Intro

There’s no doubt that more and more consumers are turning to review sites like

Yelp, Google+, Foursquare and others when looking for businesses in their area.

Because of this, the importance of review sites to business owners has increased

exponentially, but not everyone is taking advantage of the huge opportunities

presented by these sites.

However, the local businesses that do leverage these sites correctly can see an

increase in customers and revenue while those that don’t will only fall behind and

may even go out of business entirely.

This has left many local business owners very frustrated because while they know

the importance of these sites, they are often unsure of how to take advantage of

them and maximize their potential.

That’s where this guide comes in. It has been specifically developed to show local

business owners like you how to effectively and efficiently leverage sites like Yelp,

Google+ and others.

We are going to show you different strategies you can use to achieve 4 and 5 star

ratings across the web and dominate your competition.

The first thing we are going to go cover is just how important these sites are to

local businesses, because once you know the jaw dropping statistics behind

review sites you will be forced to take action.

There has been a lot of research on how review sites affect local businesses and

here are some of the most important findings.

1. A one star increase on Yelp can lead to a revenue increase of up to 9%.

2. 70% of people who read reviews share them with friends, family and

colleagues amplifying their importance.

3. 70% of consumers have consulted the online reviews of local businesses

before making a purchase decision.

4. 69% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal

recommendations.

5. Businesses with 50 or more reviews earn the most trust with consumers

while 70% of consumers say a minimum of 6-10 reviews is required to earn

any trust at all.

So what does all this mean? Online reviews matter and they matter a lot.

Okay, so now that we know how important online reviews are, where do we get

started?

Note* While this guide will focus primarily on Yelp, the tips and strategies we will

cover can easily be applied to other review sites. Here is a list of some of the

biggest review sites:

Yelp

Google+

Foursquare

Yellow Pages

Judy’s Book

Yahoo

City Search

Insider Pages

Part 1: Building the Foundation

Step 1: Claiming Your Listings

The absolute first thing you must do is claim your business listings. Claiming your

listings allows you to edit and update the information that is displayed on these

sites. You simply cannot leverage Yelp or any other review site without first

completing this step.

Surprisingly, a shocking 50% of businesses have yet to do this. But don’t worry if

you haven’t as were going to show you exactly what you need to do to get

started.

To claim your listing simply go to http://yelp.com and search for your business,

once you find your business listing it should look similar to this (hopefully with a

better rating).

In the red box you will see a button that says “Work Here? Claim This Business”

you want to click this. From there, just follow the steps to claim your listing. Once

you have claimed it, you will retain ownership of this Yelp page and be able to

edit it however you see fit.

If you cannot find your business listing then you need to set it up which can be

done here: https://biz.yelp.com/

Step 2: Bling Out Your Listing

Now that you have claimed your listing the next thing we want to do is fill it out

with all the proper information.

It’s important to think of a Yelp listing like a storefront that customers walk by

every day. Would you want trash outside your business? Would you want dirt on

the windows, chairs and tables? A broken sign on top of the building? No, of

course not!

Then why would you not take the time to properly fill out your Yelp listing? Your

Yelp listing is like your storefront, but online. This is why it’s so important to make

it look as professional as possible and represent your business in a positive light.

You absolutely have to take the time to fill it out properly. For many potential

customers, the only impression they will get about your business when making a

purchase decision will be the one they get from your Yelp page. The more you fill

it out, the less you are leaving to chance.

Here is some of the typical information you can put into your listings:

Hours of operation

Pictures- not just 1-2 low quality ones. Use high quality images that

represent your business professionally

Address

Phone number

About your business

And more

Note* Different review sites allow you to add different kinds of information. For

example, if you’re a restaurant, some sites will allow you to upload a menu while

others may not. Be sure to see what information you are able to post and be sure

to post it.

Once your listing has been filled out be sure have a friend or family member look

it over and ask them what they think. And Make sure to double check for any

typos or grammatical errors.

Step 3: Set Up a Yelp Deal

Now that we have our listing claimed and filled out with basic information we’re

going to take it one step further. The next thing we want to do is set up a Yelp

deal.

Here is an example of what a Yelp deal looks like.

Having a deal on Yelp does two very important things. First, in the search results

of Yelp you can see listings that have deals as seen in the image below. Because

not all businesses do this, having a deal show up in the Yelp search results will

help increase the number of customers that click through to your listing. Because

let’s face it, at the end of the day everyone likes a deal and an opportunity to save

money.

The next benefit is Yelp has a search filter that allows its users to only show

businesses that are offering a deal. Since most businesses don’t do this, when

users apply this filer your listing has a much better chance of showing up at the

top of Yelps search results.

Be creative when creating a deal and be sure to check out your competitors to see

what they are doing and for ideas on deals you can offer.

Step 4: Sell Gift Certificates

While it doesn’t make sense for all business types to sell gift certificates

(construction for example), there are many businesses where it makes perfect

sense to do this. If you already sell gift certificates, there’s simply no reason to not

offer them on Yelp as well. You’re only giving potential customers more reason to

come in and shop with you.

