Yelp is one of the best revenue-generating listings there is. The only other site I would place on the same level with Yelp is your Google Business Listing. If you have both of these pages looking great, I assure that your business will be generating more revenue from your online presence. Let's take a look at the reasons that your Yelp page affects your business so much.

1. Yelp and Apple are in bed together. Are you an Apple phone user? If so, then you are using Yelp and you probably do not even know it. Try opening Apple Maps, or ask "Hey Siri, find me a restaurant" and you might be surprised.

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See the amount of times you see the words "on Yelp" on those screens! So all Apple products function similarly. Because Apple doesn't have their own review system, partnering with Yelp makes a lot of sense for them. And they aren't the only ones ...

2. Yelp and Amazon are Buddies also. Do you have an Amazon Alexa or Echo in your home? Have you ever asked it to locate a local restaurant? Do you understand where those results are coming from? The answer is straight from Yelp. That's right, even using Amazon products leads you back to Yelp, and they do this for the same reasons that Apple does. Below is a snip straight from the Amazon Alexa help page.

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3. Yelp is everywhere that Google isn't. Most people browse Google without a doubt, but did you know that their market share has in fact been decreasing over the last few years? The biggest reason is Badui, the Chinese search engine, but it is also interesting to consider how many individuals still use Bing and Yahoo for their searches. Do you know what Bing and Yahoo use for their review platform? You guessed it, Yelp again. Take a look at these local search results for "restaurants near me", one of the most prevalent searched phrases on any search engine.

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4. Voice Search is getting BIG. How many people do you know to own an Amazon Alexa, Google Home or Apple HomePod? Perhaps more than you thought. Pair those individuals with people who use their own phone for voice search, and you have a massive market and growing. In the wider virtual assistant market, a recent survey by Microsoft discovered that individuals were using Siri and Google Assistant equally (36%), followed by Alexa (25%) and then Cortana (19%). The top use cases were: Searching for a fast fact-- 68% (Marketingland). That means that between Siri and Alexa, Yelp results make up 61% of voice searches. Voice search continues to expand as well, and not by the people you would expect it to be. See the graph below.

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The biggest user base for voice search is the 25-49 year old demographic, also the greatest spenders for categories Yelp is most often utilized for. Surprisingly though, 50+ year old voice search users use it more often than both of the groups, and the amount of voice search enabled devices has infiltrated the whole culture. It is hard to find any device that isn't voice-enabled in some capacity.

5. People Google Everything ... Yeah, they do. Yelp's performance on Google search engine queries continues to improve. If you know anything about how Google SERPs work (Search Engine Results Pages), you know that Google's whole purpose is to determine the value from websites that could potentially answer the search query in the fastest and most specific way so that individuals continue to use their search engine. Because of that, and also since Yelp is such a leading force in the amount of content and value of that content for a lot of the most prominent searches (" restaurants near me" for instance), typically, you will see a list of "THE BEST 10 ..." from Yelp.com towards the top of the search. What is interesting about that is that individuals love to see a top 10 list, and those links are extremely popular. That means you do not always need to do any SEO for your company site as long as you are utilizing Yelp.

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6. Conversion on Yelp is SUPER efficient. How frequently have you looked at the conversions coming from your website? From your Social Media Pages? Email Campaigns or other digital advertising methods? If you do not know, that's a problem, but if you do, you know that simply reaching 5+% would place you in rarified air. You would think that your site would be the best place you want potential customers to find you right? Website bounce rates (users that leave the website within a minute of landing on it) continue to rise across the board (between 45-65% depending on industry), so half of the people that land on your site are gone. Your social sites are really made for conversion unless you place an emphasis on them, and even then, they do not convert all that well. Email open rates are between 8% -15%, and the conversion on that portion is fairly low too. That means Yelp, and their 15% conversion rate is a great value. That conversion rate can be increased by utilizing various other tools like the call to action buttons, verified licenses, business highlights, driving your conversion rate up into the 30% range.

Reason Why Individuals Say Yelp Sucks

Yelp Sucks and they take advantage of Business Owners. If you haven't seen the docudrama "Billion Dollar Bully", it is well worth it. I've heard from dozens and dozens of small business owners how much they hate the pressure of sales from Yelp. There are hundreds if not thousands of horror stories about reviews being filtered out after discontinuing advertising with Yelp, fake reviews not being dealt with, and lack of support to business owners. All of these things are out there and factor into the customer decision-making process, and it SUCKS. I don't work for Yelp, but, full disclaimer, I am an advertising partner for Yelp. I have a few dozen companies that at first told me that they despise Yelp, they hated their sales representative, and their account representative was unable to get them good results. This is why Yelp has increased the use of Agency Partners like us. Having a digital marketing expert in your corner who knows how Cost Per Click, Conversion, and Digital Analytics works and can hold Yelp accountable for the performance of your business page means the business owner is finally in a position to get success with their Yelp page. No longer is there a huge company that doesn't give a shit about you taking advantage of your lack of digital marketing expertise. Use Agency Partners rather than dealing with Yelp directly and the results will be evident.

For more insights such as this, or if you have any other inquiries about using your online presence to produce revenue, visit us at https://www.facebook.com/hashtagsmartconsulting or get with Paul directly on his Linkedin.

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