If you type in the term “reputation management” into Google, you’ll find that near the top of the page is a link to a site that lets businesses buy positive reviews. These businesses employ “reputation management experts”, or a roomful of what are likely offshore employees who do nothing but churn out glowing review after glowing review without ever visiting the business they are writing for or trying out one of their products.

To counter the growth of fraudulent and improper reviews and ratings, Google recently revised its review guidelines, as seen below:

Conflict of interest – Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if well-intentioned, a conflict of interest can undermine the trust in a review. For instance, do not offer or accept money or product to write positive reviews about a business, or to write negative reviews about a competitor. Please also do not post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the place you are reviewing.

The way review fraud seems to be picking up speed, industry analysts have begun to describe it as the new black hat SEO.

The post Pulling the Plug on Paid Reviews appeared first on LocalGiant.

• France: https://biz.yelp.fr
• Germany: https://biz.yelp.de
• Austria: https://biz.yelp.at
• The Netherlands: https://biz.yelp.nl

With these powerful tools now in their hands, business owners in these countries can now use their native tongue to do the following:

• Create Special Offers that appear on both a business’ listing and on Yelp’s mobile devices, including the ability to make “check-in offers” that can be found, unlocked, and redeemed by users of Yelp’s mobile apps for the iPhone and Android-powered devices. Over 500,000 offers have been created to-date.
• Update information about their business, such as history, business address, etc.
• Respond both publicly and privately to reviews about any business.
• Keep constant track of a business via Yelp.

With the continued growth of Yelp both on PCs and especially on mobile devices, which account for half of all users who visit a business thanks to Yelp Mobile’s reviews, it’s the best time for any business to join Yelp and gain access to the 46 million unique visitors who use it to guide their spending habits. To start things off on a high note, Yelp’s Community Managers throughout Europe (including the UK and Ireland) will be hosting business workshops all throughout March to help businesses local communities how to unlock their Yelp listings and get the most out of these tools.

The post Four New Languages Supported by Yelp Business Accounts appeared first on LocalGiant.

A massive 71% growth in check-ins along with use of Yelp’s other mobile features in just the past year has driven home just how positive the response has been.

Which only makes the next part even better: Yelp isn’t quite done shaking things up. Recently, their requirement for users to earn a Dukedom (the title that indicates that you’re a business’ most loyal yelper) has been changed to just 3 check-ins. After that, the title can be taken, or retaken simply by checking in more times than the incumbent Duke or Duchess. The yelper with the most number of Dukedoms in their neighborhood is rewarded with the title of Baron or Baroness. Those users who reign over the most neighborhoods in their city are given a coronation, making them King or Queen.

Yelp is now updating its Royalty Leaderboard rankings to reflect these changes, giving their users more reason to check-in. Not only do check-ins increase their rank, they also unlock a lot of bonus check-in offers and merit badges.

The post Checking In: Yelp’s New Path to Royalty appeared first on LocalGiant.

Now, any business owner who has an unlocked Yelp page with enterprise classified as service based can use the Business Owner Tools to list an additional 5 major cities under their areas of service. This also has the additional effect of making those businesses searchable in those 5 additional cities on Yelp, giving business owners a larger potential market.

With Yelp users becoming more and more reliant on mobile apps to help them find reliable businesses and services in a pinch, features such as these help connecting businesses and consumers much faster and easier.

The following business categories will see this new feature within their dashboard on biz.yelp.com:

Airport Shuttles, Home Cleaning, Personal Chefs, Carpet Cleaning, Home Health Care, Pest Control, Carpet Installation, Home Inspectors Photographers / Videographers, Carpeting, Home Staging, Plumbing, Caterers, Home Theatre Installation, Pool Cleaners, Contractors, Interior Design, Private Tutors, Couriers & Delivery Services, Junk Removal and Hauling, Real Estate Agents, DJs,  Keys & Locksmiths, Roofing, Dog Walkers, Landscape Architects, Security Systems, Electricians, Landscaping, Solar Installation, Flooring, Limos, Taxis, Food Delivery Services, Movers, Towing, Gardeners, Office Cleaning, Tree Services, Handyman Painters, Window Washing / Installation, Heating & Air Conditioning/HVAC, Party & Event Planning, and Wedding Planning

The post Traveling Businesses Get Love From Yelp appeared first on LocalGiant.

One of the newest features to hit Yelp’s brand new business owner dashboard is called Check-in Offers, and it’s been generating a lot of buzz, and a lot of questions as well. What exactly is a check in, and what’s a check-in offer?

The “Check-in”

Well, first of all, a little background is necessary. Yelp’s software and services are designed for use on smartphones, be they Apple’s latest iPhone or any Android-powered phone. These devices have built-in GPS in them, which means that at any given time, your smartphone knows exactly where you are, making it perfect for giving consumers search results that are customized for a given place. Like if you were searching for a butcher shop while you were out on the town, it can direct you to one right around the corner instead of a big one on the other side of town. The magic that Yelp brings into all this is allowing consumers to share their experiences.

