Yelp For Business Owners - Seven Steps For Yelp Success

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: Get your business on the list. Start by registering on Yelp.com and searching the directory for a listing for your business. If you find one, claim it and set up your business' profile. If you don't find a profile, you can also create one. The best part? It's free.

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 reviewed. After getting listed, a lot of business owners are tempted to email their close friends and business partners and ask them for a friendly Yelp review. While there's certainly nothing wrong with this - in fact, I highly recommend it - Yelp.com has a system for deleting these types of reviews if you're not careful.

Yelp.com's software automatically deletes reviews that appear "spammy", which is to say that users with only one review to their name generally have their reviews deleted after a few weeks have passed. So when you ask your friends and relatives to register on Yelp and leave a review, ask them to use Yelp in a natural manner. Ask them to take the time to leave half a dozen reviews on Yelp over the course of a week or two before reviewing your business - this will help to make sure their reviews aren't deleted.

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: Be active in the community. Your business profile allows you to recommend 5 other businesses. While it's most logical to recommend the businesses of your own acquaintances, it's actually a better practice to use your recommendations wisely and recognize other active Yelpers who would might reciprocate with a link or a good review.

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. Networking is both fun and easy. You can exchange great feedback with other businesses. Utilize all of Yelps resources to the hilt. Gain more friends, and get them to have a taste of what your business can offer. Your profile is made all the better when you have a good network of friends on Yelp.com.

Getting on the Yelp.com bandwagon now while it's steadily growing can lead to more customers (and more business) for years to come. Participate, get those positive reviews, and grow your business with Yelp!

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