Getting started with Yelp-- Real People, Real Reviews

Yelp.com is a useful platform for anyone looking for good places or shops of any type in any city, especially restaurants and shopping centers, since the site has more reviews of these two types than any other. It fascinates largely to youngsters, copious, female crowd. It also comprises of map websites, directories/guide websites and regional or local news site.

Yelp is an easy way to find, review and talk about what is in demand and what is not. You always take your friend's recommendations on finding good restaurants, hotels, parlors etc. and this is what Yelp does. It collates different views and suggestions in one convenient place which enables your search to be fast and easy.

Yelp's strategy is simple: Make people know the business, and get their reviews. The more buzz, the easier it is for businesses to attract new patrons, and the better positive feedback Yelp.com receives from businesses.

For growing business, which rely on For small businesses, which rely on good word of mouth, a negative review could be especially damaging. Yelp, which is supported by advertisements from businesses, has been more reluctant to open its site, although a year ago it began letting owners privately message users and gave them the ability to update their businesses' profiles.

How Yelp.com can help your business
People are using Yelp.com to find a platform to do business because yelp allows you to add your business along with the link of your website to its directory at a free cost. But free advertising is just the beginning - if your business listing on Yelp.com has some positive reviews, you can expect some new customers. Of course, you can also 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 your business
Of course bad/ negative reviews!!!Yelp does not moderate the reviews. So, if any dissatisfied customer leaves a scathing review, it can damage your profile. But you can reply back to the negative review received. Be honest with your replies. If your business made a mistake, accept it and do your best to never repeat it again in the future.

How to get traffic from Yelp.com

Make yourself present on Yelp: Firstly, join any club and browse the Yelp directory to check your business listings. If it appears in the listing, then create your business profile and if it does not exist, then create it. This would help the visitors to come to your site.

Get Yelping: Browse through Yelp and find your favorite store, hang-out, apparels etc. Spend some good time yelping so that you know about Yelp community. Read reviews that others have left for your favorite store or appliance just to get an idea of what yelping is.

Get yourself reviewed: You will start getting reviews once your business is listed. One good approach would be to ask your family and friends to make positive comments on your profile. But this should be done carefully because Yelp's system deletes reviews that seem "abnormal".

To ensure that the comments given by your friends and family do not get deleted, follow some steps listed below:

Yelp.com stands against "spam". Be active in Yelp. Your comment is bound to get deleted if you do not behave like the regular users i.e. Visiting the site once in 3-4 months, only leaving positive comments etc. Also keep your customers updated with recent offers and announcements.

Build a good profile: Take time to create a professional, interesting and informative profile. Simply providing your business hours and stating your products would not prove worthy.

Choose appropriate businesses: Keep in touch with different communities. Help others in their business. You can add up to 5 other businesses regardless of their relation with you or your business. Choose the 5 links wisely -concentrate more on quality. Recognize active Yelpers that have more ability to help you rather than your family and friends.

Involve customer feedback: Encourage your customers to review your service. Inform your customers about the listing of your business on Yelp.com. Customers who like your service will surely jump at the chance to sing to your praises. Place a sign on your door, a note in your menu, or a blurb in your next customer newsletter.

Build up your network: Your profile gets better when you have a good network of friends. You can exchange feedback with other businesses in your network. Utilize all the useful resources of yelp.

Challenges with Yelp

Betrays its own privacy policies: In one example quoted by the linked article, a business owner was told by telemarketers that if she paid $300, reviews can be rearranged where the negative reviews would be essentially placed below. However, Yelp doesn't actually allow that.

Shady Operation: Yelp.com's employees may even have a hand in writing bad reviews for local businesses to encourage them to purchase into the paid program.

Good little moneymaking business: Yelp allows changes to the negative comments received by any business , if they pay Yelp something in return.

"Talk" discussions are out of control: By design Yelp, Inc. encourages un-moderated personal attacks as a form of entertainment and refuses to provide any control of user "talk" comments. Yelp does not take any strict action against inappropriate comments. Users who send personal emails to help@yelp.com do not get "helped."

To sum up, over 25 million people access Yelp's website each month, putting it in the top 100 of U.S. Internet website. People can share their positive and negative reviews as well as recommendations based on a particular domain related to restaurant, hotels, cafeteria, apparels etc. It can promote a business with positive reviews as well as ruin it too with negative comments.