Have You Yelped Lately?

It’s a shame how many business owners, namely those behind smaller enterprises, discount the impact that a Yelp listing can actually have on their online search engine campaign as well as their visibility to local audiences.

All too frequently, Yelp gets dismissed as a forum for people to post complaints about businesses. In reality, it has grown into much more of an online presence.

Much like in my earlier post about how social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are the often overlooked “low hanging fruit” of the traffic quest, Yelp presents another free and easy opportunity to bring hits to your website.

Take a quick look at the figures surrounding this site’s prominence and success: as of June 2011, Yelp has been receiving approximately 53 million visitors per month, and is ranked as one of the top 15 visited sites in the United States. More people use it to search on and find businesses than to post reviews. Also, Yelp’s predominant demographic isn’t exactly an unappealing niche: a majority of users are 18 to 34 years of age and make 60K or more.

The important question is, how do you get in on this to grow your visibility?

The simple answer is to locate or find your listing and keep it optimized and updated. Typical Yelp users will click on a maximum of three listings before they make a decision. If yours only contains vague, minimal details it won’t even show up to them as an option. First, search on your company’s name and location to see if it already had an entry; if it does, claim it as the owner, if it doesn’t create one.

Add your accurate business address, making certain to specify its city as this will aid your local SEO.

Then, add more specifics like hours of operation, contact information, your hyperlinked website URL, and photos.

There is also a feature that allows you to easily list special offers and sales so they are instantly noticeable to prospective customers. You can even pursue networking strategies similar to those we discussed in our posts about guest blogging and blog commenting by recommending other Yelp-listed businesses similar to yours in your profile, and cross promoting on your other online listings.

You’re literally a few quick keystrokes and clicks away from some easy, credible traffic.