Now that you’ve completed these first 4 steps your listings should look

immaculate. The great part about this is once it’s done, it’s done, and you

shouldn’t have to come back to these steps very often, if ever.

Part 2: Maintaining Your Listings

The first part of this guide was primarily focused on the best way to set up your

Yelp account. The next part of this guide is going to be focused on maintaining

your listings properly.

Step 5: Monitor Your Listings

Monitoring your listings is very important because how can you expect to leverage

them if you don’t know what’s going on with them. You should be checking in on

all of your listings at least once every few days and preferably once a day for the

major ones (Yelp, Google+ etc). While this can be time consuming and a little

cumbersome it is an important first step to dominating Yelp (and other review

sites).

By checking your listings you will be able to see when new reviews come in and it

will give you a better overall idea on how your online reputation is doing.

If you want to save time there are services that allow you to monitor all your

listings from a single location.

Click here to check out one of our favorite review monitoring services.

Step 6: When a Customer Writes a Negative Review

No matter how hard you try you simply can’t please every customer and even the

greatest businesses get negative reviews from time to time. Sometimes it’s the

businesses fault, other times the customer could just be having a bad day. Either

way, it’s important to handle these negative reviews in a professional manner.

Here are some tips on how to handle negative reviews:

1. Don’t respond immediately.

Let’s face it, whenever someone bashes our business online it can be painful

and our initial response is to be defensive and often times angry. That’s why

it’s important to wait even just a few minutes after seeing a negative review

before responding. This time allows you to calm down and clear your head.

The last thing you want to do is respond to the review in all caps with

profanity.

2. Private message or public response?

Depending on the nature of the review it might be better to send a

message to the individual that left the review. Read their review over

carefully and think about how others will interpret it when viewing your

Yelp page. Sometimes a private message is the most appropriate response

to a negative review.

3. Address the reviewers issue in a calm, reasonable and professional manner.

Regardless of how true or false the review is you must remain polite and

respectful. Potential customers are going to see how you respond to this

person and that will give them an impression on how your business

operates.

Are you being rude and abrasive or polite and rational? Your goal here is to

address their concerns and discredit their assessment. Yelpers weren’t born

yesterday and most can spot an unreasonable and baseless rant when they

see one.

4. Make Amends

If there is any chance at saving the situation you can offer to remedy the

problem the customer had. Offer them a freebie of some sort or anything

else you think they might like. If you do this the customer might go back

and change their original review to one that’s more favorable to your

business.

Step 7: Checkout Your Competitors

Don’t be afraid to check out your competitors listings from time to time. This can

give you insight into how they are doing and help give you ideas on what you can

do better. As the saying goes “there’s no need to reinvent the wheel” so if you

see them doing something good feel free to copy it.

Part 3: Dominating Yelp

This is what you have all been waiting for. What are the steps you can take to get

your customers to leave positive reviews about your business? In this section we

are going to show you exactly how to get your customers to leave you good

reviews on a consistent basis.

In short, the best way to get Yelp reviews is pretty simple: ask for them! The only

problem is it’s easier said than done. But don’t worry, we’ve got your back and

are going to show you some of the easiest yet most effective ways to get your

customers to leave you reviews!

Step 8: Find Us!

The first thing you can do which requires pretty much zero effort is putting up a

“Find us on Yelp” sign in your location. They cost less than five bucks and it takes

less than five minutes to set up. Even if one customer every six months sees this

sign and decides to write a review it was worth it.

But if you really want to dominate Yelp you’re going to have to do more then put

up a “Find us on Yelp” sign.

Step 9: Review Pages

One of the most effective ways we’ve helped local businesses generate reviews

from their customers is through the use of a “review page”. Basically, a review

page is a page you set up on your website that is designed to spread positive

reviews around the web and keep negative reviews off of it.

Here is an example of a review page created using ORM Builder.

Your goal when creating a review page is to send as many customers as possible

to it. We will explain later how to send customers here, but first lets explain how

these pages work and why they are so great for local businesses.

An Unhappy Customer

When you send a customer to your review page they are given two choices, they

can click the happy face if they had a good experience or they can click the sad

face if they had a bad experience. Because it’s impossible to know which category

each customer falls into we have these two choices.

So let’s say your customer had a bad experience and they click the sad face. Once

they click the sad face they are shown a contact form they can fill out that goes

directly to you. To get a better idea and see a functioning review page click here.

This works great because by sending this unhappy customer to your review page

and having them fill out a contact form their frustration is expressed directly to

you instead of on sites like Yelp and Google.

To understand why this works so well it’s important to get in the head of an

unhappy customer. Typically when a customer has a bad experience at a business

they just want to be heard and express their frustration.

Without a review page their only option is to use review sites like Yelp to express

this frustration. But for local business owners that send their customers to a

review page, this customer now has an alternative to Yelp. And because the

business owner is in direct contact with the customer it gives them more options

to remedy the situation.

Another important note is negative feedback about your busin ess isn’t a bad

thing; it’s only a bad thing when it gets posted online. Having customers send you

negative feedback is a great way to get insight about your business, see problems

you didn’t know existed and to improve your products/services.

