PERSONAL PROFILE PAGE NOTES SECTION ONE: YELPER'S INFORMATION This section is similar to Facebook's 'About' and 'Timeline' tabs. It gives other Yelpers some personal information about the account holder and some statistics about his or her friends, ratings, etc. Also similar to Facebook, the platform lets the account holder decide how much or how little he or she wishes to include. #2 Personal Stats: Reviews: After a Yelper posts a review, he or she can update it. According to Yelp, the account holder's update will appear above his or her original review, "and both will be visible to the public and the business owner. Only the newest star rating will be factored into the overall star rating of the business."9 #4 About Mia Analytics: The Yelper learns how many people have viewed his or her reviews, photos, and profile. #5 Rating Distribution: A bar graph represents how many five-star, four-star, etc. reviews the Yelper has completed in total. Yelp also provides graphs that show the Yelper's 'Top Reviewed Categories' and 'Top Reviewed Neighborhoods'. #6 and #8 Review Votes, Stats, and Profile: Tips: Specific recommendations about a particular aspect(s) of a business, as opposed to a detailed examination of the business as a whole (i.e. a review) Compliment: One Yelper can give another a compliment on his or her review. The compliment can be personalized or selected from a compliment type list (e.g. Great Photo, You're Funny, Good Writer, etc.).10 Lists: The lists feature enables the account holder to organize his or her reviews into categories (e.g. Best British Pubs, Winning Late-Night Eateries, etc.). SECTION TWO: REVIEWS AND BUSINESS INFO. This section really gets down to the nitty-gritty of what Yelp is all about: reviews. It's here that the account holder tells other Yelpers what he or she really thinks about a particular business. #1 Business Info: a. Business Categories: This informs the account holder about what kind of services and products the business provides, or in the case of a restaurant, the type of cuisine it serves. Note: Yelp sometimes uses dollar signs to indicate where a business falls in its pre-determined pricing scale: $ = inexpensive $$ = moderate $$$ = pricey $$$$ = ultra high-end

#2 Star Rating and Posting Date: Star Rating: Yelp allows the reviewer to give a business a five-to one-star rating. The star equivalence is as follows: 5 stars: "Woohoo! As good as it gets!" 4 stars: "Yay! I'm a fan." 3 stars: "A-OK." 2 stars: "Meh. I've experienced better." 1 star: "Eek! Methinks not."

Note: Contrary to popular belief, most people don't only use Yelp to leave negative reviews; the majority of the reviews on the site are 3 stars or higher

INTRODUCTION

Yelp is composed of two main elements: personal and business. As was discussed in the previous section, 'personal' refers to Yelp as a platform for the posting of reviews. In Canada, this is accessed

through yelp.ca and in the United States through yelp.com. The business side of Yelp encompasses how businesses describe, build, and optimize their profiles through biz.yelp.ca or biz.yelp.com. Many businesses are on Yelp whether they choose to be or not. A listing for a business can be created by any Yelp account holder, so it's important that the company itself claims its listing. That way, the business can build out its profile, enabling users not only to find it, but see the images and information the business wants to convey

.BUSINESS PAGE LAYOUT AND COMPONENTS

#2 Average Star Rating Out of Total Reviews: If a business owner or Yelper clicks on the 'details' button, he or she will see a bar graph that shows how many stars the business has received in each star category (e.g. 14 five-star reviews, 3 four-star reviews, etc.). Yelp calculates the average star rating only using reviews that have been recommended using its software (this will be discussed later in the chapter).

#3 Business Category: A business can select up to three categories on its Yelp page. They are listed in order too. The first one is how the business owner primarily identifies his or her operation. The second and third are secondary and tertiary.

#4 Images: On this business page, there are images. Pictures are important; "the more high quality photos the more interesting [a] page is going to be. According to Review Trackers research, people searching Yelp for local businesses spend 2.5 times more time on a Yelp listing with photos."Ideally, a business should include pictures with people in them. For example, a staff picture is much more powerful than a picture of the company's logo or the business' retail location. Seeing images of people helps the target audience to connect on a more human level to the business. This is especially important, as the majority of brands on Yelp are B2C.

#8 Recommended Reviews & #13 Hidden Reviews:

On this business page, there are recommended reviews and hidden reviews. Obviously, the more reviews a business has, particularly positive ones, the better it is likely to be perceived. If an individual clicks on the hidden reviews, he or she will often see a mix of positive and negative ones. So, why is Yelp hiding these, especially when the positive ones could help the business? Interestingly, whether a review is hidden or not has nothing to do with the nature of the business itself. Instead, Yelp's focus is on the reviewer. If he or she is posting fake reviews (indicated by the fact that multiple reviews under different names are coming from the same computer) or is biased (the reviewer is related to the business owner), then that reviewer's content will be hidden.18

However, a reviewer's content can also be hidden if he or she has not built up credibility through an established history of reviews on Yelp. Therefore, if a reviewer is new and posts his or her first review. Yelp won't show it. Or, if someone has only posted one or two reviews over a year, they won't be shown either. As the reviewer posts more, his or her previous content will start appearing. This process is built into Yelp's often misunderstood algorithm. #12 Search Terms (Key to SEO): The information in this section indicates that these terms should appear in the business' description, if they are not there already, with the proviso that they must represent the company's Unique Selling Proposition (USP). In other words, if a brand wants to rank higher in Yelp search results, it needs to optimize its page using the right terminology. On the flip side, business owners and marketers should be aware that reviews containing these keywords will also help to rank a company in Yelp search results, making it more visible. Note 1: Yelp needs an algorithm such as this because it must stay relevant, useful, and credible. If people stop viewing Yelp as a trustworthy source, no one will continue to utilize it and it will ultimately fail. With this in mind, Yelp has a vested interest in being perceived as an honest, reliable source of feedback. Note 2: This sample page contains all the necessary information Yelp suggests the owner fill out. It also contains images. A more complete page appears better and ranks higher

In Course 1, Digital Marketing Fundamentals, you learned how business owners can best respond to negative reviews. What do you recall from that text?

1. Should responses be public or private? Explain.

2. How should business owners phrase their responses? *Now, think about how business owners should respond to positive reviews? Should they respond publicly? How should they phrase their responses?