Using review sites for marketing your website can be a tremendous way to attract new customers. One such review site is Yelp.
Yelp has become a very popular review site. My favorite thing about Yelp is that real people review their local businesses and others add their own voice. As I have said before, word of mouth is the best advertising that money can’t buy. At Yelp, you get just that.
There are other review sites, but they don’t have the kind of social networking at this point that Yelp has. Members of Yelp connect with one another, just like people connect on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. There are forums for members to discuss various topics. One of which, I noticed, was website reviews.
The first thing you will want to do is join the site as a business owner. Make sure you fill out all of the necessary information so local customers can find you. Adding a photo of your business will be extremely helpful as well. Frequent the review sites, and interact with their members. If someone gives a bad review, respond with the ways you will strive to make your business better.
Make sure to add the review sites to your website and blog. Remember that promotion always works both ways. If you want to be promoted, you must promote others. You can do this by choosing to review some of the neighboring businesses you frequent, and write your own review of the site as well. Yes, Yelp has been reviewed by their users.
I used to go to three nearby restaurants. Wings, Italian and Thai food. The owners of these three restaurants frequented each others businesses. Whenever the Thai family wanted Italian food they went to “Tony’s” and whenever they wanted wings, they went to the wing place. Some nights the Thai restaurant would order wings for delivery and the owner would deliver personally so he could eat at the Thai place! These restaurant owners reviewed one each others sites to help ‘kick start’ their online reviews.
On a much larger scale, that concept is what you have with Yelp. You have a community that has reached 39 million visitors in November of 2010 in 30 days. This is the McDonald’s of review sites! 39 million people went to Yelp to see reviews of businesses and websites.
Another feature of Yelp is that you can share promotions and discounts with their members. You can plan an event and publicize it on Yelp. This gives you the opportunity to receive comments and even an RSVP of sorts, because people can respond to your event by clicking the “I’m in!” button. You can also become a “sponsoring business” which means your ads will run on their website.
Of course I could go on all day about the benefits of using Yelp, but perhaps you would rather hear it from them. They have a video and page just for you. Yelp.com/business.
