Yelp Sucks

What has been your experience with using Yelp internationally? (I know Yelp is not popular internationally)

Since I have to travel a lot for my work, I seen the differences when going to different countries like Germany, Brazil, London, UK when it comes to how people write reviews. I also check the places I go to Google review too since Google is main place for reviews internationally. I'm a big contributor to the Google Map platform.

I have to go to Japan soon so can't wait to get that check in badge and check out some cool Ramen, sushi places.

Hi!

I am a wedding photographer with a 2.5 rating on Yelp and I was wondering is there any way from coming back from this?

For the last 2 years we have been doing all of the things within the TOS to, nudge/ever so gentle let past clients know we have a Yelp account.

We even remind them to add a pic, etc etc.

And over that time period we have TRIPLED the amount of reviews we have on Yelp (all 4-5 stars) however those reviews always end up in “not recommended” and the star rating has not changed.

Also in the time period, thankfully we have gained zero reviews below 4 stars.

I don’t want to get into the debate of “not recommended and Yelp is a scam.” But I do need some real help as to what we can do.

We even did a $400/month advertising package for family mini sessions for 6 months and that lead to ZERO bookings. The few leads we did talk to were scared off by our rating.

As a small business what can we do to improve this rating because the current path is not working.

For anyone currently paying for Yelp advertising, how are you accurately tracking your return on ad spend?

I run a business with multiple locations, and Yelp keeps reaching out, but I have yet to see an easy and reliable way to connect Yelp ad spend to actual completed purchases and revenue.

With Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, I can track conversions, sales, and ROAS without having my staff manually ask every customer how they found us. Yelp seems to rely heavily on calls, messages, clicks, and estimated leads, but those numbers do not necessarily mean someone actually purchased anything.

So I’m genuinely curious:

1. Do you have a simple and reliable way to track Yelp ads all the way through to completed sales and revenue?
2. If you cannot accurately track the return, why do you continue advertising there?
3. Have you found Yelp ads profitable, or are you mostly relying on the assumption that they are bringing in business?

I’m not looking for responses from Yelp sales reps. I would really like to hear from actual business owners who are spending their own money on the platform.

I saw a post yesterday about somebody saying Yelp business model wasn’t working so it got me wondering if Yelp should change some things?

I can’t see that post anymore. I like Yelp and being an Elite has been wonderful, so I'm glad to leave my reviews on there. Too many fake reviews on google and it’s so difficult to do searches.

Would you like owners to respond to your review?

Does the way an owner respond to review make you decide if you should go to their business or use their business?