Take Good Referrals to the Bank with Yelp.com

Online marketing has been changing and expanding rapidly over the last 10 years, and that’s truer than ever this year. In our web services practice, we are seeing clients decreasing or eliminating their yellow pages ads and embracing their websites. People who thought they’d never need or want a website are preparing to roll out their new sites!

Online searching has been growing, and has really become the norm. When people need a service or a product, they Google it – in fact, the majority of people who use Google.com at all use it at least ten times a month.

Now, most people are still getting personal referrals for the big stuff...personal, highly skilled, expensive service providers such as contractors, orthodontists, or lawyers aren’t generally selected for their websites. Personally, I don’t invest in those services without a referral…but I'm also using online resources – including websites – to learn more about anyone I’m considering doing business with.

I’ve noticed that in 2008 that consumer review sites like Yelp.com have come of age, and are dominating search engine returns. These sites are super-relevant to some of my service clients who have a store or do business with the public. They are less relevant to clients who have consulting or infoguru-kind-of-practices.

Read on to learn the good - and the possible bad - of sites like Yelp.com

Rheingold's Flowers (not their real name) asked me to improve their search engine ranking. I did a variety of Google searches for the business to see how they came up with different relevant keywords. Sometimes their site didn’t come up at all, but every time I searched sites like yelp.com dominated the list – usually coming up first. I took a look at their reviews on yelp.com, and they had 10 negative reviews! Ouch! And not very accurate, either…I would know, because I’m a client of this florist, and I also happen to know other people who use them and love them.

Concerned for my client, I went to two other consumer review sites and looked at the reviews. The other two sites for this same clients have great reviews. Hmmm. I wondered whether one or two bad reviews had attracted more bad reviews. I even wondered if the same person might have posted all of the bad reviews. And, I noticed that most of the reviews didn’t focus on the main service (the floral arrangements themselves), but rather on fairly minor elements of customer service and store set-up.

You can see how Yelp.com could work against your business - even if you’re great at what you do. So it’s essential, if you own a local retail or service business that serves the general public, that you act pro-actively to make review sites your own.

In case you aren’t familiar with yelp.com, it allows consumers to set up a free account, and use that account to review local businesses. There are many sites like yelp.com, such as tribe.com (which focuses on nightlife), sanfrancisco.citysearch.com and oakland.com (which is a directory of businesses without reviews).

Coincidentally, Yelp.com has come up in many conversations I’ve had with business owners this month. I also know of businesses that are getting a lot of business from yelp.com. For example, a woman I spoke with at a networking function says she gets the bulk of her business (she applies permanent make-up) from yelp.com.

Seeing the new popularity of sites like yelp.com - and the dangers these sites can pose - makes me urge you to go see if yelp.com comes up when you Google yourself. Also, go directly to yelp.com and see if you are listed and how your listing has been handled. Explore the site by looking at listings for other businesses you know.

If yours is a consumer service or retail service, I recommend you sign up with yelp.com. Ask a colleague who is also a client of yours to list you...and write the first recommendation. Then you do the same for another colleague-client. Don’t exchange reviews...Instead use a circle of reviewers so everyone in your circle gets the initial review they need. Then ask a few clients if they’d review your business on yelp.com. It wouldn’t be ethical to pay them to do this, though you could certainly do them a nice favor a month or two later in appreciation.

You want to claim sites like Yelp.com as your own by having your long-term, true, blue clients write about you first. I also recommend that you review your site monthly and update your content (something I wrote about recently), and then Google yourself, your business and your keywords each month to see where and how you are listed.