Simpedia

Phillip G., California

I personally think Yelp is really expensive, but it gives your studio name some credibility. It’s $350/month for the cheapest tier and you must sign a one-year contract. There is an early termination fee of $1,000.00.

What’s included? I had a special program which included an online video commercial on my Yelp page, which is like a $400 value. You get 500 ad impressions per month, which is basically your studio being mentioned at the top when people search “Music Lessons.” There will be no ads of other businesses on your Yelp page, and you will possibly have ads on your competitors web page. You will have a bigger photo slide show slot on the top right hand corner of your Yelp page.

On a side note, the best thing about this was that video commercial that they did for me.

Do I see results from strictly Yelp viewers? Not exactly. I find that all of my marketing actually works together. It’s not like I’ll get a customer strictly from Yelp. It’s usually because somebody will see my ad on Craigslist and I post my link to my website and my Yelp page. Or if somebody’s on the fence, there are credible reviews on Yelp.

I kind of wish I didn’t sign up, because it’s pretty costly. If you have money to do it, I guess you can go ahead. However, looking back, I think there was a better way for me to go about marketing $350/month.

Cheryl W., Pennsylvania

I don’t pay to advertise on yelp, but I’ve done whatever I can do for free, which means I’m offering a half price certificate and I have a five star review on the site. The most page views I have received in one month was this past October, 186 page views. However, I have never received even one call from anyone who mentioned yelp as the place where they found me. I’ve found that 95% of the time it’s a Google search.

Lorraine W., California

I don’t pay anything for Yelp. I simply created my free listing and then I was lucky enough for some of my students (and guests at a jam session we did) to review the studio and give it great scores.

From then on, I’ve had several enquiries come through Yelp, but I’ve not paid one cent.

Yelp did pester me non-stop for about 2 months to sign-up for the business account but I told them that I didn’t need it at this time.
If in doubt – choose the free route (have your students endorse you on Yelp) and see how that goes…