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Does anyone pay to advertise on Yelp? I know you can get a free listing on it, but didn’t know if any of you pay to advertise on there. I just spoke to one of their reps and it runs $350/month (which includes a short video they come out and make with you in it) or $300/month without video. 1 yr contracts. If you pull up your search results, you will see paid as first listing. They also then list you on your competitor’s pages as well if someone pulls them up. No one is put on your page if you advertise with them. I haven’t sat down and really run the numbers yet, but I know Yelp is really gaining ground and has some extremely loyal users when it comes to finding businesses and reviews. I have always just thought of Yelp as more of a restaurant type rating service, but is is growing to more than that. It’s nice that it really localizes the search more than sites like google. The rep I spoke to said only one person has not renewed their contract in the 2+ yrs he’s been there (yes, he needs to promote, so I take it with a grain of salt). Just seeing what others are doing, if anything, with the site to grow their biz.
Did find some reviews/lawsuits from people claiming Yelp runs some shady practices of hiding good reviews unless you pay to advertise with them. I’m thinking Angie’s list, although not free to the public to view, is probably the better way to go for a service industry like ours. Still weighing my options though……..
I’ve read a lot of the same about yelp…it seemed more based on an old business model of pay per lead? One of the things I thought would work would be to offer a “check-in” offer. There are only a couple of businesses around our town that do them and they will show on the check-in offer page. After signing up and going through everything I learned that our industry evidently doesn’t qualify to offer that….bummer. It seemed like a good way to stand out without the hefty price tag…
Would love to hear your experience if you change your mind and go with them.
Have you done some research on Angie’s List (I didn’t realize you could do paid advertising…just haven’t looked into it quite enough as it is fairly new to our town, I’m just not sure the ROI would be there quite yet. We have our free listing at this point and I put all the info I can through that.
~Lauryn
One of my customers put me on yelp left a great review now I come up in 1st place, Try that route first
Good idea, thanks Patrick.
~Lauryn
We don’t pay to advertise on Yelp and we get a lot of business from them. The way to do it is to get reviews. The more reviews you have, the closer to the top you get.
Now here is the downside and the reason why people get frustrated. In order for a person’s review to show up after they leave you one, they have to be a regular user of Yelp. I called and spoke with someone once because we had people tell us they left a review and it never showed up. This is how Yelp keeps businesses from stacking their own reviews.
They did tell me that they keep the reviews on file and if that person starts to use Yelp more regularly, then the review will be posted to your page. And this has happened for us. It took a couple of months, but eventually the reviews popped up. Once they did, we started getting a lot more jobs from yelp.
I wouldn’t pay to advertise there. Just talk your close friends and clients into using Yelp for a little while and giving you reviews 🙂
Good luck!
I just spoke with a Yelp rep today and told them I was skeptical about committing to a one year contract. I was able to get them down to two options:
A) Agree to a one year contract for $300 a month, but inlcude an early termination agreement.
or
B) Agree to a 3 month contract for $350 a month, without an early termination agreement.Just a little FYI for anybody out there considering advertising on Yelp.
This is the start of my 4th year with Heavens Best in Northern California. I just started advertising on Yelp at $300/ month, no video, the beginning of April. I have booked 5 jobs so far and have gained a lot of visibility on the site. I did okay with Yelp before, getting jobs here and there. Still need to see what it has to offer long term after building up more reviews…. I have a lot of good reviews that are filtered, even though I pay for advertising that is not changing, and they make that very clear.
I spoke to an operator in southern CA today and happened to ask what was his best advertising was. He said it was advertising on Yelp at $300/ month and he had been with them for 2 years. Also said it was solid consistent business each month.
I will update the status of our Yelp advertising.
I don’t pay on Yelp (and never paid), I just searched Carpet cleaning and I’m right there on first page 4th from the top.
I’m receiving phone call every month from Yelp Rep., but I always denied them.Yelp seems to drive people to you at the end of the month to use your dollars up. we get maybe one out of every 8 to 9 turned into an actual job.
Yelp is a JOKE when in comes to advertising. Been there done that and NEVER again! I would stay away from this platform at all costs!
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