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How to manage your Yelp presence when you have multiple locations

According to recent Moz research, over half of consumers check reviews for local businesses at least once a week—which often lands them on Yelp. For many prospective customers, a Yelp Business Page could be their first impression of your brand, and you want it to be a good one.

For businesses, claiming and managing your Yelp Pages is both a smart marketing strategy and a way to improve the customer experience. To start, it gives you control over the business information listed there. You can make sure the address, hours, phone number, and all other information are up-to-date so no disappointed consumers show up to a closed storefront. As a bonus, Yelp partners with a number of other apps and websites to ensure that any time you make a change to a Yelp Page, the information updates in key other places as well, such as Apple Maps and Siri.

Accessing your pages also allows you to interact with customer feedback directly. Treating Yelp reviews as a form of two-way communication creates an additional channel for nurturing customer relationships. Providing thoughtful responses to reviews demonstrates that you’re listening and care about customers’ experience with your brand.

For businesses with multiple locations, claiming and managing all your Yelp Pages can be a big job, but one that’s well worth the benefits. You have two main options for doing so:

  • Decentralized access
  • Aggregate access

1. Decentralized Yelp Page access: the one-by-one approach

The decentralized option for accessing your Yelp Pages is by claiming and managing the pages for each business and/or location individually. You can claim and access Yelp Pages for up to nine different businesses or business locations using the same login information. With this option, the work of checking and updating each page must be treated as a separate step, even if you access them from the same account.

Pros of decentralized access:

  • It’s free. Claiming and managing your Yelp Pages doesn’t cost anything.
  • It’s easy to delegate. Individual location managers can each be responsible for their own page, keeping the job more manageable for each.
  • You can access several pages from one login. You can link up to nine Yelp Pages to each login you use. When logged into that account, you can then easily toggle between the linked pages, enabling easy updates and review management.
  • You can show genuine familiarity. When the staff member in charge of the Yelp Page works at that specific store, they’re more likely to be familiar with the customers and experiences described in reviews. That allows them to write more personalized, authentic responses.

Cons of decentralized access:

  • Bulk upload isn’t an option. When a piece of information needs to be updated for all your pages—across locations—someone will have to change it manually on each page.
  • Your metrics view is limited. With decentralized access, you can view meaningful metrics for each location, but you can’t access aggregate metrics for them all. That makes finding comparisons and trends in the data harder.
  • Managing permissions can get complicated. If multiple people are responsible for the different pages, then your brand could have multiple logins to keep up with and maintain. If you lack a good system for permissions, when staff members leave, you could end up spending unnecessary time sorting out login credentials.
  • It’s harder to maintain consistency. With different people managing each page, the voice and tone they use will probably vary. Plus, busy managers at some locations may struggle to consistently monitor and respond to reviews, leaving those customers feeling neglected. And if you lack clear guidelines—or if a rash employee goes rogue—one badly managed Yelp Page could put your brand reputation at risk.

How to set up decentralized access:

  1. Go to biz.yelp.com/claim.
  2. Enter the name of your business, then select the correct entry on the list. If your business isn’t listed, you can add it for free.
  3. Follow the instructions as prompted to claim your first page.
  4. Once you claim your first location, simply click “+ Add a Location” under your business name and follow the prompts to add your other locations. You can add up to nine total under your first account.
  5. If you have more to claim at that point, repeat the process from the beginning with a new email address.

2. Aggregate Yelp Page access: a central management approach

The aggregate option lets you access all your Yelp Pages under a single login. Within one account, you can monitor, access, and update pages for all your different locations at once. It also includes access to a dashboard that aggregates all your metrics into one place, making it easier to see how results compare across different locations.