A “check-in”, as Yelp calls it, is what occurs when a Yelp user walks into a business and starts sharing to his or her friends and family what they think of your establishment. Since Yelp apps synchronize with both Facebook and Twitter, a single customer’s check in can travel far and wide, generating a lot of buzz for your business. The Check-in service has been active for about a year, with business owners getting weekly updates on just how many customers checked into their establishments in the past 7 days.

New for Business Owners: Check-in Offers

With checking in now more popular than ever with consumers, Yelp has given business owners the ability to use them to increase buzz and profitability, announcing a new feature called Check-in Offers. This allows business owners to reward customers who check into their business with a free coupon, making the task of building customer loyalty and appreciation much easier, while generating positive buzz to attract more business.

Check-in Offers are available in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland, where its free suite of tools, Yelp for Business Owners, is available for free. Also, and while most businesses on Yelp can use Check-in Offers, a few categories won’t be able to use them. These include service-based businesses such as plumbers, limousine drivers and locksmiths, businesses that aren’t tied to a physical location.

When a consumer unlocks a check-in offer, they have the option to use it immediately during his or her visit, or it will disappear automatically from the smartphone in a few hours time. Alternatively, either the business owner or the customer can tap a button on the phone to indicate that the offer has been availed of.

A customer can also opt to save the offer, so that it will be saved on their “About Me” page, at the top of the business page where they earned that offer, and on the Check-ins tab on the Yelp app. The offer can then be redeemed at any time.

The post New to Yelp: Check-in Offers appeared first on LocalGiant.

One of the best ways to maximize your business listing on Yelp is to make it as descriptive, personal, and unique as possible. This way, you can be sure that your listing will at least catch the eye of a few customers, even if it doesn’t have any user reviews yet. This can be done with some photos or some really good descriptions. Below are some great business listings and why they work so well.

The post Five Great Business Listings on Yelp appeared first on LocalGiant.

Nothing quite hurts like a negative review. However, having your business receive one isn’t necessarily the end of the world. In fact, you can even use it to your advantage.

There are of course plenty of websites other than Yelp that allow customers to post feedback and reviews. However, almost all of them allow you, the business owner to reply either publicly or privately to reviews. For this reason, these tips for handling negative reviews apply to all business and review websites.

First of all, try sending a very carefully worded and diplomatic message of regret to the person who posted the negative review, apologizing for his less than stellar experience with your business. This won’t automatically guarantee that the user will retract his or her review, but you can always supplement this with a very polite and friendly public response that sets the facts straight, or can at least show others that you have resolved any shortcomings brought up in the review.

A single negative review isn’t really something you should really worry about. However, a series of bad reviews generally complaining about the same thing might be something of a wakeup call. If the reviews consistently point out similar flaws in your business, then you should look into it and make the necessary improvements.

Don’t take these negative reviews personally, but instead, look at them as ways to improve your business. Don’t start playing the blame game, and always remember to talk to your reviewers and customers in the most open, friendly, and diplomatic way possible.

Here are a few things you should probably know about negative reviews:

• A majority of the reviews on Yelp are pretty positive, with around 85% giving 3 stars or above. This also applies to all review sites across the Internet, with people most likely to share information about an experience or product that they had a good experience with.
• Negative reviews can actually make you look more genuine. These days, a lot of consumers  get suspicious when a business only has good reviews.  In fact, a restaurant with on Yelp that garnered a four-star rating from 20 reviews received three times more page views than a five-star rated restaurant with the same number of reviews.
• Negative reviews are scrutinized as well. In the same way that your potential customers scrutinize your business, they are also very discerning when it comes to the reviews they read. Most of them should be able to tell which reviews are helpful and which ones are just there to annoy.

The post Looking on the Bright Side of Negative Reviews appeared first on LocalGiant.

These numbers were gathered from iPhone users alone. With regards to Yelp for Android-based smartphones, they’ve managed to accrue over 2 million unique hits across all apps in just the past month.

What exactly does this mean to small business owners like you? Well, for one thing, if you have been given access to those free business tool on Yelp, then you will now be receiving weekly updates regarding all the activity your Yelp listing has experienced in the past 7 days. Now, even interactions from mobile devices will be logged, including business page views, number of times directions were generated to your establishment, and of course, the total number of check-ins.

The post Small Businesses Now Get Mobile Activity Tracking for Small Businesses appeared first on LocalGiant.

People who are familiar with Yelp’s user feedback policies know that the company is quick to respond to suggestions for improvement. Given how 29% of businesses reviewed on Yelp are made up entirely of restaurants, this latest innovation should come as no surprise.

Yelp has recently integrated OpenTable into their service, allowing users to book reservations for restaurants they’ve just reviewed and are eager to try out. Yelp users who are logged in don’t need to have a separate OpenTable account to be able to use this feature, maximizing your convenience. For those with OpenTable accounts and Yelp accounts that were set up with the same email address, using this reservation feature on Yelp will net you credit for your OpenTable account as well, with no need for a separate log-in.

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