Online reviews are the kind of social proof most of us rely on. So it’s not surprising that companies compete to be “found”.
Fortunately, there are sites like Yelp. Users rate and review restaurants, barber shops, hotel rooms and more on a daily basis. That’s partly why Yelp has become the most visited review site in the US.
Reading: How to create a review website like yelp
How to Build a Business Directory Website? Which functions are worth investing in? Read on as we’ve rounded up the best solutions and prepared tips for creating a review website like Yelp.
What is a business directory website?
The truth is, business directories exist quite a while. “Yellow Pages” were used as a common method before internet services were found.
Eventually they were replaced by what we call business directory sites. In addition to contacts and descriptions, such sites include crowd-sourced reviews.
How many of us read feedback before visiting a restaurant or booking a room? Probably a lot. Surveys show that for 79% of customers, an online review is akin to word of mouth.
Moreover, many people go online almost every day to learn about companies:
Source: BrightLocal Research on December 9, 2020
Key Players
When we talk about companies like Yelp, we have to mention other leading platforms, where your company can be listed. So here are some honorable mentions:
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Google My BusinessGoogle My Business listings appear in your browsers almost every day. This directory continues to gain relevance for several reasons, the most important of which is a widely used search engine.
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FoursquareFoursquare might have this for its check- known in function. Nowadays it focuses on tips written by users. Users who claim to run their business also use analytics.
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Bing Places for BusinessUnlike Google, where links play a crucial role , Bing’s algorithm is keener on social signals – likes, shares and comments. Bing Places for Business displays reviews from third-party sites like Yelp, Facebook, and TripAdvisor. Also, the image attachment limit for your listing is 10MB, while Google’s file size limit is up to 5MB.
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FacebookYou don’t have to mention Facebook what Facebook is Is. With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, there are countless services to connect to your Facebook Page.
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TripAdvisorThe world’s largest Website with tour suggestions. Travelers use it to search 884 million reviews from more than 7 million places – restaurants, hotels and travel destinations.
Yelp History and Overview
In 2004, Jeremy Stoppelman contracted the flu. When he went online to find a doctor, he found that there wasn’t that much information. That story eventually led to the founding of Yelp, a one-stop shop for review sites for just about every type of business.
He launched the site with former PayPal colleague Russ Simmons that same year. Since 2004, users have posted over 220 million reviews on Yelp.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Yelp had net sales of $233 million. Net income increased 23% from the fourth quarter of 2019 to $21 million and the company is forecasting sustained revenue growth this year.
Satisfying business owners isn’t easy. It might be even harder to keep their customers happy. Since business directory sites do both, let’s take a close look at how Yelp handles each page.
Yelp for Customers
Check out the following notable ones Features at Yelp provides a customer with:
- Check-ins;
- Reservations and food orders;
- Reviews and ratings;
- Location-based recommendations.
For those of you familiar with Facebook Places and Foursquare, Yelp check-ins shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Keep your friends informed of your comings and goings. In the meantime, some restaurants may offer you a 20% discount or a free appetizer as a thank you for your contributions.
Yelp will show recommendations triggered by real-time geospatial data from your device:
You can reserve by tapping the Find Table button. A business must be enrolled in Yelp Reservations to take advantage of this feature.
Update information about the place you’re visiting from their page on Yelp by simply tapping the edit icon. And if you want to share your experience, click Write a Review.” You will be redirected to a new page.
Once the page opens, select the number of stars, write your comment and click “Post a review”. You can also attach photos that You took.
This is how it looks in practice:
The appearance of review snippets in search results is fully automated. Which review appears first is determined by the Keyword relevance determines and, according to Yelp, whether it’s currently recommended.
In 2019, Yelp introduced custom search based on each user’s diet and lifestyle, powered by advanced machine learning and AI skills possible.
Yelp for Business
It’s possible that your company hmen has already been rated by Yelp members. Claiming your business gives you some insight and the ability to respond to reviews, both private and public.
