In this 5-minute read:
- Claim your Yelp listing
- Update your information
- Post photos
- Get and respond to reviews
- Offer deals and discounts
- Advertise on Yelp
- Promote your Yelp listing off Yelp
If you own any type of beauty salon and your business isn’t on Yelp yet, what are you waiting for? Ninety-two percent of consumers who use Yelp make a purchase within a week of visiting this review platform. But how do you get your Yelp listing in front of that 92 percent?
Attract more customers and keep them loyal with reputation management software. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!
Just like with any online platform, there are several ways you can enhance and promote your business’s Yelp listing.
Claim your Yelp listing
The first step is always going to be claiming your Yelp listing. (Check out our in-depth tutorial for creating and claiming your business listing on Yelp.) Sometimes Yelp will generate unclaimed listings for businesses that users search for frequently, and so you’ll want to do a search for your business on Yelp before creating a listing to make sure you don’t already have one. From there, you can begin the claiming process.
Claiming the Yelp listing for your salon gives you full access and control over it, allowing you to make changes, keep your information up to date, and respond to customer reviews, which brings us to our next point.
Keep your Yelp profile updated
The place where small businesses like salons fall short in their online marketing is keep their online listings up to date. With the sheer amount of people who use Yelp (more than 178 million every month), it’s absolutely crucial to make sure your information is correct and up to date. You want customers to be able to find you, right?
Here’s a list of the type of information that you’ll want to keep updated on your salon’s listing:
- Business name
- Service category
- Address
- Phone number
- Website
- Hours (this especially—you don’t need a bad review because your hours were incorrect)
- Services offered
- Payments accepted
- Parking information
- Wi-fi availability
- Prices
The more information you can provide, the more likely you are to get a call to schedule that hair appointment. Consumers want to know as much information as they can before making a commitment, especially when it comes to their appearance. So if a competitor is offering more information about their business than you, they might just win that customer.
Post lots of photos
This step in promoting your Yelp listing is incredibly important for hair and nail salons. Customers don’t just want to take your word for it that you know what you’re doing. They want a portfolio of proof! The more examples of your work that you can show to potential customers, the more opportunity you have to reel them in.
Really make that extra effort here to post some good quality photos. Fortunately, we live in an amazing age of advanced technology where most of our phones have high quality cameras built right in, so this shouldn’t be too difficult, and then you can post them directly in the Yelp app.
Get and respond to Yelp reviews
Reviews are powerful. Womply’s latest research on online business reviews shows businesses with more than the average number of reviews earn 54% more in annual revenue. Better make sure your salon is reaping the rewards of that influence.
By acquiring new reviews on Yelp, your listing has a better opportunity of showing up above your competitors. The number of reviews you have and the freshness of those reviews (how recently they were received) will help you stand out.
Responding to these reviews really important, especially when you get the occasional get a bad review. Consumers want to see that you are responsive and take accountability. If someone left a bad review saying how disappointed they were because their nails smudged as soon as they left the salon, and you responded by inviting that customer back in to get their nails fixed free of charge, not only will they be satisfied, but others will be impressed too.
It’s not always easy to get new reviews, though, because happy customers don’t always think to leave them. Read our in-depth article on how to get more reviews.
Offer special deals and discounts
Everyone loves to save a few bucks. Take advantage of that by promoting sales and great prices on your Yelp listing.
Another offering that Yelp has is Yelp Deals. Yelp has a platform that allows you to promote discounts and gift certificates to entice customers to choose your salon over another one. These offers are prepaid vouchers that the customer purchases from Yelp, and then Yelp pays your portion of the sale to you each month.
Advertise on Yelp
Yelp has a great small business marketing platform that can help get your salon in front of even more potential customers. Yelp ads have three main benefits:
1. Targeted local advertising
You can target customers searching for your services in your city. Yelp places your business in front of those who are searching and have the intent of making a purchase.
2. Premium placements
When you pay for Yelp’s premium placements, they’ll list your salon on competitor pages and at the top of relevant search results.
3. Multiple platforms
Because most of Yelp searches are conducted on mobile devices, Yelp promotes your salon across all platforms: desktop browsers, mobile browser, and their mobile app.
Promote your Yelp listing outside of Yelp
Treat your Yelp listing like you would your storefront or your website. Direct customers and potential customers to your Yelp listing so they can see your reviews, photos, and all of the work that you have put into it. Maybe someone is still in the “considering” phase and they need to see that Yelp listing one more time to push them over the edge.
Here are a few ways you can promote your Yelp listing outside of Yelp:
- Add a Yelp icon or badge to your company website
- Place a Yelp sticker in your store window
- Get a sign that encourages customers to “check-in” to your store on Yelp’s mobile app
If you need help managing and keeping track of your Yelp reviews (and other online review platforms), Womply’s reputation management software could be a great option for you. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!