@tjrobertson52

If you're a local service business, you hate Yelp. That's what I've learned doing SEO for about 100 local service businesses. Yelp is the worst.

A lot of businesses have written them off entirely.

However, as all search becomes AI search, that's getting harder to do. That's because when someone goes to ChatGPT or even Google's AI mode and asks for a recommendation for a local service business, Yelp is by far the most cited website. Google even cites it more than Google Business Profiles.

Now, how often AI cites Yelp depends on your industry, but on average, it cites Yelp for about 39% of searches.

We track AI citations for about 50 different industries, and I've never seen Google Business Profile get cited more than Yelp. But here's the thing: when AI cites Yelp, or any business directory for that matter, they're not citing individual directory listings. They're citing the listicles.

These are those automatically generated pages that exist on every directory, like Best General Contractors in Dallas. If your business isn't showing up at the top of these listicles, you might as well not be on Yelp, at least as far as AI search goes.

So how do you make sure you show up at the top of these listicles? Well, you get reviews or you pay them. I mean, sure, you should definitely fill out your complete profile, make sure you're in the right category, add images.

All those things help. But once you've done all the obvious things, the only thing left to do is get more reviews.

And just like Google, it's more about the velocity of reviews, or how many reviews you've had recently, than total reviews. But of course, no matter how many reviews you get, you will always be underneath the sponsored results. So if you want to show up at the top, you have to run ads on Yelp.

Now, this won't put you at the top consistently unless you're spending a lot of money, but it will increase the chance that you show up at the top.

I know you hate Yelp and you swore you'd never give them a dollar cause they're extortionists that hide all your positive reviews unless you pay them. I can't tell you whether or not it's a good idea to pay Yelp. I'm just here to provide the information.

But at least right now, if you're a local service business, being at the top of these listicles on Yelp really makes a difference. And as all search becomes AI search, that difference is gonna be multiplied. So, you know, think about it.