Yelp allows you to add your own pictures and feature your business in the following sections :
- Specialties (character limit: 1500);
- History (character limit: 1000);
- Meet the owner/manager (character limit: 1000).
The less well known your business is, the more accurate its description should be. That’s one reason for character limitations. Create a unique and meaningful description for a memorable, premium corporate image.
A user dashboard is available to provide data about your visitors. Keep an eye on the metrics to find out how you can increase user retention. For example, a coffee shop owner may notice that people visit their page on weekdays before the publishing break. This would help run more effective marketing campaigns.
Yelp for Business can offer you self-service and a contract plan.
If you prefer the contract plan, a Yelp representative will help guide you an advertising campaign. All included services require a monthly payment.
See also: Create a Clothing Store: How to Make a Website to Sell Clothes
Self-Service allows you to choose Yelp’s premium tools. These include:
- Yelp AdsPlace your business high in search results. It can also appear on competitor’s pages on both desktop and mobile. Custom ads allow you to attach a photo, choose the rating you want to display and manage your keywords:
Source: Yelp
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Yelp Offers Customers can purchase prepaid offers through your business profile. These include Yelp coupons, gift certificates, check-in offers.
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Yelp ReservationsMake your staffing and cooking processes a whole lot easier. Let your customers manage reservations and walk-ins, assign and rearrange tables. They can communicate with you directly via message.
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Profile UpgradesUse the call to action button to direct customers to an order form of your company forward website. Add up to six highlights that appeal to people based on their lifestyle (e.g. “Pet Friendly”, “Family Owned”, etc.). Restrict competitor ads on your business page, enable photo slideshows and more.
Take a minute to learn about a accommodation search site MVP to learn what we created for our customer.
How do I create a website like Yelp?
Start by finding a niche
Before you deal with MVP and revenue streams, make sure your idea will appeal to many people. How do you simultaneously build a website like Yelp without blind copying it?
When designing a platform, first answer who you are targeting. Companies like Yelp prefer catch-alls. Other platforms, meanwhile, are proving successful with a niche strategy.
HomeAdvisor, for example, helps you find and rate professionals to carry out home improvement jobs:
Another example is in the Did. This site allows employees to rate the companies they work for, share salary information, provide tips on preparing for an interview, and more:
If you’ve already spent time researching and noticed one have unfilled niche for a business or site, this is your chance. Stand out from the crowd with a unique selling proposition.
Define your business model
Advertisement
Let’s hang around a second – sponsored Yelp ads bring in over 90% of a company’s revenue (Q4 2020).
See what you can offer service providers:
- Higher search visibility of listings;
- Rank at the top of search results;
- Take up space on competitor pages;
- Keep your pages out of competitor rankings.
Profile Upgrades
Allow businesses to extend the initial design of their pages, meaning:
- Customizable storefronts, more Images, videos and call action buttons.
- Display one or more favorite reviews with a quote.
- Post a special offer, hide competitor ads on their site, etc.
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Analytics Services
Paid analytics tools allow businesses to monitor their performance in real time.This can include visitor traffic, click-through rate (CTR) and sales estimate.
Commissions
Companies may offer deals and other certificates to expand their customer base. Yelp takes a commission n 30% off deals and 10% off gift cards.
Subscription
Businesses want to pay their customers for delivery order and book tables, hotel rooms and appointments on your website. Access to these features may be granted for a monthly subscription fee.
Social Media Marketing
Some businesses need help implementing social media -Campaigns (e.g. within Facebook, Twitter or Instagram). For an additional fee, a directory representative will take care of:
- Sustainable brand awareness;
- Web design;
- Cover and profile photo optimization ;
- Lead generation;
- Backlink strategy;
- Maximum performance of hashtags and more.
Check out the Insurance Progressive Web App that we deployed.
