Once your account is claimed or created, you will be assigned to a local geographical representative who will contact you to verify your business. Go through with the verification process to have your business listed.

3- Once your business is verified on Yelp, you will have the opportunity to respond publicly and privately to customer comments and reviews.

*Please Note* DO NOT encourage your client’s to leave reviews if they are not already regular Yelpers! Why not? Because there is a possibility Yelp will remove their review. If your business continually receives reviews from “non-Yelpers” it could be tagged  as a ” Yelp Spammer” which will negatively effect the ranking of your business within Yelp results, and keep you from showing up in the first place.

Conclusion:

As a Realtor, if you are not already on Yelp , it’s time to sign up. Not just because you want a “thumb’s up, from your customers, but because doing so could positively affect your bottom line, and ignoring this service could mean the loss of business. To see a short video on SEO and Yelp click here:

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Charde' Henderson

Born and raised In the San Francisco Bay Area, Charde' Henderson developed an appreciation for the real estate industry at an early age. Her father, a real estate investor, would take her around every Sunday to visit homesin luxury home markets such as Blackhawk, Danville, Alamo and Diablo. It was there her understanding of the housing industry began. After high school, Charde' studied real estate, and later on received a Bachelors Degree in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. She has worked with some of the leading pioneers in social media marketing, and uses her educational and professional training to act as HomeFolio Media's Content Strategist& S.E.O Manager. Charde' currently resides in Pleasanton, CA.

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