by Jill Kurtz
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Siri and Yelp Are BFFs and that Matters to You

There are more than a million iPhones in use today. A favorite feature is Siri, the app that lets you ask a question and get an answer read aloud. This is important to every marketer, because Siri plays favorites: she loves Yelp and Apple Maps.

The Apple iPhone and Yelp have partnered to make your Yelp listing — your star rating, what people say, and your responses to what people say — the top result when people ask a relevant question.  No matter what your search results look like on other platforms, if someone asks Siri, she’s going to serve up your Yelp listing.

When iPhone users search for local businesses, Apple Maps displays “nearby” Yelp listings. Users are then provided with reviews, photos, and other details from Yelp. The businesses are listed by popularity based on the overall strength of their Yelp listings and proximity to the customer.

Pay Attention to Yelp

The popularity of  voice searches and the iPhone means no business can ignore Yelp.  Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Claim your business listing on Yelp
  2. Complete all the fields of your listing and make sure everything is accurate
  3. Post images – people are visual
  4. Ask customers to give you Yelp reviews
  5. Respond to ALL reviews – studies show that consumers trust a business more if a response is present on all reviews, both positive and negative

Optimize for Apple Maps

Apple has made it easy to optimize and update Apple Maps listings.

  1. Go to mapsconnect.apple.com.  Login with your Apple ID, or create one.
  2. Select your relationship with your business, either “I’m the business owner” or “I’m authorized by the business owner.”
  3. Enter your basic business details, including name, phone number and address.
  4. Verify your business phone number.  Apple will call that number and give you a PIN code.
  5. Once you have confirmed you are the business owner, you can add such information to your listing as category of business, hours, website, and social media accounts.

Make sure your information on Yelp, Apple Maps and everywhere else you are online is consistent and positions your business properly.  The goal of every search tool is to provide accurate results. That can only happen if the information you present is accurate.  When that happens you rank well, and you and Siri can also be BFFs.