Everything you need to know about using Yelp to get more reviews for your business.
Leverage Your Customer Experiences
Yelp is a leader among online review sites
How can I get Yelp reviews for my business?
If you’re familiar with reading online reviews for businesses then you are very aware of Yelp. Yelp reviews are powerful and as a business owner, you should know how much consumer influence your Yelp rating holds when it comes to your online reputation. Yelp is a powerful factor when it comes to influencing consumer behaviors and ultimately whether or not consumers make the decision to choose your business or potentially one of your competitors.
Your business’ Yelp profile and Yelp reviews can play a large role in whether or not your business stands out to consumers looking for your products or services. Businesses with a high volume of positive Yelp reviews will win more business than those with less positive or low volume.
GET FOUND
Your Yelp star rating could be the only factor some consumers consider
Whether you’re just starting out on Yelp, or are have an established profile and following, the information below will help position you with everything you need to know about getting more Yelp reviews and better managing your Yelp reviews to grow your business.
Having more Yelp reviews is an important factor, the data backs it up.
According to data that has been shared by Yelp, there were over 224 million reviews written for businesses on the Yelp platform at the end of 2020 and they show no signs of slowing the pace of growth. Additionally, over 31 million unique devices visited Yelp in 2020, those visitors go to Yelp via a mobile or desktop device. Those 31 million devices are going to read your online reviews and use them as the basis for their decision to do business with you.
Facebook’s review system is unique, since it’s one of the few review sites on the Internet that doesn’t use the overall star rating system.
While Facebook had used the overall star rating for many years, in 2018, the social media giant decided to switch to a binary system. Instead of recommending your business out of 5 stars, customers now have just two options to rate your business: Recommend or Don’t Recommend. All of your old reviews are factored in as part of your Recommendation Score. This score takes into account your old reviews posted under the overall review rating as well as the ratio of customers who would recommend your business.
In its early days, Facebook had a proprietary algorithm called EdgeRank which determined what content showed up on users’ News Feed. The algorithm was based on three factors:
Affinity measures how much the user has interacted with your page in the past. The more they interact with the page, the more likely it is that you’ll show up in their News Feeds.
Weight measures the importance of each different interaction. Facebook sees some interactions as more important than others. For example, a review with a photo or a video is a more important interaction than a plain-text review.
Time Decay
this factor measures how long ago the customer’s interaction with your business took place. The more time passes, the less importance EdgeRank gives to the interaction.
Facebook’s proprietary algorithm has gotten more and more complicated over the years. However, these three factors of affinity, weight, and time decay still hold great importance in determining what shows up in users’ News Feeds. Facebook reviews affect two of these three factors: affinity and weight. That means the more reviews your business gets, the greater the likelihood of potential customers discovering your Facebook profile.
Want to collect more recommendations on Facebook? Here’s how you can get started.
Make the Process Simple and Easy
The harder the process of leaving a review is for the customer, the less likely they are to actually do it. A happy customer might say they’re willing to leave a review in person but might forget to do it as soon as they leave your store. After all, who has time to go and find your business’s Facebook page? Luckily, there’s a way to make the process quick and easy for the customer. Just send review requests email and texts that link directly to your Facebook business page. All the customer has to do is click the link and leave a review.
Timing is everything
To get the best results, make sure that you’re sending review requests on a regular basis. We’ve found that businesses get the best results when they send review requests on the same day as when a customer interacts with your business. If a customer gets a review request a month after the transaction took place, they may no longer have a clear memory of the sale. In this case, chances are that even your most satisfied customers may not write a review for your business.
Ask All of Your Customers for Recommendations
Some businesses are tempted to only ask a certain group of customers for reviews, who they know they think probably leave a positive review. When you are selective with review requests, you only end up hurting your business. You’re missing out on sending review requests to customers who probably would’ve recommended your business. You’re also missing the opportunity to get honest feedback that can help you improve your business. So make sure you’re sending review requests to all of your customers.
Customers expect responses to their reviews. This is a great way to show that your business is willing to listen to the problems of each individual customer. A study by Harvard Business Review showed that when businesses respond to all their customer reviews, they typically see more reviews and a higher overall star rating.
Here’s how you can respond to a Facebook recommendation.
1. Find the review that you want to respond to within the Reviews tab on your Facebook business page.
2. Comment on the review the same way that you would comment on one of your friend’s Facebook posts.
Here’s how you can respond to positive Facebook reviews.
• Thank the customer for the feedback- A “thank you” can go a long way in showing your appreciation and building customer loyalty.
• Keep it short and sweet- Responding to a positive review is should be short and sweet. There’s no reason to turn it into a long essay.
• Encourage the customer to come back- Leave a short note to show the customer you’d be happy to serve them again. This can be as simple as “We hope to see you soon!”
Here’s how you can respond to negative Facebook reviews.
• Apologize for the bad experience- The first step is simply saying “Sorry”. Show the customer that you regret their negative experience.
• Be polite- A bad review can be frustrating, but avoid the urge to lash out. It’s important to be polite because other customers are looking at your review responses to see what kind of service they can expect from you.
• Ask the customer to contact you directly- Provide a phone number or an email so that the customer can contact you. That way, any potential back and forth will not be in public view. Plus, if you’re able to resolve the problem in a private setting, there’s a good chance the customer can be persuaded to edit or even delete their original review.
Manually sending review requests every day is hard. With all the work that goes into running a business, it can be pretty much impossible. There’s just no time to sit down and manually send a review text or email to every customer who walked through your store on a given day.
Luckily, there’s still a way for your business to get lots of new reviews on Google. Instead of sending review requests manually, you can send review requests automatically with an online reputation management system like Ranked Brain. We can integrate with Customer Relationship Management system, sending review requests to customers at the end of every business day. You can start getting a steady stream of online customer reviews without having to lift a finger.
