Yelp.com is a popular business review website enjoying tremendous growth. Quantcast.com, which tracks website popularity, has found that Yelp.com’s traffic has doubled in the period between October 2008 and March 2009. With such rapid growth in popularity, it’s obvious that Yelp.com that can be beneficial for the promotion of your business now and in the future. Here’s how you go about using Yelp.com to your advantage:

Step One: Join the club. Browse the Yelp directory for your business listing. If it’s already listed, time to create your business profile. If a listing is not found, then it’s time to make one. This will help send visitors to your site.

Step Two: Begin Yelping. Set aside an hour a day each week to get used to how Yelp works. Get a feel of Yelp.com by reviewing a favorite bookstore or coffee shop. Get more perspective by reading other reviews by your fellow Yelpers.

Step Three: Get ready for feedback. After joining Yelp, it is essential that you have your friends and colleagues post positive comments for others to see. Be careful with these solicited comments, though, since Yelp.com has a system in place that’s pretty effective at deleting “solicited” comments. Here’s how it works:

Yelp users who only post a single review will probably have their review deleted in pretty short order. Yelp.com’s system automatically tags these types of reviews - good or bad - as “spam.” So if you want the good reviews from your friends and family to “stick,” ask them to post several reviews on other businesses first before leaving a comment on yours. This ensures that their feedback will always be there, and it makes them look like natural Yelpers.

Step Four: Build a good profile. Many business owners are too busy to take the time to create a good, interesting, and informative Yelp.com profile, yet that’s exactly what they should do to be successful. Simply providing your business hours and listing off your products won’t do.

Step Five: Keep in touch with the community. You can always help others in business. Yelp allows each business profile to link to 5 other businesses, regardless if they’re related to your business or not. It’s best to choose your five links wisely. Quality should come first, and it’s smart to recognize active Yelpers (who have more ability to help you) instead of just friends and family.

Step Six: Solicit customer reviews. The best people who can review your business on Yelp are your customers, so let them know at every opportunity that you’re now listed on Yelp and that you’d appreciate their review. Put a quick sign over your cash register, write a short blurb about it your newsletter, etc. Your happiest customers always want to help you.

Step Seven: Network. It doesn’t get any simpler - network with other business owners and exchange good reviews. You should also take advantage of Yelp’s social network. When you see a good review from someone, become a fan. By building a network of friends on Yelp.com, you’ll maintain a good profile.

Yelp.com is one tool that you can use to generate revenue for your business. All it takes to attract more customers is an solid profile, good feedback, and top quality. As Yelp grows, your business will grow too.

Tags: Advertising, advertising online, Internet advertising, Internet Marketing, marketing, online marketing

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 7:19 am and is filed under Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.