Yelp is a crucial site to manage for all restaurant owners. The site’s structure, allowing all customers and even fake customers to review your food and rank you from 1-5 stars can be very concerning for many restaurant owners, as a few negative reviews can receive a lot of traction and kill a restaurant’s online presence. Fear not, because with the right attitude a Yelp account can be properly managed and controlled. The first step is signing up for Yelp as a business. The more information you can provide the better. Make sure to put in a lot of appealing pictures of your food as well as information such as address, website, and phone number.

Here are a few strategies to help you succeed with Yelp:

1. Connecting with Other Social MediaYou should use Yelp in conjunction with other social media sites so your followers can get access to your Yelp account and write positive reviews or post positive pictures. Remember you will be encouraging customers to post pictures to your Instagram and Facebook accounts, you may as well put Yelp in there as well. Put links to your Yelp page on other social media sites and links to the other sites, including your website, on your Yelp page. This networked social media presence will help you get followers.

2. Encouraging Customer ReviewsMake sure you specify in your restaurant or in your menu that you do use Yelp so that customers are aware and can review it. Encourage customers to write honest reviews of your restaurant by offering them things such as future discounts or free desserts. DO NOT be too pushy with encouraging them to write reviews, as many people find this very aggressive and will likely review you poorly as a result. Ask kindly but do not push if they say no. The more reviews you can get, the better, as they will drown out any very negative reviews. Though do not expect all of your reviews to be positive.

3. Responding to Negative ReviewsOne of the most difficult things about Yelp can be getting a negative review. People are much more likely to review a restaurant if they’ve had a bad experience than if they had a good one, so be prepared to see some negative feedback. Not all negative reviews are a bad thing. Many can give you valuable insight into struggling aspects of your restaurant and they should be listened to and used to improve your business. But it is very important that you respond to negative customer to let the customer know that you’ve read it and are improving. REMEMBER the customer is ALWAYS right. Do not insult them or tell them they are wrong, be respectful, professional, and admit to your mistake, even if you didn’t make it. Make sure you read the whole review and respond to all their concerns and then offer a solution of how you plan to address these shortcomings in the future. This will show other customers that you genuinely care what the customers think and you are always working to improve the customer experience.

4. Offering a Yelp DealYelp gives you the option to place deals on their site to encourage customers to eat at your restaurants. By offering these deals you will improve your restaurant’s visibility in the local Yelp listings and encourage new customers to try out your place. Like all discounts and deals, this may eat away at your profit margins if you use it too much, but can be a helpful tool for getting people interested in your spot. 

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