Playbooks / Fix These 7 Things on Your Yelp Profile Before You Spend Another Dollar on Yelp Ads
Fix These 7 Things on Your Yelp Profile Before You Spend Another Dollar on Yelp Ads
Yelp Ads don't close customers. Your Yelp profile does. The ad gets someone to look at you, and then they compare you against two or three competitors in a few seconds. If the profile doesn't make the case, higher ad spend only buys more people who leave.
Before you raise your Yelp budget, work through this list.
1. Categories that match the work you want
Pick the categories that describe your most valuable services first. A plumber who wants water heater and sewer jobs should make sure those categories and services are listed, not just "Plumbing."
2. Real photos, and lots of them
Your team, your trucks, your office, before-and-after work. Stock photos read as generic. Real photos read as a real local business.
3. A specialties section that sells
Write it for a stressed customer: what you do, where you serve, what makes you different (licensed, same-day service, financing, languages spoken, evening hours). Keep it specific and skip the superlatives.
4. Accurate hours, including after-hours
If you take emergency calls, say so. If you don't, don't pretend to. Mismatched hours lead to frustrated customers and bad reviews.
5. Fast message replies
Yelp shows your typical response time publicly. Request-a-Quote leads go cold fast, so set up instant replies and a clear process for someone to follow up quickly.
6. Thoughtful review responses
Respond to reviews, especially negative ones, calmly and specifically. Future customers read your replies more closely than the original complaint. Never offer incentives for reviews and never ask only happy customers. Both break Yelp's rules.
7. Tracking beyond the Yelp dashboard
Yelp reports page views, calls and clicks. You also need to know which of those turned into booked jobs or signed clients. Otherwise you can't compare Yelp fairly with Google.
Then, and only then, scale the budget
Once the profile converts and leads get answered quickly, more ad spend actually turns into more customers. As a Yelp Ads Partner, this is the order we work in for every new client. Get a free audit and we'll score your profile against this checklist.