Super Easy Guide: How Do I Get My Business on Yelp?

It’s no secret that I love Yelp not just as a marketer, but also as an avid gluten-free donut connoisseur. It’s a one-stop machine for finding where businesses are, getting directions, and bragging to your friends about what you just ate. Oh, and did I mention reading and writing reviews?

However, many business owners don’t know how to claim their businesses, or that Yelp requires them to make an entirely new business account. Don’t fret! Claiming your business is simple, and in this guide I’ll show you every step of the process.

How to Add Your Business to Yelp

1. Visit biz.yelp.com. Enter your business name and city, and then hit “Get Started”. I’ll use my cleverly named business, The Gluten Free Donut Place, as an example for the first half of this guide.

2. Your business may already be listed since Yelp sometimes pulls in data from other sources to create bare-bones business profiles. If it is, click the “Claim this Business” button. If not, click the “Add your business to Yelp” at the very bottom of the list.

Tip: You’ll see which of your competitors have claimed their businesses and which haven’t. The baked goods industry in Portland seems to be very Yelp-savvy.

3. Fill in all of the details about your business. Make sure to include your website and, if possible, a domain-level email address (an email address that matches your website; not gmail.com or yahoo.com) for your contact. Whenever possible, use a domain-level email address -I’ll tell you why very soon.

Verifying Your Business

After you’ve submitted your business information to Yelp, you’ll start the process of creating a Yelp for Business Owners account. We’ll use an actual partner of ours as an example. Interested in also becoming a partner? Contact us today for a free chat.

4. After you submit, Yelp will send you an email to the email address you listed. Open that email and click on the “Confirm my Email Address” button.

5. A moderator will review your listing and within a few business days, you’ll receive another email from Yelp to create your free business user account. Enter your name and domain-level email address. You’ll find out why this is incredibly helpful in the next step.

6. If you used a domain-level email address, you should be done! If not, Yelp will need to verify your business via phone. You’ll be required to enter the provided code when they call. It’s pretty straightforward, but can be annoying if you aren’t always near your phone.

Voila! You should now have access to your business profile. I encourage you to complete your profile as much as possible. Keeping an up-to-date listing is key to staying at the top of Yelp rankings.

Have any questions or additional tips? Leave a comment below and I’ll respond to you ASAP. Good luck out there!