List, Optimize and Track Yelp Profiles

Once you've created a Yelp profile to help increase your local business online search results and rankings and you've optimized your listing features, it's time to monitor and track your profile's effectiveness. Using your Yelp dashboard, gain access to detailed behind-the-scenes metrics about your listing’s performance. The dashboard enables you to gather key insights, track the level of incoming traffic and number of times your business shows up on searches. Tracking “user actions” gives you an even closer look at how visitors are engaging with your business on Yelp by monitoring things like clicks to your website, mobile check-ins, and photos uploaded.

One of the most important things business owners can gain through tracking, is knowledge about what is the best day of the week to run a special or gauge how important having a mobile website is for its visitors. Another idea is to run a Yelp Deal, which allows you to offer coupons, making your listing more attractive and establishing a great way to document your return on investment. 

Yelp! It's Time To Optimize

So now that you realize how important it is to have a presence on Yelp, here are three basic tips on how your business should optimize its use of the platform:

1. Survey your competition

Read the profiles of your competitors. How are they positioning their businesses. What are their stated value propositions. How have they been rated? This allows you to think about your unique value proposition.

2. Build a comprehensive Yelp profile

Develop all the essential pieces of your Yelp profile, including:

• Name and category: Avoid any typos in business name and categorize listing correctly. It's critical to get this done right.

• Detailed address and phone number: Include the business street address, along with any important notes about landmarks or cross-streets. Make sure contact info is updated.

• Include Yelp listing link on your website, promotional literature: This is crucial for converting more site visitors into customers. If a user likes what they see on your website, they’re much more likely to click on your Yelp link and become your customer. 

• Quality photos: Nothing hurts your Yelp profile more than not having quality images in the photo area. Be thoughtful about the images you include in your listing. A picture says a 1000 words.

• Important info: Be accurate and thorough about your hours, price range, parking info, etc. This info can be crucial in a customer’s decision to choose your business over the competition.

• About your business: Take the time to write a professional description about your business. Like the quality images on your profile, the verbage users read here is important in setting the right tone.

3.  Respond to posted reviews
Responding to user reviews, regardless of their rating is an excellent marketing platform for your business.  The key here is to show that you truly care about the satisfaction of every customer. Thank the reviewer for their feedback, and point out things they may not have been aware of, or explain how you plan to fix or improve whatever concerns them, if the review is a complaint.

In my next post, I'll review more advanced features businesses can leverage on Yelp.

Yelp! Most Searches Are Local

This is the first of a multi-part post series on Yelp

Studies show that most online searches are local in nature. People go online to search for products and services that they're interested in and more than 80 percent of them take immediate action based on their online search efforts. That's why local businesses not only have to have a robust website presence, but they should also pay particular attention to what consumers are saying about them. Social online reviews are one of the most popular ways for consumers to express their opinions about a local business and Yelp is one of the most robust platforms they use. In the last eight years, Yelp's influence has grown significantly with the advent of social media sharing options. With more than 60 million registered users and 20 million reviews posted on the site, consumer reviews can be "liked", shared or recommended to others within their social circles on

Welcome To The Dance - Facebook Places

I've posted about geo-targeting previously to introduce how companies like Foursquare and others are leveraging consumers' whereabouts to provide offers, incentives on mobile platforms, but geo-targeting has now moved into a powerful "rainmaking" phase.With Facebook and its 150 million mobile friends now able to check-in everywhere they go with Facebook Places, The Digital Raindance is now really on!

For most of us who have already dabbled on Facebook, building our friends lists, re-connecting with old friends and school mates, we're completely aware of its social networking power and influence. With Facebook Places, those same friends will serve as ambassadors to locations they frequent and enjoy. Therefore, a huge word of mouth marketing wave will provide location-based marketers with exciting new ways to connect with existing and potential new customers.

So with a few clicks on your mobile handset, you can tell your followers what entrees to enjoy at a particular dining establishment, what special discounts are being offered at your favorite retailer or what free giveaways are being provided at an event. Facebook Places will also allow you to read the same from your friends, probably creating more impromptu gatherings with friends if you happen to be in the same general vicinity! And that's music to the ears of Digital Rainmakers, who will keep those mobile coupons and check-in rewards coming!

Keeping The Impulse Alive

Retailers revelled in the advent of e-commerce because an overwhelming percentage of retail transactions are based on impulse. Consumers build justifications for "having to have" a product and when they're in that mood, having easy access to making a purchase closes the deal. So having a computer and Internet access makes satisfying impulses just a few mouse clicks away. Fantastic, right ? Not so fast, what about all that time consumers spend away from their home or office computers ? Now, there's Geo-Social networks and they're all about keeping the impulse alive and well no matter where you are. Mobile applications like @Yelp and @Foursquare on PDAs encourage consumers to check-in, provide tips and win special badges for being out and about. And while that makes some consumers happy, the real force behind these applications is that they allow advertisers to know exactly where you are because they're location based. So, if you're at the store around the corner from that great Italian restaurant, the food establishment can send you an attractive electronic offer to incentivize you to dine there, since you're so close. Geo-social networks are on the rise, because knowing where your potential customers are can provide a huge marketing advantage. After all, retail is all about impulse buying!