Write a Business Review on Yelp

If you've come across a business on Yelp that you previously visited and you'd like to tell the world about, this article can explain how to publish your review.

Steps

Planning

  1. Plan your review. Do the requested Search for a Business on Yelp of the business, to ensure the business is already on the site. If not, you'll have to add the business to its database.
  2. Read through some of the other reviews of the business on its business listing on Yelp. Mentally make notes of the star ratings and the equivalence of others' ideas in their reviews.

Giving a Rating

  1. Click the button "Write a Review". This button is located underneath the business' address, telephone number and website, as well as under two hyperlinks to edit this information and editing this information, as if you are a business owner to the company. At the current time, this button is white, with red lettering.
    • When the page begins to load, you'll see some other text-boxes appear.
  2. Select a rating for your overall experience of the company. Use the scale they give you (the ratings range between 1 star and 5 stars). The submissions will not let the review be posted, without a rating.
  3. Understand the star ratings. To help you out, as you hover over the rating box, there will be several words that will help you explain your rating. Click the star-rating you believe should best match the conditions of your upcoming review. The ratings are as follows:
    • 1-star: Eek! Methinks not!
    • 2-star: Meh! I've experienced better.
    • 3-star: A-Ok.
    • 4-star: Yay! I'm a fan.
    • 5-star: Woohoo! As good as it gets!
    • Don't be too easy, as there is always room for improvement.
    • There have been several companies that have 5-star ratings, but don't let the 5-star rating be the only rating you give the companies you review.

Writing the Review

  1. Write your review, based on the rating you gave it. Below the review, you'll find a place to write a text-based review-box. The box may contain up to 5001 characters. (See writing a Write a Review Update on Yelp below if you want to add more characters than that.)
    • Good things to think about depend on business type, but most answer the overall questions: How was the overall experience?; How was the atmosphere?; Were the waiters cleanly dressed and well-mannered?; Were the ticket booths adequately stocked?; Were the restrooms clean?; For transportation items (bridges and tunnel systems leading up to the business), were the road you traveled on, well maintained?
    • As you read other reviews, you'll find that experienced writers get good "compliments" on these key points, as well as many other things that may not appear on the list at all.
    • Don't be too harsh––be firmly fair in your opinion.
  2. Save your review as a draft, if you feel you need more time to create this review in it's entirety. If you would like to save your review for another time, there is a way to save this review as a draft. Right underneath the textual full review, there should be one of two links. One link that ends with "Save Now" allows you to save the review as a draft. If there is no link, but words saying "Auto saved a moment ago" or "Auto saved (x) minutes ago", you're all set! In this case, Type a space in the box above, and click the "Save Now" button.
    • If you saved this item as a draft, and would like to return to this item, on the Yelp home page (on the right-hand side), you'll find a link that states how many unfinished reviews you have click this link. However, keep track of this number. You don't want to just save reviews. Submit them once-in-a-while.
    • Towards the top of the page, you'll find your drafted review. In the same box nearby, should be a button marked "Finish my Review". Click this button.
    • As you see on this page, the questions will not sync (if answered before), as well as your picture suggestions will not sync (if more than 3 pictures in their collections, these pictures will change). Finish your review and click "Publish" to finalize publishing this review.

Sharing the Review

  1. Decide if you would like to share this review with (not only your Yelp friends, but also on Facebook). Below this, you'll find a box to share this with all of your friends on Facebook. In another tab, open and log in to Facebook, then return to this review in this other tab (make sure you save your email for future use). Once again on this checkbox, click the box to place a checkmark in the box.
    • Several pop-up windows from Facebook, should now display. These pop-ups allow Facebook access to sharing this information on your wall. As these boxes come up, just click "Allow access" in the bottom right hand corner of the displayed box.

Submitting the Review

  1. Click on the "helpful-ability" checkboxes of the pictures to the business itself. Below this, you'll find some optional pictures to let Yelp know how helpful it would be, for a person to make their decision with visiting the company. The pictures correspond to pictures people have taken via their smartphones and posted on the site, as well as uploaded via their PCs.
    • The button below that says "Suggest as storefront photo" can help to suggest a good photo of the business for the location's home page, if there isn't one. This picture, once approved by a Yelp moderator, will add the picture to the page, or can change the picture entirely (after approval by Yelp moderators).
  2. Answer some of (or all) of the questions that pertain to the business. These questions are optional, but they'll help others decipher problems. Once enough people have answered these questions, Yelp admins will display the answers to the most-selected items on the business' page that you found. These questions pertain specifically to this individual location. These questions are easy to answer. These questions should only take you a minute or two to complete.
    • Not all questions will tend to be displayed. There sometimes will be more hidden by default in back of the "Show more survey questions" link. Click the link to open the remainder of the questions.
  3. Click the red button (with white letters) that says "Post" to post this review on Yelp and on Facebook (if chosen).
  4. Review the resulting page. It should now say that it has been successfully submitted, after a few moments.

Sample Business Review

Doc:Business Yelp Review



Tips

  • First time writers of written words in the business community section, please be sure to read the Talk page guidelines at http://www.yelp.com/guidelines before submitting any talk page messages to the site.
  • Every action you try to take on Yelp (messaging, creating a review, etc.) has an "out" feature, in case you intentionally do not want to send the message (before actually sending/publishing the message. To cancel sending a review/message, click the hyperlink(non-button) called "Cancel" near the "Send"/"Publish"/etc. button.
  • The homepage of Yelp gives you a few choices of business' to write a review for, based on your last actions, which could include check-ins, bookmarked items, or businesses you've currently wrote tips for, when Yelp wants you to write a longer review too. If you don't mind not answering the questions, or totally don't know of something to say, this box is a good idea to draw up other good ideas for reviews.
  • The steps this article outlined above deal with steps for pre-existing businesses. If the business isn't supplied yet, you'll need to Add a Business to the Yelp Database
  • As long as you are 100% sure that the business has a page, there is another way to access the search to create a review for a business. Click the Write a Review tab from the tabs at the top of the Yelp page. Follow instructions from there on forward.
  • There are other things you can do on the business' locations page. You can wait for a later time (and write it later) after bookmarking, or you can label this bookmark as something to try to then review later. Either way, this is a good way to cross-reference this location at other dates.

Warnings

  • Realize that for each review these reviews are location-specific. They are not to be categorized for reviews based on the whole chain in general.
  • On occasion, you'll walk across a business that are no longer in business (and are marked as "CLOSED" by Yelp moderators right on the top-level location page.) On this page, you'll find no other reviews. A major rule as a Yelp member, is not to re-review these closed businesses.

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