Yelp SEO Ranking Factors

Have you ever wondered what are the major SEO ranking factors on Yelp? If so, you’re not alone — Yelp is the biggest local search engine with reviews (after Google) and yes, it has its own SEO and ranking algorithm for business listings.

Below we will dive into all of the SEO factors Yelp uses — and if you want to make sure you’re doing a good job at fulfilling these factors, you should check out our Yelp SEO guide to help optimize your small business profile.

Here are the SEO Ranking Factors that Yelp Uses…

1. REVIEWS: Everything from count, relevance, and velocity, to the strength of user profiles leaving reviews for you.
   Reviews are the #1 ranking factor for Yelp. They are believed to measure everything about your reviews, from how many you have, what services are mentioned in your reviews, how frequently you get them. They even measure the strength of the profiles leaving you a review — elite member reviews probably are counted as a more important ranking factor than reviews from other profiles, empty profiles, inactive profiles, or profiles with only one review.
2. Keyword Relevance of the Full Profile
   Just like any other search engine, Yelp is going to look at the keywords mentioned in your small business profile to decide what you should show up for in your area.
   This includes keywords in your reviews (as mentioned above), in your descriptions, in your business name, and in your categories.
3. Business Categories
   If you’re a pest control company and you’re not listed in that category on Yelp, then it doesn’t matter how many other ranking factors you have — you’re going to have more trouble ranking in their searches than your competitors who have their categories set up correctly will!
   Make sure that you’re listed in every relevant category you can for your business.
4. General Profile Completeness
   By having all of the areas of your profile filled out and optimized, including pictures, descriptions, services, categories, and business hours, you give Yelp more ranking signals to choose from when finding the most relevant business for someone’s search.
   One important ranking factor that many business owners miss is the service areas section. Not all profiles have this, but if you do, you need to make sure it’s filled out. This is how Yelp decides (after your physical address) what cities you should show up in!

Are there any ranking factors we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.. and if you enjoyed this post and think it will help your friends in business, please feel free to share it!