The Ways That Yelp Can Help
Yelp is a great tool for small businesses to take full advantage of the reviews customers post online. Though for some small businesses it can be a scary place, there is no reason to fear the unknown. A good thing to keep in mind is that simply having a presence on a review website can help to increase company awareness and give small businesses new customer insights they would not get elsewhere. Let us now take a look at the ways in which small businesses can benefit from their customers’ love for the popular review website.
Yelp Statistics
Yelp reviews are widely the most trusted. Potential consumers and users highly regard Yelp as a trusted review and opinion source of brands and companies. In fact, a whopping 72 percent of customers trust online reviews just as much as they would a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. 90 percent of users on Yelp say that positive reviews impact their company are buying choices.
How Users Use Yelp
When consumers are choosing which businesses they will use, there are a number of things they base their choice upon. These include the following:
• 44 percent say text reviews are their main deciding factor.
• 26 percent say it is the business ratings.
• 17 percent say that it is the quantity of the reviews.
• 14 percent say they base their decision primarily off reviews from family members and friends.
The Conversion for Businesses
This means that Yelp can equal purchases for many small businesses. The review website is a very powerful deciding factor for many customers. Ratings and reviews are a heavy influence on what they choose to purchase and what company they will purchase it from. 93 percent of people who choose to research online on review websites say they usually make purchases at the businesses that they find there.
With small businesses, there can be big benefits if Yelp is utilized correctly. Small businesses are noticing more and more that there is a rise in the customer demand for information online. At the moment, a good 66 percent of small businesses are spending more time on social media sites in order to raise brand awareness and spread the word about their company or products. This is compared to over a year ago.
Social Media
In a 2012 survey, Vertical Response found that 90 percent of companies are building their online presence on Facebook, while 70 percent are also on Twitter. This points to a general rise in the use of social media, enabling more and more small businesses to attract customers based entirely off recommendations.
For many small businesses, the bottom line is that Yelp equals money. A recent survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group found that small businesses that are taking advantage of Yelp are seeing a definite increase in their annual revenue. The average increase tends to be about $8,000 annually for those businesses with a Yelp account. For those that pay for advertising on Yelp, businesses are seeing $23,000 more per year in revenue.
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