A Happy Customer

Now let’s go over what happens if your customer has a good experience. If they

have a good experience at your business they click the happy face and are shown

different review sites (chosen by you) where they can leave a review. Again, to

see a fully functioning review page click here.

This is great because it gives your customers a choice on where to leave their

feedback. Some customers prefer Yelp while others may prefer Google+, you

could never know, but by sending them to your review page you let them pick out

where they can leave their review.

To understand why this works so well it’s important to get in the head of a happy

customer. When a customer visits your business they expect good service.

Because of this expectation, when they receive good service they often don’t

think about leaving a review.

Think about it, when was the last time you received good service and the first

thing that came to your mind was to leave a good review online? But business

owners that drive their customers to a review page can get these customers that

otherwise wouldn’t leave a review to leave one.

Driving Customers to Your Review Page

The idea of a review page is great, but you’re probably wondering how to drive

customers to this page because they aren’t going to find it on their own.

As an example, let’s say you set up your review page on http://joe-

dentist.com/feedback There are a few different ways we can send customers to

your page now.

The first is review cards. A review card is simply a postcard or business card you

hand to your customer at some point during their visit that prompts them to go to

your review page.

Here is an example of one:

Simply create something similar to this and hand it to your customer. It can be

when you give them their bill, when they are leaving your building or you can

even send it by mail, just make sure they know your review page exists. You can

even add your review page URL to the bottom of your receipts.

Review cards work great because they give your customer a specific, actionable

step they can take to leave you feedback and because you have a review page it

doesn’t matter whether it’s positive or negative feedback.

Another way to send customers to this page is through social media. You can post

a Facebook status, a tweet or something else.

As you can see, a review card paired with a review page is without a doubt the

most powerful and effective way to spread positive reviews to Yelp and other

review sites while keeping negative reviews offline. Imagine if you hand out just 5

review cards a day, that’s 150 per month and even if only a small percentage of

your customers leave you reviews it adds up over time.

If you’re looking for an easy way to set up your own review page we recommend

using ORM Builder as you can create one with literally the click of a button.

Step 10: Emailing Your Customers

Another way to get your customers to leave you a positive review is to email

them asking for one. While not all businesses are able to collect their customers

email addresses, for the ones that do this is often an overlooked option.

Simply send them an email and attach links to your business listings inside.

Another reason we like ORM Builder is they have a built in emailer that allows you

to send emails to dozens of your customers and insert links to your listings

automatically. Below is an example email created and sent through their emailer.

Part 4: Other Thoughts

Buying fake reviews

Every business owner has probably thought of it and maybe even some you have

done it but we highly recommend avoiding this at all costs. It simply isn’t worth it.

Because Yelps main selling point is the authenticity and trust of its reviews they

fight tooth and nail to protect this.

They are getting much better at finding fake reviews and at punishing those that

buy them. Take a look at the image below to see what can happen to your listing

if you are caught buying fake reviews:

The last thing you want is for this alert to show up on your listing. It will literally

kill any chance you have of getting customers off Yelp.

Even worse than this alert is getting sued by Yelp. Yup you heard that correctly,

Yelp has even sued people that have purchased fake reviews for their business. So

no matter what people have told you, it is best to avoid purchasing Yelp reviews

no matter what.

The Yelp Filter

The Yelp filter can frustrate business owners because sometimes legitimate, 5 star

reviews are filtered from their listing. While you can’t do anything to un-filter

these results it’s good to at least get an idea of how these filters work.

Basically, all major review sites like Yelp have algorithms that automatically filter

reviews they deem fake. Because they can’t check every review on every listing

manually they need an automatic way to filter out what they believe are fake

reviews.

Here are some of the ways in which Yelp decides which reviews might be filtered

From users who have written only one review

From users that have little to no profile information

Questionable objectivity- reviews that are strongly slanted positively or

negatively

Short reviews with few details

Reviews written by friends, staff members or other unreliable sources

Reviews where it looks like the reviewer has not actually been to the

location

While it can be frustrating dealing with the Yelp filter the best thing to do is to

generate a constant flow of positive reviews for your business. While some

reviews may be filtered, most of them will get through because they are real

reviews coming from real customers.

Conclusion:

Every day you aren’t working to dominate Yelp and other review sites is another

day lost. Because there is so much potential to grow your business on these sites

and make more money don’t put off following the steps in this guide to a later

date.

Go ahead and get started: claim your listings, fill them out with the proper

information, make sure they look as good as possible and be sure to monitor

them on a daily basis.

When all this is done its time to start dominating and beating your competition.

Start using review cards and a review page, start emailing your customers and

don’t be afraid to think outside the box for other unique ways you can get your

customers to leave you reviews.

At the end of the day, if you want to dominate Yelp and other sites it’s going to

take a little time and effort. But hey, you already own a business so there’s really

no reason not to get started. So go ahead, take action and grow your business.

If you’re looking for the easiest way to do this we recommend checking out

ORM Builder by clicking here.