5 Things Churches Need to Know About Yelp
Started in 2004 as a service to assist people in finding a good mechanic, doctor, or hair salon in their area, Yelp now has 142 million active users each month. Here’s the top five things you need to know:
1) Google and Siri drive searches to Yelp
I just asked Siri, “What are the top churches in Savannah?” and my iPhone offered me the top three Yelp reviewed churches in the city as an answer. Millions turn to Google and Siri each day. Make sure they find your congregation.
2) Yelp already lists your church
Your congregation is already listed on Yelp. If you don’t take the steps below, however, your listing will remain confined to your name, address, and phone number.
3) Churches can claim their listing
Go to https://biz.yelp.com to claim your church’s listing at no cost. All you need will be your street address to get started. You will need to be able to take a call at the listed phone number of your church in order to complete this process, so be in the church office when you start. Once you claim your listing, you can add hours, a website, and other helpful information. Be sure to add photos. It’s free and will greatly improve your listing.
4) Encourage Reviews
Yelp encourages you to attract attention to your Yelp page by putting a link to your page on your website, with a link through social media, and by encouraging people through the bulletin to check-in at your church on Yelp. The caveat is that Yelp stakes its reputation on honest reviews by screening out reviews it deems to be bogus. Because this is their business model, they won’t tell you exactly how this works. But there are things you can and should know, so finally…
5) You can’t game the system, so don’t try
St. John’s Episcopal Church in Savannah encouraged congregation members to review the church on Yelp and what they learned will help other churches. St. John’s helped us discovered two key issues:
- Yelp favors reviews by people who review widely and screens against new users who create a new account and then make one glowing review.
- Yelp seems to screen against overly religious language (Eucharist, for example).
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The best way to deal with this is to engage with Yelp on their very reasonable terms. Let people know through your bulletin that if they review other businesses on Yelp, you would also like their honest appraisal of your church. This may result in candid views from visitors that you don’t appreciate alongside reviews that share the love. This is how Yelp works. If you have claimed your Yelp listing, you can at least respond as the business owner to issues named in a review, so that you can be in conversation with people.
You can become one of the top churches listed in your town with just two or three reviews. The process is not that difficult and it is free. As search engines are using this data anyway, why not improve the one way of inviting people to worship with you?
Peace, Frank
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue, Canon to the Ordinary
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