Sphinn - Yelp SEO Analysis: Part One

46
Sphinn It!

Yelp SEO Analysis: Part One

Went Hot: November 12, 2007 - 11:36 am
Posted By: andrewsho 338 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.localseoguide.com)
Category: Local & Maps

A blow by blow analysis of how SEOMoz updated Yelp's SEO tactics.

13 Comments

Who Desphunn This (0)

Comments

from planetc1 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Great post Andrew, lot's of good observational information. Now if they can get the sales reps to not talk SEO they'll be in even better shape.

from andrewsho 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Michael, you always leave these tantalizing bits of info in your comments that beg for more info.

from planetc1 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

What I meant is when sales reps say things like "we have tons of traffic" and "lots of searches for your primary keywords" I tend to ask for more specific information. Things typically fall apart, soon after that.

from andrewsho 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

That's the age old problem of local search inventory. At Insider Pages we had tons of searches for Dentists in aggregate but in any one city not so much.

from MiriamEllis 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Super article!
You really put in a lot of work on this. Well done.
Miriam

from andrewsho 338 days ago #

Votes: 1 | Vote:

+ -

Thanks Miriam. Blogging is the perfect outlet for insomniacs.

from IncrediBILL 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Nice article, but after reading this I took a look at how some of the Yelp SEO was working for local long tail phrases and most of the time it isn't unless you happen to type in the exact phrase in the title, and even then it's iffy.

CitySearch is literally handing them their ass on a platter in almost any result page, especially in California results which the review said was their emphasis.

from earlpearl 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Interesting article, interesting comments, and interesting observation by incredibill. I'll have to try out their serps from a variety of phrases. In terms of salespeople being able to show traffic volume for a phrase or business.....ugh...we are a long way from that.

from planetc1 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

All very interesting. Thanks for pointing that out Bill. Perform searches for [service] [location] and you'll often find many big YP sites don't make the top 10. For those that do it's a crap shoot of switchboard, magicyellow, citysearch, yellowpages, and others.

from aimClear 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Andrew, Yelp is one of the only review sites I personally use...NYC Sushi maps BABY!!!

from ryanol 338 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

but yelp has that tasty 18-35 demo and they tend to be "mavens" or "connectors" in Gladwellian parlance.

from MattMcGee 337 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Bill makes a good point, but it's also worth noting that if these changes were made recently, it may be too soon to see any impact in the SERPs.

from OsmanP 337 days ago #

Votes: 0 | Vote:

+ -

Thanks andrewsho, some really good observations you've made, looking forward to your analysis of the Category Landing Page, Category Search Results Page and Member Profile Pages.

One thing I did notice with your observation is the use of no-follow. I for one advocate the use of no-follow all because of channelling PageRank (Google Juice) to the important pages, this is something which interests and read about this somewhere else.

Good stuff!!