Given the popularity of Yelp, it is no surprise that business owners are looking for shortcuts on how to get Yelp reviews.
However, trying to trick Yelp or buying fake reviews can lead to opposite results than what you desire.
This article cuts to the chase and teaches simple strategies and tips to get good Yelp reviews and improve online popularity.
Does it sound interesting?
Before diving into how to get Yelp reviews, here are three statistics that tell you why this review platform is vital for your business.
Data confirms what could be intuitively imagined.
Yelp is an excellent way for businesses to get customer feedback and grow their reputation online. Therefore, getting a 4-star or 5-star rating can transform your business performance.
Let’s start.
How To Get Yelp Reviews That Respect Yelp’s Policy
Yelp is a viral website where people can write reviews about businesses and share their experiences.
To understand how to get Yelp reviews, look at Yelp’s policy to learn the game’s rules.
Regardless of your tactics to get good Yelp reviews, your initiatives should follow Yelp’s review guidelines.
The good news is that being compliant with Yelp is more straightforward than being compliant with the IRS. It can be summarized in two points:
- Do not ask for reviews. According to Yelp, you should never ask for a review. They should flow organically on their platform. Although it is hard to imagine how Yelp can enforce such a rule, you should refrain from asking directly for reviews from your customer.
- Do not offer anything in exchange. A common technique to get more reviews is to offer something in exchange. Popular methods include discounts, vouchers, coupons, and so on. However, Yelp considers such a practice unfair, and you might see your business profile on Yelp damaged.
Quoting Yelp’s guideline: “Yelp’s recommendation software is designed to highlight reviews from people who want to share their genuine experiences—without being asked or tempted.”
Pretty simple. This verbiage about being tempted means you should avoid trying to buy Yelp reviews. If you are looking to buy fake Yelp reviews, you will encourage the platform to flag your page for breaking guidelines.
With that said, let’s find out how to get Yelp reviews and grow your popularity online.
How To Get Yelp Reviews: The 3 Factors That Matter
The first step to learning how to get Yelp reviews is understanding what affects your customer’s experience with your business.
After you know what is affecting your customer’s experience, you can analyze any component and establish which areas need improvement.
Typically, there are three broad areas worth considering:
- Quality of Product
- Quality of Service
- Business Location
Let’s have a quick look at all of them.
How To Get Positive Reviews on Yelp? Start With the Basic
This is as simple as making 2 + 2.
Your core product is a crucial component for your business to succeed and, thus, is what you must consider getting positive reviews on Yelp. If you fail to produce a quality product, customers will be dissatisfied and reluctant to share their experiences.
Therefore, to get Yelp reviews, ensure your main product or service meets your customer’s expectations.
How To Get More Yelp Reviews? Consider the Whole Experience
When getting more Yelp reviews, quality of service is vital.
Quality of service might include anything in your venue that affects your customer’s experience but is not your product. For example, if you own a restaurant, you want to be sure that the atmosphere is welcoming and in line with the expectations of your guests.
Regardless of your business, customers should feel like they’re your top priority from the moment they step in the door. You might get the opposite effect if they’re not; they’ll take to Yelp to voice their displeasure.
Be sure to take care of everything, even the little details.
Location, Location, Location
One of the critical factors for a business to succeed is its location. The surrounding area and how convenient it is to reach your venue will inevitably affect foot traffic and sales.
For example, if you own a coffee shop, you are better to be located next to the subway exit than in some secluded corner. Unfortunately, you can’t relocate your business efficiently. Nonetheless, you can make sure it is easy to find your venue (start by
taking care of your business page on Google Maps.)
The more traffic you get, the more likely you will get good reviews on Yelp.
How To Get Yelp Reviews: 5 Basic Tactics
The following is a list of tips to help you get Yelp reviews. You don’t need to use them all. Pick the strategies that suit your business more.
1. Make Your Customers Aware
How can you get Yelp reviews without asking?
The answer is by making your customers aware of your presence on Yelp.
As we mentioned above, asking for reviews is against Yelp’s policy. Therefore, the primary alternative is to inform them of your presence on the platform.
You can quickly implement these actions to make your customers aware and get good Yelp reviews:
- Add a link to your website that brings users straight to your Yelp business page.
- Promote your Yelp business page on any social you own and in your email marketing initiatives. Look into the best email marketing software at your restaurant.
- Use Yelp branding in-store and printed media (business cards, brochures, menus, flyers, etc.)
