Yelp Shows Up Great on Search Results
Yelp is one of the fastest growing and highest ranking directories on the web. Do a quick search, such as
“painters in Boston” and chances are you will see Yelp results towards the top (picture below: #
2 spot).

Because of the clout Yelp has with search engines and the number of reviews, Yelp is far reaching, even to the mobile apps such as Apple Map and Siri results. Try using Siri on your iPhone to look for a local restaurant. It will typically show you Yelp reviews. This all sounds good. So a construction business should definitely be on Yelp, right?
When To Advertise
Depending on your location, Yelp can be a good place to advertise your contracting business. It provides good branding for some companies I know that started early into Yelp or had a good amount of reviews already. The key really does seem to be around the overall reviews that are visible (not filtered). Places like Boston,
NYC, San Diego, Chicago, and San Francisco tend to have a lot of active Yelp users. When a city has active users, Yelp can be very promising for some contractors. If your business is willing to ride the wave and be very patient, Yelp can be a good option.
When To Not Advertise
I just mentioned that Yelp
could be a good place to advertise. Generally, I am not a fan of steering my clients to Yelp to get more leads. This is due to a few reasons. Mainly it is because they are too late in the game. If they do not have any reviews and there are contractors on Yelp with
15 –
20, even
60+ reviews, one will have a very hard time getting leads off of Yelp. Yelp users rely heavily on reviews. If you don’t have reviews, you won’t get the calls. Oh you’ll get a couple here and there, but the cost per lead will be expensive. Again, patience and a lot of money is the key! I will add that if you start with a negative review, it is next to impossible to get calls when advertising and try to get more positive reviews. Why? It seems that most people will not write an online review unless
1) They really hated the experience or
2) Your service was better than they thought. If it was just
“Okay” people tend to not go out of their way to write a review. The problem is that if you ask for a review from a Yelp user, Yelp is pretty good at filtering those reviews out and they will not show in the search results. I have not been very happy with Yelp for contractors. The ones I see that have a lot of reviews were
“lucky” enough to get in early, when it was not as popular. Others just seem to offer more discounts and deals and therefore go after the customers who are not as concerned about hiring a contractor for other reasons: service, quality, and a long term relationship. I will close with this: Some who read this may have had great experiences on Yelp. I just have not seen it work very well for most in the home improvement industry, in my experience. I’d rather them work on spending their resources on connecting with their existing clients, community activities, and content marketing.