Yelp And Your Law Firm

You probably already know that getting reviews on certain more trustworthy websites is an important piece of the local search ranking equation. Claiming, updating and managing your local profiles can have a significant impact on your visibility in local search results. While it is no secret that Yelp has been a good place to send happy clients that want to review your firm, due to its recent relationship with Apple, it has become even more important to monitor and manage your law firm’s presence on Yelp.

In a nutshell, on iOS 6 Yelp gets marquee placement and promotion. Which means that all those people who are using iPhones to get reviews of businesses will increasingly be shown reviews from Yelp.

If used to be that if you used Siri to find reviews, more often than not, you’d be shown Google Places listing or local search results. In the future when you search for reviews on Siri, you’re probably going to see reviews powered by Yelp.

About Yelp from Yelp

On Yelp’s website, they list 10 things they’d like you to know about them:

• Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people find great local businesses like dentists, hair stylists and mechanics.
• Yelp had an average of approximately 71 million monthly unique visitors in Q1 2012.
• Yelpers have written over 27 million local reviews.
• In addition to reviews, you can use Yelp to find events, lists and to talk with other Yelpers.
• Every business owner (or manager) can setup a free account to post photos and message her customers.
• Yelp makes money by selling ads to local businesses - you’ll see these clearly labeled “Yelp Ads” around the site.
• Paying advertisers can never change or re-order their reviews.

- Yelp has an automated filter that suppresses a small portion of reviews - it targets those suspicious ones you see on other sites.

• You can access Yelp via iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and more - see the full list of mobile apps here.
• The Weekly Yelp brings locals updates on the latest and greatest business openings & other happenings.

They also provide a pretty extensive answers area.

If it isn’t already, Yelp should be on your short list in terms of places to send clients who have nice things to say about you. You should also periodically monitor what’s being said about you on Yelp. And of course, if you haven’t done so already, you should claim, update and optimize your firm’s Yelp profile.