Talking with a support person at Yelp, I was able to get some insight into how their search engine works within Yelp. I hope these tips help you place higher for keywords that help you or your customers.
To get placed higher in search results within Yelp, you’ll want to do some research by searching what your customers might search to find you. Let’s say “Pest Control” is what you want to target. The first thing you’ll want to do is goto the business center so you can update the details on your business.
- Add Specialties that target keywords you think your customers are searching.
- Add more photos with comments on it that contain your keywords.
- Call to Action button can also help your ranking but don’t get too long with this.
- Ensure the max 3 categories are set to the highest relevant services you offer (that make you the most money).
The last thing you can do which might be kind of out of your control is to ask your customers to leave reviews and include keywords within the review that target what you want. The only problem with this last one is Yelp has an algorithm that is amazing at catching fake/fluffy reviews. If the review is “unrecommended” then it doesn’t show up immediately and does not help your rankings.
Hope this helps!
Last thing is every quarter, Yelp reviews new categories to add so make it a habit to check the categories semi-annually for more relevant categories.