Question About Replying to Yelp Reviews and SEO

[Dsv]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if responding to negative yelp reviews would in turn boost yelps seo ranking for my business name. I'm trying to direct attention away from yelp being that we've had little success having real clients get through the review filter. We unfortunately have nasty competition that seems to be leaving fake negative reviews incessantly.

[SEOEXPARTETEAMBANGLADESH]

For this reason you can contact to yelp that tell them people make fake feedback for your list.  Also you can see there report review option.  It will also work for remove fake review.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Daniel!

Thanks for asking a good question. It sounds like you've got a complex issue here, so I'll number my thoughts to reply:

1. If your competitors are spamming you on Yelp, then your first step should be to document that as much as you possibly can and report it to Yelp: https://www.yelp-support.com/Reporting_an_Inappropriate_Review?l=en_US Be prepared to offer any proofs you can that these are actually competitors doing this to you.

2. No one that I know of has ever published a study as to whether owner responses on Yelp impact the rankings of Yelp listings. It's an interesting question, but not one I can respond to with data, unfortunately.

3. If you are able to get Yelp to remove spam reviews, problem solved. If, however, you can't prove to them that these are your competitors and they leave the reviews live, then I would strongly recommend replying to them. Otherwise, what you are doing is giving up any control you have over writing any part of this narrative of your brand online. Yelp reviews are public, and negative reviews with no owner responses tell the public that the brand doesn't care and leaves customers in the lurch when they have a problem. The opposite of this can be a brand like yours that responds with accountability and support when a customer complains, showing the public that your business takes care of customers and will take care of them. However, it's definitely challenging to do this when a review is actually spam. It all feels rather fake to apologize for a fictitious negative experience, but the thing is, your potential future customers don't know the negative experience is fake. So, you just have to do your best to demonstrate that your brand listens and cares, even if you believe what you're listening to is fictitious.

4. It also sounds like you need to work on getting real reviewers that meet Yelp's filter criteria to review you. Darren Shaw wrote a good tutorial on this last year, and I think it will really help you with this: https://whitespark.ca/blog/how-to-get-yelp-reviews-that-wont-get-filtered-and-improve-your-rating/

5. Be sure you are building up an excellent review base on other platforms like Google, Facebook and whatever directories matter most to your market.

6. Hang in there. You can't ignore Yelp right now, but they are only one portion of your reputation, and you're not alone in having a hard time navigating their filters and spam problems. Hopefully, you can prove you've been targeted with spam and get some/all of it removed. But, if you can't, re-focus on the core of providing exceptional customer experiences and diversifying the number of places you receive reviews, and that should help you continue to grow a positive reputation. Review sites are all having a hard time with spam, and it's their problem to solve if they want to remain relevant to consumers.

Hope this helps!

[WebMarkets]

Great question. I have also asked about how much weight content on yelp pages hold in terms of SEO.

Definitely reach out to yelp about this issue. Not quite sure about the SEO aspects, but from a brand perception aspect, you definitely want to respond to negative reviews.