Must-have MVP Capability
There are several reasons why you should create something called a Minimum Value Product (MVP). :
- You will start the platform faster. Once feedback is collected, you can expand launch features and add new ones.
- A working MVP helps attract investors and shows that you care and mean business.
- That it’s your chance to find the most efficient way to promote your directory site.
Fortunately, entrepreneurs often turn to us for advice like this. In today’s article, let’s look at features to consider when creating an MVP for a site like Yelp.
Registration and Verification
Share You register in two parts: for customers and entrepreneurs. Make it free for both types of accounts.
Allow customers to register with Google or Facebook logins. Verify business accounts by email, phone number, website, and zip code to detect fake identities.
Full approval of a business account can take 24-48 hours, or longer in some cases. Until then, limit the functionality of recently registered business accounts.
Search and Filter
Allow website visitors to search for keywords or features such as:
- Speciality of a company
- Price range
- Location
- Reviews
- Highlights
Make autocomplete suggestions so people can see results without having to manually type each character.
Business Description
Keep businesses short tell about their story and their story value propositions. Keep it short, like a tweet. With character restrictions, you prevent people from using clichés.
See also: How to Password Protect A Zip File in Windows 7/8/10
Reviews and ratings
Make every page open to dialogue.
Let Customers write reviews. Allow business owners to respond once their business accounts are approved. It’s worth noting that 96% of customers read company responses. Posting a review can be done in the same way as on Yelp, i.e. H. in a maximum of three steps:
First tap on “Leave a review”. Then select the number of stars. Enter a text and click on “Send”. That’s it.
The 1 to 5 rating scale is the most commonly used to measure customer satisfaction.
By the way, there’s always someone struggling. Better create a FAQ section in case there are problems.
Moderation
The most drastic solution to a person’s toxic behavior is to disable the verification system entirely. But that would be like using an ax to get rid of a headache.
Let users report inappropriate content instead. Write down the cases where moderators should remove reviews and comments, for example:
- A reviewer is clearly affiliated with the company or promoting another company.
- A review is unreasonably due to pandemic-related measures beyond an organization’s control.
- A review is spam, offensive, harmful, or intended to shock.
You can review this just expand reasons for that. However, avoid such rules being confusing. Consider which texts and uploaded images could really violate community standards.
Additional functionality in later iterations
We are approaching the second part of the features a business directory website must have. This section focuses on what to build beyond the core functionality mentioned earlier.
Maps
Allow users to browse the map to find relevant Find places in terms of distance range or location.
This feature also provides quick service preview with name, average price and some images. Businesses with the best reviews and ratings should be recommended first.
Personalization
Allow users to prioritize their preferences. For example, you can ask if a customer is a pet owner, driver, parent, or vegan. The list goes on.
Once the tags are selected, matches are shown:
- Pet Friendly
- Food Stands
- Remote Services
- Family Business
- Veggie Meals
- Delivery
- Free Parking
- Next Day Dispatch
You have the idea. Think about which details are crucial. Or at least can have an impact. Here are several badges used on Yelp:
Communication Channels
It’s a big deal for both customers and businesses to engage in dialogue to open. In addition to rating sections, a business directory website can have messenger and group chats.
Reservation
Staying on one platform makes the user experience much more convenient. Allow your customers to book a table, test drive, hotel rooms and appointments directly from your website. Thus, a user saves time instead of wasting it switching between web pages.
AI and Machine Learning
You will be able to do a lot of great things tease stuff out as your customer base grows. With AI and machine learning, you can extract information from user-generated content. Over time, all common tags, labels, and highlights will be applied automatically.
Check the activity booking marketplace we provided for our client.
