1. How to Improve your Business
Reputation on Yelp
Contact us:
Steven@BeachheadMarketing.com

2. About Beachhead
• Beachhead is a marketing agency in San
Diego, CA
• We help clients looking to explode their
revenues without blowing their budget
• Click here for a Free Consultation

3. What We’ll Cover
• What is a Yelp?
• Who Yelps?
• Businesses on Yelp
• Typical Complaints About Yelp
• Where Yelp is Going
• Case Study: Improving Rankings from #35 to
#7
• Improve Your Rankings in an Hour a day

4. WHAT IS A YELP?

5. Founded in 2005, Yelp was a website where consumers offered
and looked for reviews of restaurants before eating there.

6. Yelp Categories, 2011
Auto
3% Other
Travel and Hotel
4% 8%
Health Restaurants
5% 29%
Nightlife
4%
Home and Local
Services
7%
Arts Entertainment and Beauty and Shopping
Events Fitness 23%
8% 9%
Today, Yelp covers a broader range of
businesses, including shopping, beauty and
fitness, home and local services, and travel.

7. Some of the top
searches:
#10: Best Breakfast
#42: Dental
#53: Oil Change
#63: Home Goods
#73: Steak
#84: Dog Grooming

8. Unique Visitors per month
100,000,000
90,000,000
90,000,000
80,000,000
70,000,000
60,000,000
53,000,000
50,000,000
40,000,000
30,000,000
25,000,000
20,000,000
15,000,000
10,000,000
10,000,000
1,000,000
0
1/1/06 1/1/08 1/1/09 1/1/10 6/1/11 1/1/2012 (est)
June 2011:
• 53,000,000 Monthly Uniques
• 20,000,000 Reviews

9. WHO YELPS?

10. Generally, Yelpers are highly
educated, upper middle class, and racially
diverse.

11. To put it differently…
Yelpers are like
Chewbacca:
• Loyal
• Loud
• They can
decapitate your
business

12. And they love their crowd

13. Every ten seconds:
One Yelper Calls a Business
Fifteen Yelpers request directions

14. Every ten seconds:
One Yelper Calls a Business
Fifteen Yelpers request directions
… Just from mobile apps

15. BUSINESSES ON YELP

16. 85,000 in San Diego

17. Restaurants are still the biggest category.
So Slater’s 50/50 in Point Loma uses Yelp

18. Yelpers depend on Yelp for
first time purchases like
wedding dresses.

19. Yelpers love to find local retailers, like bike shops, using Yelp

20. From a business owner’s perspective
TYPICAL COMPLAINTS
ABOUT YELP

21. “I just found my Yelp profile and one review
with one star. I want to delete my page.”

22. “I just found my Yelp profile and one review
with one star. I want to delete my page.”
Unfortunately, Yel "We don't remove business listings,
p will not remove so your best bet is to engage with
your fans and critics alike, and hear
your page, no what they have to say."
matter how nicely
you ask, so the
best thing you
can do is engage
the reviewers.

23. Yelp Ratings Distribution:
67% Above average
1 Star
11%
2 Stars
8% 5 Stars Yelpers are
38%
generous, and they
3 Stars assume their favorite
14% businesses are also
the best.
Hang in there, and
4 Stars eventually you should
29% receive happier
customers.

24. “But its clearly a false review, can I
delete the review?

25. You Can’t.
“But its clearly a false review, can I
delete the review?

26. You Can’t.
But you can try flagging it.
“But its clearly a false review, can I
delete the review?

27. “All my good reviews
are filtered”

28. Company Current True Rating
Rating

29. Company Current True Rating
Rating
2.0
3.7
3.8
2.7
2.0

30. Company Current True Rating
Rating
2.0 3.6
3.7 4.2
3.8 4.4
2.7 3.8
2.0 3.5

31. Average Increase:
40 Percent
2.8 Stars  3.9
Stars

32. “I don’t show for my
category”
“Domestic
Shipping”

34. “WTF”

35. Where Yelp is going
• Desktop  Mobile
– Keywords, not categories
– Less research, more decision
– Rankings, not just ratings

36. Yelp used to be just about ratings. Top rated places won.

37. This led to a
higher ranking
in Google and
more traffic.

38. But now Yelp sees more searches from
their mobile apps.

39. So now a Yelper
with the new iPhone
might ask:
“Siri, I need a place
that sells ravioli
nearby”

40. And Siri’s results “I found a number of
will come directly restaurants whose
from
reviews mention
Yelp, bypassing
Google.
Ravioli fairly close to
you”
“Siri, I need a place
that sells ravioli
nearby”

41. So now Yelp shows
less of the top
rating, and more of
their “Best Match”
result.

42. Here, for example,
Yelp shows a
restaurant with just 20
reviews at #1

43. While #5 has 587 reviews and a
higher overall rating. However, the
top review has a higher density of
matches for the keyword “vermicelli”.

44. Where Yelp is going
• Desktop  Mobile
– Keywords, not categories
– Less research, more decision
– Rankings, not just ratings

45. Nam An Vietnamese Restaurant
A CASE STUDY

46. Nam An Vietnamese
Restaurant
Nam An opened in the
summer of 2011 and
has 41 reviews, mostly
good ones. We wanted
to see how a well
written review would
affect their rankings.

47. Methodology
• Researched and selected three keywords
– Vermicelli rice with egg rolls
– Vietnamese Iced Coffee
– Free Appetizers
• Measure rankings before and after
• Focus only on writing reviews with the right
keyword mix

48. Before:
#50
After:
#1

49. Before:
#16
After:
#6

50. Before:
#41
After:
#15

51. Case Study Takeaways
• Keywords are crucial
• Results occur quickly
• Improved average ranking from #36 to #7.

52. HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR
RESULTS IN AN HOUR A DAY

53. Day One: Claim Your Profile

54. Day One: Claim Your Profile

55. Day One: Claim Your Profile

56. Day Two
Baseline results:
What are your customers
already searching for?
How many page views have
you had in the last year?

57. Day 3-4:
How do you want your
customers to find you on
Yelp?

58. Day 3-4:
How do you want your
customers to find you on
Yelp?
#17,599: Korean Tacos
#35: Korean BBQ  Better
choice

59. Day Five:

60. Day Five:

61. Day 6-10:
• Contact Negative Reviewers

62. Day 6-10:

63. Day 6-10:

64. Day 11-15:
• Unfilter your great reviews
24 Filtered Reviews  23 Filtered Reviews

65. Day 11-15:
• Unfilter your great reviews
– Respond
– Friend
– Compliment
24 Filtered Reviews  23 Filtered Reviews

66. Day 16-20:
• Respond to every new review

67. “Thank you
for your
feedback…”

68. Day 16-20:
• Respond to every new review
– Compliment
– Send a message or follow

69. Day 21-30: Encourage better
reviews
Assess your offerings and the
popular Yelp searches

70. Day 21-30: Encourage better
reviews
Assess your offerings and the
popular Yelp searches

71. Day 21-30: Encourage better
reviews
If you offer a white chocolate
mocha on your menu, and it’s
one of your better items, you
should encourage more
Yelpers to mention it in their
reviews.

72. Day 21-30: Encourage better
reviews

73. Day 21-30: Encourage better
reviews
To encourage more Yelp reviews of
your drink, you you might try a coupon,
you can offer deals on Yelp for the
white chocolate mocha, or you can ask
customers to try it and Yelp about it.

74. In Conclusion
• Yelp affects all local businesses
• Own your profile or it will own you
• Rankings, not ratings
• We're seeing fast results with targeted
reviews

75. Thank You!
Contact us:
Steven@BeachheadMarketing.com