Warning: Don’t Ask Your Couples For Reviews Until You Read This!

Getting reviews from brides and grooms online is GREAT for business. We’ve been urging wedding professionals to get their raving fans to post reviews online so that your wedding business is everywhere, and to make it as easy as possible by sending couples direct links to your review profile.

The easier you make it, the more reviews you get, right?

The Dangers of Yelp

One of the most popular and highest ranking business review sites in Yelp. It’s a powerful source of reviews and referrals for local businesses, and it gets a lot of visibility.

There’s just one problem…

If you do it wrong, in the best case you’ll end up wasting your time, and in the worst case you could end up with nothing but negative reviews you can’t remove.

Yelp has a review filtering system they use to make sure only REAL reviews are visible to the public. If you accidentally trip their filter…by doing something like sending your brides and grooms a direct link to your Yelp profile…those reviews will never appear to the public.

Oh, you’ll be able to see them when you’re logged in, but no one else will.

On top of that, it’s usually only POSITIVE reviews that get blocked. The negative ones are there to stay.

You can read Yelp’s official (rather vague and irritating) statement on their review filtering policy here. Here’s a breakdown of the rule for what gets filtered out..

Tips For Getting Yelp Reviews That Stick

• DON’T send your couples a direct link to get them to post a review. Instead, ask them to type in your business name and find it on Yelp.

Yelp believes reviews should be “organic and unsolicited,” so if you’re going to ask your brides and grooms to post one, make sure they don’t post it by following a direct link that Yelp can track.

• DON’T ask a bunch of your couples to post reviews all at one. A large increase in reviews triggers the filter.

• DON’T ask someone to post a positive review immediately after you get a negative review. I know, it truly sucks, but it will only get filtered out. Wait a week or two before you stir up some good reviews.

• If you have positive reviews that no one can see because they are filtered out, contact the reviewers and ask them to complete their entire profile and post another review if possible. If the bride or groom doesn’t have an image and profile description, or if yours is their very first review, it will be filtered out.

More tips for saving “lost” Yelp reviews here.

With all the pain and agony involved in getting Yelp reviews, is it really worth it?

Businesses with dozens of positive Yelp reviews get more online leads that those without.

While it’s simpler and easier to have your couples post reviews on Wedding Wire because you don’t have to deal with the dreaded filter, if you have a local retail business, such as a flower shop, bridal boutique, venue or restaurant, careful cultivation of Yelp reviews will pay off.

What do you think about Yelp’s review filter? Have you had trouble getting reviews published or removed?

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