Yelp is a great platform for promoting local businesses; and the reason it works pretty well is that it doesn’t appear to be a search engine (even though it does have a core algorithm with a job of assigning listing the ranks). The powerful factor behind ranking of a listing on Yelp seems to be the reviews – and that’s actually true.
Now, what may come as a surprise is that a search result can have the suggestions which do not have the most reviews. And that’s where you can presume that the Yelp’s algorithm actually pays attention to a number of other factors besides just the reviews. And that’s where you may realize that you definitely need to optimize your Yelp’s listing to make it more prominent over this bigger platform.
It may be worth noting that Yelp doesn’t provide information, on frequent basis, about the steps that businesses may consider in order to improve ranking of their listings. Nonetheless, there are the basic things that can be done in this regard to meet the objectives.
Filling out all of your information
It’s a no brainer that complete information about your business is going to convince the potential customers about considering your service. And from the perspective of optimization, a complete Yelp listing is definitely going to win the platform’s trust. The simple fact to keep in mind in this regard is that your listing will look complete as compared to the ones with incomplete business details.
Adding photos
A page simply appears fancy when there are photos in it. Thus, it is an ultimate requirement to add as many photos as required to explain the product or service nicely. This would include the photos that you are uploading as well as the photos which your reviewers are uploading.
Respond to reviews
As a general rule of thumb, your page will remain in the high ranks if it receives fresh content every now and then. Your Yelp listing is going to receive the reviews. In this scenario, you are going to have to respond to the review that you receive. This will not only keep the page updated with fresh content but it is also a nice way to engage with your customers. Satisfaction of your existing customer will reflect through the reviews; and it will help you get new customers.
Optimize for keywords
You will want your listing to be available against certain keywords. And according to the best SEO standards, you will have to make sure that your listing is optimized for humans, not bots.
When it comes to keyword optimization, it is important to pay attention to the content as well. Tags related to the pages are important but if a specific volume of keywords is not present in the content, all search algorithms are going to consider such content irrelevant.
Pay attention to the categories
If there isa category available that can accurately represent the type of your business, there is no point in choosing the round-about categories. It means that you are going to have to be careful while selecting the category for your business while creating a listing.