For many types of businesses, review sites like Yelp have become an integral part of the buyer’s journey as consumers increasingly research businesses online before making purchases. Yelp is one of the most popular review platforms on the internet, averaging more than 178 million unique visitors every month. Savvy marketers have learned that a fully developed Yelp profile increases engagement and can help your business get chosen among the pool of competition.
However, some businesses may work hard on optimizing their Yelp profile only to find that many customers who land on their page are not converting. One reason for this could be that leads are getting swiped by competitors. For businesses with standard Yelp profiles, competitor ads for similar businesses can show up directly on your profile.
These ads may appear on the right side of your Yelp profile, or towards the bottom, below your reviews.
The solution for removing these troublesome ads is upgrading your Yelp page to an Enhanced Profile.
What are Enhanced Profiles
Standard profiles allow businesses to display basic business information such as address, phone number, website, and category. In addition to allowing competitor ads to appear on your page, they come with other limitations including lack of flexibility to rearrange customer photos and the inability to add a Call To Action button.
Enhanced Profiles are a paid version of Yelp profile that provide businesses with additional features and benefits. Enhanced Profiles “drive engagement with features that make it easy to manage your brand, showcase what makes your business unique, and convert page views into customers” (Yelp).
Some of the Features included with Yelp Enhanced Profiles are:
- Competitor ads removal – focuses your potential customers on your business alone.
- Addition of a Call To Action button – earns businesses more conversions and secondary actions. Businesses can customize their CTA button with a custom link and message, such as “book an appointment” or “call now”.
- Ability to add Business Highlights to attract more customers – Business Highlights include things like “black owned business”, “curbside pickup available”, etc.
- Ability to upload more photos and rearrange photo gallery – this allows businesses to prioritize good photos, while pushing unwanted photos toward the back, as well as select featured photos. Standard profiles do not allow photo rearranging, leaving your business at the whim of whichever customers choose to upload photos.
- Easier profile management for businesses with multiple locations.
- Featured Videos – if you upgrade your Yelp profile with the help of a marketing agency or if you own an enterprise business, you’ll receive Yelp’s Preferred Partner benefit of the ability to display a featured video.
Example of a CTA button and Business Highlights on an Enhanced Profile.
Should you Upgrade?
If you’re on the fence about whether upgrading your Yelp profile is right for your business, it can be helpful to speak with a knowledgeable marketing agency. DSG is a Yelp Agency Partner and has many years of experience working with our clients to optimize their Yelp presence.
Interested in a customized audit and Yelp plan for your business? Reach out to DSG!