Pros of aggregate access:

  • You can access all your pages in one place. You don’t need to manage multiple email addresses and passwords, or deal with logging out and back in to access different accounts or pages. You’ll see all the information you need in one place.
  • Managing permissions is easy. This option enables you to provide regional and hierarchical access to other employees. If you want to give a regional manager access to their location’s page(s), you can.
  • You gain aggregate analytics data. You can view a dashboard that collects all your analytics in one place so you can see how many views and leads you’re getting across all your locations. You also have the option to set up or request custom reporting through your aggregate dashboard.
  • You can access the bulk update service. The bulk upload option makes it easy to keep brand information consistent across locations. If you change the business hours or want to replace your main brand photo, just let the team at Yelp for Brands know, and they’ll update all the pages for you at once.
  • Use a single point of access for review management. You can streamline the review management process by viewing and responding to reviews for all locations from within the same account. You may choose to put someone in charge of managing all reviews for the brand—potentially someone hired specifically for the task—which helps ensure no feedback is missed. If the same person replies to reviews across locations, they can easily keep the tone and response style consistent, helping you maintain a unified brand voice.
  • You gain additional sales and marketing features. Aggregate page access comes as a value-add when you sign up for other priority features—either the Upgrade Package, which helps your business stand out in Yelp search results, and/or targeted PPC (pay-per-click) ads to help drive more leads.

Cons of aggregate access:

  • It requires a paid plan. You can only get aggregate access after investing in paid, premium Yelp features: the Upgrade Package, Yelp Ads, or both.
  • Providing personal, authentic review responses can be harder. If the person responding to reviews doesn’t work at that specific location, they likely won’t be familiar with the experiences described. If not careful, their responses could end up sounding canned and impersonal. To avoid that, you can institute hierarchical access to help you find the right balance between more personalized responses and corporate oversight.
  • Managing multiple pages can be a lot of work. Depending on how you structure responsibilities, you could risk putting too much work on one person’s shoulders. If one employee is tasked with managing the Yelp Pages for all locations, it could end up being too big a job for them to stay on top of alone. To help with that, we generally recommend companies split responsibilities between location managers and a corporate team to break up the work.

How to set up aggregate access:

A dedicated team from Yelp for Brands will walk you through the process to get set up and started.

  1. You have three options for setting up a meeting:
  2. After the meeting, you’ll get a custom quote based on your needs, number of locations, and budget.
  3. Once you’re ready to move forward, put together a list of all your locations—including any that aren’t yet listed on Yelp.
  4. The Yelp for Brands team will take it from there. We’ll get everything set up for you to get started!

How to decide which option is right for your business

If you’re not sure yet which option makes the most sense for your business, there are a few main questions to consider.

1. What’s your budget?

If your business is trying to stretch a limited budget, the cost of upgrading to aggregate access may not make sense yet, especially if your business only has a few locations. The free, decentralized option meets the needs of many businesses just fine. But if increasing efficiency (while also driving more business) is a bigger priority than cost savings, the aggregate option is more likely to be a worthwhile investment.

2. How many locations do you have?

A business with five locations will have an easier time managing them all via decentralized access than a business with 105 locations. Aggregate access will be especially valuable for businesses that need to scale the work of managing many locations.

3. Who will manage your Yelp Pages?

Whichever option you go with, this is an important component to consider. Managing pages well requires work. Who within your organization has the time, bandwidth, and skills to do it effectively?

If you decide it makes sense to have one person handle the job for multiple locations, then aggregate access is your best bet. That applies whether you choose one person at the corporate level to manage the pages for all locations, or opt to put regional managers in charge of the pages for multiple locations they oversee. Alternatively, if you have location managers who can capably handle the work for their location’s page (on top of their other responsibilities), then sticking with decentralized may serve you fine.

Thinking through how you want to apportion responsibilities for your Yelp Pages will help you determine the best choice for your needs.

4. Do you work with listing management partners?

If you already have a relationship with a listing management partner that works with Yelp, they may be able to handle some of the work of managing your Yelp Pages for you. In particular, they can simplify the work of making updates, removing the need for the bulk upload service. But notably, they can’t respond to reviews for you. If creating a centralized process for review management is a priority, then going for the aggregate option is likely still worth it.

Take control over your Yelp presence

One option here isn’t objectively better than the other. What works best for you will depend on your particular business needs. Both options allow you to take a more active approach to managing your pages, which can improve the customer experience. The sooner you get started on that, the faster you’ll see results.

To gain decentralized access today, visit biz.yelp.com/claim and start claiming your locations.

If you’ve decided aggregate access sounds right for you, set up a meeting with our team by filling out this form, sending an email to brands@yelp.com, or calling us at 855-370-9357.

With that done, the next step is to develop a strong Yelp Page management strategy. Accessing each page is just the beginning. By taking an active approach to your pages, you can turn them into an effective tool for sales, marketing, and nurturing customer relationships.