3 proven strategies to skyrocket your multi-location business on Yelp

In today’s digital landscape, Yelp is the go-to platform for millions of consumers seeking exceptional local businesses. With an impressive 83% of users making a purchase from a business they found on Yelp, and 57% contacting a business on the same day¹, it’s crucial for marketing managers and directors to ensure their businesses stand out. To help you reach a broader audience, attract more customers, and drive business growth on Yelp, we’ve compiled three key strategies tailored to national brands.

1. Keep Your Yelp Pages Up-to-Date for Maximum Visibility

First and foremost, accuracy and completeness are paramount when it comes to your business information on Yelp. Providing detailed information empowers potential customers to make informed decisions quickly. Begin by confirming the correctness of your business name, address, and phone number for each Yelp Business Page.

It’s equally vital to include your website URL and hours of operation. As consumers often search for businesses that are “open now,” having up-to-date operating hours listed is crucial to capitalize on this feature and attract relevant traffic.

Furthermore, selecting the most relevant categories and services that describe your business is essential for improved search visibility. Within each category, you can showcase additional services and offerings to provide users with more comprehensive insights. If applicable, consider designating specific service areas to automatically connect with customers who are searching for businesses like yours. This feature enhances location accuracy and increases the likelihood of inquiries from interested users.

Yelp offers numerous free features to make your business more appealing to customers. Although implementing these updates may require effort for multi-location businesses, the benefits are worth it—businesses with a completed Yelp business page average 7.6x more page views per month than those with an incomplete page². Additionally, if you’re a paying customer, your dedicated Yelp account team will handle all updates on your behalf.

2. Elevate Your Yelp Pages with Powerful Upgrades

Once you’ve leveraged the free features, it’s time to consider Page Upgrades—an effective way to turbocharge your Yelp presence. Page Upgrades visually enhance your Business Pages, enticing potential customers to become paying ones. Here are the key benefits:

• Convert customers with a CTA: Utilize a prominent Call-to-Action button to guide visitors towards specific actions or promote particular services, increasing the conversion rate of your pages.
• Eliminate competitor ads: Free Yelp Pages typically display competitor ads in the center of the page, diverting attention from your business. Removing these ads ensures customers stay focused on your offerings.
• Prioritize captivating photos: The Slideshow feature empowers you to curate the photos displayed at the top of your pages and alongside your business in search results. Take control of the visual narrative, ensuring potential customers see the most appealing images first.
• Showcase unique features: Leverage the Business Highlights feature to select up to six badges that exemplify what sets your business apart. One or more badges will be featured in Yelp search results. Choose from over 30 highlights, such as vegan-friendly, satisfaction guaranteed, years in business, and more.
• Establish brand awareness and trust: Upload your company’s logo using the Logo feature, which displays it on your Yelp Pages and in the search bar dropdown. This subtle yet effective tactic enhances your business’s professional image, fostering trust and awareness.

For multi-location businesses, Yelp offers bundled feature packages. To explore the full potential of these upgrades, sign up for a free personalized 1:1 demo and discover how they can drive results for your national brand.

3. Boost Exposure with Yelp Ads

With your Business Pages optimized, it’s time to increase your business’s visibility through Yelp Ads. While organic searches may bring some customers, Yelp Ads can effectively promote your business in prominent areas across the site and mobile app, including above organic search results and on competitors’ business pages. Given that 58% of Yelp users choose businesses within the first 5 search results³, this prime placement is invaluable.

Yelp Ads operate on a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) basis, ensuring you only pay when your ad is clicked. Customize your ads to align with your campaign goals, whether that’s driving website traffic, increasing store visits, or generating more phone calls. Take advantage of powerful solutions, including:

• Keyword blocking: The Yelp Ads platform automatically targets users who show interest in businesses like yours based on factors like their search location, query, and your business category. This eliminates the need for guesswork when choosing successful keywords. On the flip side, keyword blocking (negative keyword targeting) allows you to exclude your business as a search result for goods or services you don’t offer. This precision ensures your business appears in highly relevant searches and avoids irrelevant inquiries.
• Competitor targeting: Collaborate with your account team to specify a list of competitors you wish to target. Yelp Ads will then display on the Business Pages of these competitors, as well as when users conduct relevant searches near their locations. This strategic tool gives your business a competitive advantage and helps your business gain market share.
• Sophisticated measurement: Yelp provides an array of measurement and attribution tools to gauge advertising effectiveness at no additional cost. From first party store visitation metrics to call tracking technology and partnerships with attribution platforms like Foursquare and LiveRamp, these tools enable you to measure and attribute business results accurately.

Yelp Ads continually evolves to offer more options and flexibility for multi-location businesses. On average, businesses get 2.5x more leads with Yelp Ads⁴.