Are services like Yelp and Google Business helpful for your business? 🤔

[ElisabethB]

How do you feel about third-party review services like Yelp and Google Business? Do you think having a presence there has helped your business or brought in new customers who might not have heard of you otherwise? Reply and share your thoughts and experiences with us below! 

 Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash 

[Doran]

Yelp was great pre-pandemic but I don't get much from them these days.  Google Business sends me walk-in traffic but not much to my website.  

[AskRalph]

Doran,

Do you close the walk in deals ie sell them a service or are they just shopping? If you get them in to the door, they just ask questions, send them away with a sample. You can ask suppliers to sell or give you samples to give away. This way they come back to buy it, if they like it or come back ask more questions and get a potential sale.  You see you become an expert in their opinion.  I had one client I turned down twice because I was busy, but the third time I sold him on the delivery, he was so impressed that he made sure to notify me in advance ie on Thursday, that he may have a rush delivery around 1 pm on Friday. If he did not, that was okay too.  He sometimes felt bad, I was on a somewhat standby, so he would e-transfer a small amount.  We became great friends/ client relationship.

[JUYBoutique20]

I usually look at reviews on the business website.  I guess I should probably look more into doing a third-party review service for my shop.

[AskRalph]

Jacqueline, get honest reviews not bought or paid for reviews.  One hair salon asked clients to review their salon and once a month she draws a name out and gives them a store credit.  This brought her more business.

[Katie_Jane]

Retail business owner here (opened May 2021) with my two cents. Based on working for other businesses and signing up myself, Yelp will harass call you the second you sign up and I find you get very little traction from them, even if you pay into using their service. I highly recommend Google Business. I follow the analytics and get customers in from general searches and have light website traffic. If you stay active and post and add photos, it tends to help with traction. Hope this information helps you in your decision process. 

[RPSINVEST]

Yelp is where people go to complain.  It is not an avenue for increased web or foot traffic.  Hasn't been for a very long time.

[PurpleMoose]

Yes and that's the problem too.  People whine on it and then it's like you feel you should claim it as your business but what's the point, the whining still happens and you have no control over it.  But those Yelp telemarketing calls are awesome.  "Washington" called me last time.  Asked him to get me some real data on active Canadian users and then we'll talk.  Haven't heard back.  

[AskRalph]

Hey Kevin, we are in Calgary and would love to work with you for local pickup/ delivery and even returns where needed. We can offer us as a drop/pickup for clients of yours. ie they can arrange to pickup here and or drop off here? lets chat. Ralph- ralph@rmmt.ca.

[ProsperityPools]

YES, also Angi's is another one that calls incessantly!

[AskRalph]

Katie Jane, I heard of Angis. Its not available yet. We get calls from Homestars. I turned them down. These services are like the directory services we had in the 1980s, 1990s except I learned then that do not pay for the service, offer them barter if possible or pay after you received good legitimate leads.  I do not mind paying for traffic that I can close a deal on. I close 80+ % of my sales.

[cs_execs]

I second the crummy traction from Yelp, so muxh that i left nearly $300 in their credits in the wind, way too pushy and seemed to me that the free offerings were nothing more than mere placeholders.  As for Google Business, i find their mobile app to be VERY clunky and not seen much beyond pass thru clicks from them.

[PurpleMoose]

I agree.  GMB will do more for you than Yelp.  The whole premise of Yelp is a scam.  Anyone can create a review of a place so that ends of being data posted out there about you.  So now they have some info about you and use that to leverage monetization.   Uh, no... Then you need to claim the business and create a listing so you can have some level of control over any other Yelp ratings and of course, add photos and shop hours and blah, blah, blah yet another platform to keep up to date.    

Then the calls from yelp start in them trying to get you to pay for 'premium' services.  Why? I have toyed with them in the past and asked them for real data on active users in Canada and I get nothing because they all have southern accents and aren't equipped to answer anything about the Canadian marketplace.

GMB is worth your time. Liven up the messenger feature, add a few products if you like and then they display in Google Maps and if you can, make use of the free Google Shopping listings.  

Yelp is a big Yelp.

[pessosices]

Great question @ElisabethB !

I've found having profiles on Yelp & Google Business absolutely essential to having a business presence on the interwebs. 
I constantly search for places both on Yelp & Google Maps, and without setting up and updating a business profile on there, it would be a lot harder to make sure potential customers can know that I exist and get accurate info about my shop.

I hiiiighly recommend every business owner sets them up and keeps them updated with any changes.

[mysticcoffee]

You make a good point. I wouldn't say Yelp drives business to my web site. But in the same way that some people might check the BBB, there are people who check yelp before making a purchase to make sure we really do exist and that we're on the up & up. I wouldn't say it's essential though. Google business is much more effective. 

[cs_execs]

I may ask for some help from you on the Google Business <>Google Maps linking as mine has had far less success.

[LLCafe]

Google Business has been the most beneficial for us, we get quite a bit of traffic from it.

[lashesbysandey]

Highly recommend having a google business listing which puts your business on the map. I have had my listing on GB for over 10 years, Yelp is a marketing company but it is still helpful to have a listing with reviews. I own a lash and brow bar and so many people like myself find businesses through google business. 

[DLRosenberg]

We use both Yelp and Google Business. Maybe this is outdated but I always heard having reciprocal links helps with SEO- especially google rankings- so when we started we made sure to set up @ all the directories- even bing (lol- does anyone bing?).

Google is the most important- we have our phone number linked through google so we can see how many people call us from the google listing- it's quite a bit!

[ElisabethB]

These are fantastic insights - thank you all for sharing! 🙌
I'm not a business owner, but as a consumer/potential customer, I rely heavily on reviews and ratings. I have spent hours researching online when I need to choose a business for a service or something similar. I also check and compare customer ratings and reviews when selecting a product and there are multiple similar things to choose from. I appreciate when businesses put in the extra time and effort to maintain their web presence as it makes it much easier for me to decide. 

[ForgetMeNot]

Google has been great - lots of traffic and a good spot on the list for folks who look us up online. Yelp however is a nightmare! They will call day after day trying to make you pay for ads and when you stop paying for them, suddenly every good review you had is listed as Not Relevant and no longer pops up for people to see in your average. Even better, when you call to ask, they will say they can totally fix it if you're a premium member...Stay away from Yelp unless you plan on paying for ads for the foreseeable forever.