What features are included for a site like Yelp should : Summary
What features should be included for a site like Yelp: SummaryCustomersBusinessesAdditional features Search and filtersSearch and filtersOffer special offersAdd and edit business infoManage description and keywordsRun an ad campaignWrite reviewsRespond to reviewsReservations and walk-insAccess analyticsUpload imageryUpload imagery and videosPrioritize preferences based on diet and lifestyleProfile upgradesUse built-in messenger and group Chat to a Contact companiesUse built-in messenger and group enchats to contact a customer
How much does it cost to build a website like Yelp?
Here are the top factors that affect the cost of starting to build a website like Yelp:
- The approach: out-of-box vs. custom development.
- Functionality you expect.
There are many SaaS out there -Solutions that allow you to start the project within a few days, whatever you need: create a marketplace, launch a SaaS product or a business directory. This approach is inexpensive and offers integration with third-party services.
Building a Yelp-like website from scratch can be expensive, that’s for sure. At the same time, a custom solution brings many benefits, including:
- More privacy;
- Site features tailored to your specific needs;
- Avoid hidden costs;
- No license fees, regardless of user traffic volume.
Let’s find out the costs to start building a website like Yelp. To make things easier, we took the average rate of development companies in Eastern Europe, which is $50/hour.
How much does it cost to build a Yelp-like websiteFeaturesTime, HoursCost, $50/hourDesignUX Development 56 hours $2,800 UI Development 64 hours $3,200 ArchitectureProject Setup 16 hours $800 DB structure 32 hours $1,600 Integrations Payment (Stripe or PayPal) 32 hours $1,600 Main functionality Authorization and security 72 Hours $3,600 User Accounts 42 Hours $2,100 Homepage 84 Hours $4,200 Search and Filter 96 Hours $4,800Business page42 Hours $2,100 Reviews & Rating 96 Hours $4,800Maps 64 Hours $3,200 Messenger96 Hours $4,800GROUP CHAT32 Hours Hours. /b>Project Management64 hours $3,200Quality Assurance80 hours $4,000Code Review48 hours $2,400Total1440 hours$72,000
So now you get one Impression of how much it costs to build a website like Yelp. The minimum you need is $72,000.This is the approximate amount of money if you create a Yelp clone with a development team based in Eastern Europe.
How can Codica help develop a Yelp-like website?
If you’ If you want to create a Yelp clone from scratch, the need to have a full-cycle custom software development team is inevitable. These include:
- UX/UI designers;
- Project managers;
- Software developers;
- DevOps;
- QA engineers.
At Codica we prefer a holistic approach. We start projects with discovery meetings to analyze clients’ goals. Also, at this stage, our team prepares a project estimate, the tech stack, and a proposed feature list. We then develop the MVP for you to collect feedback that can be used for future platform iterations.
If you don’t have an in-house tech team, rely on our highly skilled specialists. With their help, you cover all phases of Yelp-like website development. And once your platform is in place, Codica oversees the software. If there are any issues, we’ll fix them in no time.
It’s worth noting that nearly 49 million monthly users access Yelp through the mobile-friendly site. Building a separate mobile application can be costly, so to compete effectively, we recommend our clients build a PWA instead.
There are several benefits of progressive web development:
- Fast-loading pages;
- Push notifications;
- Cross-browser compatibility;
- Pre-caching that allows progressive web apps to work offline.
Are you looking for a reliable development partner for your project? Check out custom products that the Codica team has successfully delivered to customers around the world.
Summary
It’s time to summarize our thoughts. Most directory website content is user generated, which means:
- Customers leave their reviews and upload pictures of companies they have interacted with.
- If Businesses claim their listing, they can edit the information and respond to reviews.
This uses social proof to drive business leads. And sites like Yelp do a great job of actually doing this.
Running a business directory website can be an excellent source of income. Of course, as long as you can put yourself in the shoes of others – both customers and service providers.
Yelp is the most well-known, although not the only reputable review site. In fact, there are a number of notable directories. The Codica team has a proven track record of delivering first class products to our customers. So if you’re considering launching your own product, don’t hesitate to contact us.
See also: How Much Does a Logo Cost in 2023?
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