Question About Replying to Yelp Reviews and SEO
-
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.
-
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.
-
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:
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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/
-
Be sure you are building up an excellent review base on other platforms like Google, Facebook and whatever directories matter most to your market.
-
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!
-
-
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What do I need to do for SEO when moving a business out of state?
Hello! So I have a business that I run out of a single location for the last 3 years. I am unfortunately having to move here in the next few weeks My question is what do I need to do in order to have the best chance at SEO for the new location? When should I make the changes? Does it take a long time for me to stop showing up in the previous location? and is there something I need to do to remove those? Also, is there an app or a website where I can find and update all listings at once or at least a bulk of them? I know that there are some weird sites that have my business info in them that I did not put there. Obviously these would have the wrong address. Some do not have a contact info or a way for me to log into them. What would I do with these sites? Thank you!
Local Listings | | Rmarkjr810 -
Local SEO penalty?
Hi Moz Community We are in a unique position. We just launched a new site for a client. The site was doing fine before but it wasn't very user friendly. We created a site with almost identical architecture and content as the last one, just new design and layout. Within 5 days, the site dropped off of LOCAL search almost completely, it now ranks on the 9th page in Austin Texas. (reliantplumbingdotcom). Every other location (Dallas, LA, Philadelphia, Houston) all show the site on the first page for relevant keywords (Austin Plumbers, Austin Plumber) I have no idea what to think about this and don't know if we're being penalized somehow (checked GSC and no manual penalty) I have never experienced a site being blacklisted locally but well ranked everywhere else. Thoughts?
Local Listings | | GrueBleenAgency1 -
Bad Google Reviews - Should I Remove the Map From My Website?
I have a Google map on a website. Currently, there are only two 1-star reviews — which show next to the company name on the map. We added the map for local SEO reasons, but I’m thinking I should take it down because customer experience supersedes local SEO. Why boost search rankings if the content will drive people away from converting? So basically, customer experience > local SEO. Question: Do you all agree, or do any of you have any evidence that I should leave it? For example, it’s below the fold, so it isn’t the first thing they see, and we really need to boost their local SEO.
Local Listings | | BlueCorona1 -
SEO - Should individual doctors at facility claim a Google My Business profile?
My client is a physician facility with several doctors practicing at the facility. When doing a Google search for some of their practices such as "family practice" one of the doctor's profiles will display in the Google Local pack - however it is not linked to the facility website where their profile exists. As of right now, we are using YEXT and other tools to claim Google Business Profiles for each practice, not the individual doctors. If there are unclaimed accounts for individual doctors, they are alerting Google that it’s a duplicate and should be taken down. Is this the right process to follow for SEO best practices or should we be claiming both the business and individual doctor profiles? The reason they are not claiming individual doctor profiles is to cut down on duplicate reviews as part of the Reputation Management Program. Advice much appreciated!
Local Listings | | chrisvogel0 -
SEO Google local listings
Hello We've recently started a campaign for a local business, and now the domain authority and the number of links to the site are equal if not more to all local major competitors (bar one) and organic rankings for relevant terms are increasing well... However we still do not appear in the google local listings, despite having a verified location business account - fully set up and active and linked to the website. Does anyone have any advice for increasing local rankings? Thanks in advance kind mozzers
Local Listings | | wearehappymedia0 -
Ethics questions / discussion on SEO
Please forgive me if I'm asking too many questions. I'm new to MOZ and have a little bit of experience with SEO, but not that much at all. The question of the day pertains to using keywords that refer to another brand in order to bring search traffic to your site as well as compete on searches against your competitor. I'm certain this is not a unique case, however; it's early in the morning and my brain isn't working well enough to come up with a comparable example, so I will use my own situation. "Pop Warner" is a youth football brand. It's been around since 1929 and it's synonymous with youth football now. If someone is looking for a place to enroll their children, they will typically search for "%Town_Name%" + "Pop Warner" Pop Warner however; is not the only national governing body for youth football. The association (company) that I'm doing work for is an American Youth Football Program. Now, is it considered bad form, evil or whatever to optimize using a term such as "Pop Warner" on my site if I'm NOT affiliated with pop warner whatsoever? If the answer is yes, can you provide me with direction as to how this should be handled? If no...than I know how to handle it.
Local Listings | | UpperCapeSpartans0 -
Promoting a home based business on yelp
Hi,
Local Listings | | corn
I have several clients who run firms out of their homes but they want to promote on yelp. Does yelp allow someone to hide their address but to still come up in search results for a city? If so, how do I do this? Cornelius0 -
Sponsored Listings Hurting Local SEO?
We use a service which sponsors listings on various popular directories. In turn, it changes our phone number so that I can qualify if the call is a lead or not and then charge us. Unfortunately, while this service helps exposure on those directories, the phone number as well as the website are different. How much of a problem is this for our local SEO? Other directories include Suerpages and Citysearch. -Brant
Local Listings | | BCB11210