How to Optimize Your Business’s Local Yelp Profiles

As a multi-location business, a presence on Yelp is essential. Each month, an impressive 76.75 million users visit Yelp sites, platforms, and mobile applications. Consumers use Yelp to find local businesses, read reviews, get information about a business, and more. 

If your multi-location business isn’t leveraging Yelp, think of all you’re missing. In this piece, we’ll dive into the importance of local Yelp profiles and how to optimize them. Let’s get started! 

Yelp and Multi-Location Businesses 

Ninety-eight percent of consumers feel that reviews are essential when making purchase decisions. A new study from Yelp also found that most consumers read about five reviews before deciding on a business, and 77 percent say they’re reading more reviews now than ever before. 

These stats speak for themselves — a local presence on Yelp is non-negotiable. Before you can begin optimization, you must ensure each business location has claimed a local Yelp profile. Yelp provides a simple guide on how to claim your Yelp profiles. 

Tips for Optimizing Your Local Yelp Profiles 

Once you’ve claimed all of your local Yelp profiles, it’s time to optimize. Follow the steps below to ensure your multi-location business is leveraging its Yelp profiles to their fullest potential. 

1. Include Essential Business Information 

When a consumer searches for a business on Yelp, they want to get as much information as possible without leaving the platform. While including your local business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are necessary, there are other details you can include. 

For instance, adding links to your local social channels where consumers can connect with your business is helpful. Similarly, there’s an area for you to add a business description, providing consumers with helpful information about your business and its offerings. 

2. Add Photos

Photos allow consumers to picture themselves at your store or with your product before making a purchase. Including photos in your local Yelp profiles is critical. 

When thinking about what type of imagery to leverage, consider including the following:

• Photos of your store location (both inside and outside) 
• Images of local staff 
• Pictures from local events your business put on or were  a part of 
• Pictures of your products and services

Jersey Mikes is an excellent example of a multi-location business leveraging images in their local Yelp profiles, as seen in the image below. 

Jersey Mike’s includes high-quality photos of their fast casual restaurant and products. 

3. Don’t Forget About Business Categories 

Each local Yelp profile must be linked to specific categories so Yelp and consumers better understand the services or products your business offers. You can link up to three categories with your Yelp profile. 

To give you a better idea of categories, the different category types can include but are not limited to food, financial services, education, entertainment, home services, and so on. For a complete list of category options, check out Yelp’s blog.  

4. Leverage Yelp Review Badges 

Yelp has review badges that allow you to showcase reviews you’ve received on Yelp on your business’ local pages. This not only helps improve your Yelp local listing, but it also brings visibility to your Yelp profile! 

Your business can also leverage “Find Us on Yelp” badges, which are physical stickers that you can put at your store locations. Below is an example of the badge. 

Including the badge in your store again brings visibility to your Yelp profile while simultaneously encouraging customers to leave a review. 

Source: Yelp

5. Monitor and Manage Your Reviews 

Speaking of reviews, many consumers come to Yelp specifically to read reviews. As a multi-location business, you must monitor and respond to reviews promptly and personally. 

Eighty-seven percent of consumers are willing to change a negative review, depending on how the business responds. Consumers will notice if your business is taking the time to address and respond to reviews on Yelp.  

6. Optimize for Keywords 

You want your local Yelp profiles to appear in locally relevant searches as a multi-location business. Including keywords that you want to appear for in your business description, review responses, and announcements can help improve visibility.  

It’s important to note that you should avoid keyword stuffing your Yelp profile and include the keywords when they fit naturally. 

7. Consider Yelp Advertising 

According to Yelp, Yelp Ads help you reach 3x more customers than not utilizing this ad service. With Yelp Ads, your business will be put at the top of Yelp search results and have the opportunity to be featured on competitors’ pages. 

Courtesy of Yelp

It’s easy to create and customize Yelp Ads. Your multi-location business can create your ad goal, define your target audience, and determine your ad spend, and Yelp does the rest for you. 

Get more information on Yelp Ads here, and decide if they make sense for your multi-location business. 

Get Started Dominating Your Local Search Efforts 

There’s no longer an excuse for mediocre local Yelp profiles. While managing your Yelp profiles across 100s or 1,000s of business locations may seem challenging, SOCi is here to help! 

SOCi Listings empowers you to manage your business listings at scale and effectively optimize your online presence and local search rankings. From syncing, updating, and managing your local listings to custom audits, professional photos, and profile recommendations, SOCi Listings covers every step to propel your listings to the top of search results.

While managing your Yelp listings is essential, reputation management efforts shouldn’t fall through the cracks. SOCi Reviews allow users to view every action taken on reviews and monitor every activity on social media. 

Your local, regional, and corporate teams will always know which reviews and social engagements are addressed and which still require attention to ensure the prompt responses consumers expect.

Get more insight into how SOCi can help you dominate your Yelp strategy today!