The actions above are the go-to way to get more reviews on Yelp. If you intend to use printed media, read Yelp’s guidelines for using logos and ratings.
2. Respond To Existing Reviews
Although it might seem time-consuming, responding to reviews is a fantastic way to strengthen your relationship with your existing customers and defend your business from fake reviews.
In turn, this will encourage users to take the time to write about your venue, and getting Yelp reviews will be a consequence.
What to do so?
But, for every positive review you receive. It would help if you thanked people for their feedback. Always respond to the customer feedback you receive.
To simplify your life, get software that helps you manage all your reviews in one place, even if they have multiple sources (e.g., Google, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Yelp, and more.)
3. Update Your Business Page
If you want to get Yelp reviews, keep your page up to date and use all the tools Yelp provides.
It would help if you always remembered that people use Yelp to gather information about your business, including reviews. Therefore, providing updated information on Yelp is the first step to providing a good experience with your business. Moreover, users who found your company through Yelp are likelier to leave your business a review because they already use that platform.
You can also leverage Yelp Check-in Offers. These are special offers made to users when they broadcast their presence at your venue.
This tactic is simple: You have to talk to Yelp users to get more Yelp reviews.
4. Show Your Best Reviews
Another way a business can get Yelp reviews is by showing the existing ones.
These reviews will be your best testimonials. They will prove to those who still need to review your business that you consider your business reputation online. This will likely lead to more people writing a review on Yelp, especially if their experience was great (as it should be.)
There are multiple ways to show off your best reviews.
For example, you can print the best ones and hang them somewhere visible in your venue. However, the best channel for doing so is social media.
Social media is the perfect platform to share your reviews because you can:
- Do it with a simple screenshot
- Reach thousands of people
- Immediately bringing users to your Yelp business page
5. Use Advertisements on Yelp
Yelp provides business owners various tools to promote businesses and turn users into customers. Moreover, you can use paid marketing campaign advertisements to make your Yelp page stand out and get more reviews. This is a great advantage as these advertisements directly hit Yelp’s users, who are ready to make a spending decision.
However, it would help if you used Yelp ads following their guidelines; thus, you can’t ask for a review.
One of the best tools is the Yelp Call to Action. It’s designed to drive an action directly from your Yelp business page (for example, making an order or printing a coupon.)
These offers have the advantage of appearing to users who are ready to make a spend. Wisely pick which action you want to promote.
Alternatively, you can use Yelp’s Deals and Certificates, different vouchers users can get and use to purchase goods/services at your business.
The main advantage of these tools is that they are native to Yelp’s platform and directly hit the Yelp user base.
They can generate Yelp leads and drive sales and reviews when used properly.
How To Get Yelp To Remove a Review
Sometimes, you might encounter reviews that you consider unfair or fabricated. Unfortunately, fake reviews are common nowadays; therefore, knowing how to get Yelp to remove a review can be helpful.
To get Yelp to remove a specific review, you must ensure it breaks Yelp’s guidelines. Therefore, you have to gather evidence that sustains your points. Then, you can report it to Yelp and wait for their evaluation. A Yelp review removal service should only work to flag and report reviews for assessment. Like Google policy and their process to remove bad Google reviews, Yelp cannot promise they can remove negative reviews.
However, sometimes you need help finding evidence, or Yelp dismisses your claims. Therefore, your best strategy is often responding to negative reviews while making your points evident.
The worst thing that can happen with reviews is to leave them unanswered.
Even if a review is unfair, responding to it clarifies that you care about and stand for your business. In most cases, genuine users will appreciate your effort to protect your brand and business.
Additionally, if you get good Yelp reviews, bad reviews will seem natural and make all your thoughts more trustworthy.
Getting Yelp Reviews Is Easy if You Know How To Do It
Yelp is one of the most popular review platforms, and you want to leverage your presence. Getting reviews on Yelp can help your business thrive through more discovery. Take your time focusing on Yelp alone. In other ways, there are compelling apps for modern restaurant owners to support their businesses. Look into the best review websites for small business for even greater impact. Remember to underestimate the power of Google. Add your business to Google Maps for greater visibility. Learning will help you grow the profitability of your business.
You can get the most out of Yelp and other reviews platforms by using Beambox and managing your thoughts in one place.
But there’s more.
Within our client base of over 3,000 venues, Beambox uses WiFi marketing solutions to grow social media pages. Gather information about customers to offer customized ervices, and improve ratings on online ranking platforms (such as Yelp) through real-time customer reviews.
Do you want to learn more? Start your Beambox free trial now.
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