Welcome to Contractor Marketing, “Two-Minute Tuesday,” I’m Brodie Tyler with Inbound Systems and I’m bringing you the quickest, most valuable, and most profitable two minutes of your week.
Today, in under two minutes, I’m reviewing Yelp for contractors, why I’m not a fan.
Ready. Set. Go!
Ok, so Yelp is a platform for local businesses to get listed on and for their customers to leave reviews. One of the first things I don’t like about Yelp is there’s an imbalance between the good and bad reviews that are published. Most of my clients I look at, as far as their Yelp listing goes, I’ve noticed there’s a lot more bad reviews showing up than good reviews. I know that’s not really the case of how they handle their customers, so I feel like Yelp is a platform for complaining… and I just don’t like that.
Another reason why I don’t like it is if you scroll to the bottom of your reviews, there’s a link to view “not currently recommended” reviews. These are reviews that have been placed by your customers, but their not published on the front end of your Yelp listing, and it doesn’t count towards your 5 Star rating. A lot of times you’ll see the reviews not currently recommended, are more of the good reviews than the bad ones; which are recommended and published by Yelp. One more imbalance there.
I often refer to Yelp as the “mafia,” because if you don’t advertise with them, a lot of times, within a week, you’ll see a bad review pop up, or as soon as you cancel with them, several bad reviews will pop up. It’s like, really? That’s a coincidence? I’ve seen it too many times all across the country with so many different industries that Yelp really is the online “mafia.”
So, what should you do?
Number 1 – I don’t suggest you advertise with Yelp, because of the “mafia” reason.
Number 2 – Correct any information you have on Yelp. Make sure that your name, address, and phone number are all accurate. And
Finally – Maintain your reputation. You still want to get good reviews on Yelp, if you can. Ask your customers that are happy with you to leave the 5 Star reviews to make sure the good reviews out-weigh the bad reviews!
That’s it! Thanks for watching, Contractor Marketing, “Two-Minute Tuesday”
To your inbound marketing success!
~Brodie
