yelp reviews for business

 Not so fast, cowboy - it doesn't work that way. 

Because while it's possible that paying for a couple of Yelp reviews could go undiscovered, and therefore the resulting reviews could assist you improve business, it's far more likely that this strategy will cause huge and lasting damage to your reputation. 

Lucky for you there is a better way, which we'll get to in only a moment . But first a touch more info...

How Yelp Works

With no disrespect to Facebook or Angie's List, Yelp just could also be the foremost trusted of all review sites.

Yelp's trustworthiness is a component of what makes it so popular. the location hosts quite 135 million reviews and counting, and it's used round the world for all types of companies .

The site caters to consumers, and its staff recognizes that folks won't value reviews if they do not know that they will trust them. That's why Yelp has such strict policies around fake reviews, which incorporates those written by business employees themselves and reviews that are bought instead of earned.

The Secret Formula

The site uses a classy algorithm to research the reviews posted then filters out reviews it suspects of being fake, incentivized or in any way untruthful. the location errs on the side of caution, which is why tons of actual, real reviews find yourself filtered out along side the fake ones.

It uses tons of various data points to spot which reviews are fake. But Yelp doesn't share much about how the system works, which suggests you cannot easily fool it. Even paying people with active Yelp profiles to write down reviews may trigger a review of your page's activity... which can get you in deep trouble.

A Few Yelp Scenarios

So for instance you opt to roll the dice and buy some Yelp reviews. The best-case scenario is that they are posted to your Yelp page and other people see them. That's unlikely, though.

It's more likely they'll get filtered out within a couple of days of being posted, so customers won't even see them. therein case you're out the cash you spent buying those reviews and don't have anything to point out for it.

And trust us, you're lucky if that's all that happens...

Because the choice is worse. Yelp features a Consumer Alerts program that's designed to let people realize a business's shady dealings. If the system flags your page for false reviews, the location will post an outsized banner on your page informing all visitors that they do not particularly trust you.

The banner will stay in situ for a minimum of 90 days, meaning that potentially thousands of consumers will see it and forever remember that you simply were a minimum of suspected of trying to shop for reviews.

And if that's great enough, exchanging money or other incentives for reviews can actually land you in predicament with the Federal Trade Commission. It's just not well worth the risk.

Why Yelp Works

If you were brooding about paying for Yelp reviews, all of that probably seems like bad news. It's really not, though. It's just a reminder of the facility of Yelp and why using it wisely can improve your online reputation.

People who use Yelp with any frequency realize the site's devotion to only letting real reviews from real consumers post on its pages. So they're primed to believe and trust any reviews that they see posted on your page.

All you've got to try to to then is confirm that the reviews you're getting there are (mostly) good ones.

Getting Good Reviews, the proper Way

If you've got satisfied customers, you'll take the moral high road and still get more Yelp reviews.

But don't placed on blinders and focus solely on Yelp reviews. Yes, it's a crucial review site, but so are Facebook, Google, TripAdvisor, and variety of industry-specific review sites. All of those sites together structure your entire online review profile, and that they all get read by your potential customers, so it's extremely important to specialise in getting reviews on a spread of web sites .

Use an automatic system like usatopservices to try to to the diligence of getting reviews for you. It sends your customers a single-question survey and finds out who had a positive experience. Then it directs your happy customers to the review sites of your choosing in order that they can write you a review while the experience remains fresh in their minds. 

It seems that not only will this get you a great many more positive reviews than paying for them, but it'll also cost you tons less.