What’s up guys, Harry over here to answer your question; should you be advertising your restaurant on Yelp? In order to answer that, because it’s not a clear cut yes or no, let’s take a look at how Yelp works and then, we’ll get a better understanding of this.
You’re going to see that I did a search for sushi in Beverly Hills. Which is a very broad search so it’s going to be a very high volume search. Definitely very valuable. First thing you’ll see at the very top of the search results page are the the sponsored ads.
This is what you’re paying for when you pay Yelp. To appear at the very top right here on top of your competitors. But before we even get to that, let’s talk about when you should NOT be advertising. And it’s a very clear cut answer at least in this scenario. And that is when your restaurant is not highly rated. Below 3 stars generally.
In most people’s eyes that’s considered average or a poor restaurant. So there’s no point in paying Yelp to let people know and to ask them to visit an average restaurant. It’s just not going to convert. So save your money.
Now, with that being said, if you are highly rated (anything about four-star), here’s when you should consider advertising. So let’s take a look. We got two sponsored listings up here, and then we moved down to the all results area. Now this is where the organic results are. And a good scenario to consider advertising is if let’s say you’re kind of new and you got some pretty good ratings. But you don’t have that many reviews yet.
For example, Sachi sushi here with 75 reviews, four and a half stars. They’re a good candidate to consider advertising because they can appear above the top competitor in the search results and capture some of those customers and drive them into your restaurant.
Okay. Now when you look at this, you see Wadatsumi right here who’s also advertising. But they’re already ranked number one. So why would they be spending money in advertising if they’re already ranked number one? Well, let’s take a look. Let me show you what Yelp does to your listings right here.
Let’s take a look at Matsuhisa. Okay. Now Matsuhisa I know they are not paying Yelp as a paid advertiser because when you go to their listing page, you’re going to see other competitors ads=right on their listing page. So what Yelp does is if you’re not a paying advertiser, they’re going to put your competitor’s ads right on your profile listing.
So even if you have a customer on your listing, they can see your competitors ads and be swayed to go elsewhere. That’s how Yelp monetizes. And it’s important to understand that.
So that is why a you would still advertise even though you are already ranked number one.
To summarize, here a three scenarios you would consider advertising on Yelp.
- You do have good ratings, but you don’t quite have the rating count.
- You’re already a top ranking restaurant, but you want to keep other people out of your listing, you want to keep your competitors out of your listing.
- You have good ratings and you want to get visibility further out.
Last time I checked you can start advertising on Yelp for a couple hundred dollars a month. I think it’s good place to start. At the very least you get your competitors out of your, your listing. As a paid advertiser, you get some cool little bells and whistles for your profile. Buttons to order now, make reservations, and the ability to arrange your photos in the order you want.