Network disclosure
All ten sites in this network are published by Bay Area AEO. They cover answer engine optimization in the Bay Area from ten angles and link to one another so readers can move between related topics.
Why Yelp matters for AI answers
Yelp has deep roots in the Bay Area. It began in San Francisco, and for many local categories it holds a long history of reviews written by people who live here. Those reviews are detailed: they name dishes, staff, neighborhoods and occasions. That makes Yelp a natural source for an assistant looking for a reason to recommend a business.
Yelp's data also travels. Apple Maps has long shown Yelp ratings and reviews on its place cards, so a Yelp page with old hours or a wrong category can surface in Siri's answers as well as in Yelp's own search. Web-searching assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity frequently retrieve Yelp pages when they look up local businesses.
Claiming and correcting the page
Claim the business page through Yelp for Business. Verification usually happens by phone. Once in, work through the page against the master business record from chapter 8: name, address, phone, website, hours and special hours. Then set the categories. Yelp allows up to three; choose the most specific ones that describe the main line of work, in order of importance.
Yelp's “from the business” section lets the owner describe specialties, history and the person behind the business. Use the paragraph description from the master record, adapted to Yelp's sections. Specialties should name the services or dishes customers ask about by name.
Amenities and attributes
Yelp's amenity list is long: reservations, delivery, takeout, outdoor seating, Wi-Fi, wheelchair access, dogs allowed, good for groups, noise level, parking, gender-neutral restrooms, and many more depending on category. Some come from the owner and some from reviewers' answers. Set every one the owner controls, and check the ones that come from reviewers for errors.
These attributes match the conditions people put in AI questions. “Kid-friendly restaurants in San Mateo with outdoor seating” (one of Bay Area AEO's sample restaurant questions) is answered from exactly this kind of data. A restaurant with a patio that has never ticked the outdoor seating box on Yelp has hidden its patio from the question.
Photos and the menu
Upload owner photos of the storefront, the interior and the work, and label them. For restaurants, Yelp shows menu items and popular dishes partly from photos and reviews; owners can add a menu and should keep it current. Prices and dish names on Yelp should match the text menu on the website (chapter 22), because an assistant that reads both will notice when they differ.
Yelp's review rules
Yelp's policy differs from Google's in one way every owner should know: Yelp asks businesses not to solicit reviews at all. It does not want owners asking customers for Yelp reviews, and its recommendation software may filter reviews that look prompted. The right approach on Yelp is to make the page easy to find (a Yelp badge on the website, the page linked from the master record) and let customers choose to write. Chapter 32 describes review requests for platforms that allow them.
Responding is allowed and useful. Yelp lets owners reply publicly or privately. A short, specific public reply to a detailed review adds the business's own words to the page, which chapter 33 covers.
Yelp for service businesses
Yelp is often thought of as a restaurant site, but in the Bay Area it carries heavy traffic for home services, auto repair, movers, cleaners and medical practices. Service-area businesses can hide their address and list the cities they serve, just as on Google. Yelp also lets customers send a request for a quote through the page, and response time to those requests is shown publicly. A plumber or a painter who answers quote requests quickly earns a visible signal of responsiveness, and the detail in the request (“exterior repaint of a 1920s house in Berkeley”) shows exactly how customers describe the work.
For these businesses the specialties section deserves the same care as the services list on Google: name each service the way customers say it, and mention the license and insurance facts that matter in the trade.
Advertising is separate
Yelp sells advertising, and an ad placement can put a business at the top of Yelp's own search results. That is a different thing from the organic page an assistant reads. Paying for Yelp ads does not change the reviews, attributes or facts on the page. Whether to advertise is a marketing decision on its own terms; for AI visibility, the organic page is what matters.
Booking platforms carry facts too
Many trades have a booking or scheduling platform customers use alongside the business's own website. Each one holds a profile with the business's name, address, hours, services and often prices and reviews. Bay Area AEO's niche pages name several of them as signals:
| Trade | Platforms named | What Bay Area AEO says to keep consistent |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurants | OpenTable, Resy | Hours, holiday closures, price range and cuisine kept identical across Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing and the reservation platform |
| Yoga and Pilates studios | Mindbody, ClassPass | Booking platform profiles aligned with the website's schedule and details |
| Dentists | Healthgrades, Zocdoc | Provider bios consistent with those profiles and state license records |
| Therapists | Psychology Today, insurance-network platforms | Directory profiles that match the website |
| Remodelers | Houzz | A complete profile and reviews that mention the project type |
| Catering | Wedding and corporate catering platforms, venue vendor lists | Accurate profiles, plus mentions on preferred-vendor lists |
Keeping booking profiles in sync
Booking platforms are where facts drift most, because they are often set up by whoever handled the booking system and then forgotten. A Pilates studio changes its intro offer on the website and leaves the old one on ClassPass. A restaurant adds Monday service and its reservation page still shows Mondays closed. An assistant that reads both sees a conflict, and the safest thing for it to do is hedge or leave the business out.
Add every booking profile to the master record's profile list and check each one in the monthly listing review. When the record changes, update the booking platforms in the same pass as Google, Bing, Apple Maps and Yelp.
A restaurant example
Bay Area AEO's restaurant page lists the question “What's a good restaurant in Palo Alto for a birthday dinner for six people?” Answering it needs several facts: that the restaurant takes reservations for six, that it suits a birthday, where it is in Palo Alto, and roughly what it costs. Those facts can live in four places at once. The reservation platform shows availability for six. Yelp's attributes say “good for groups” and “takes reservations”. The website has a short page for group and private dining, which the restaurant page lists among its signals as occasion-ready pages. Reviews mention birthday dinners.
When all four agree, the assistant has a confident answer. When the reservation platform shows no tables for six and Yelp says it is good for groups, the answer gets weaker. Agreement is the whole point of this part of the handbook.
Review sites beyond Yelp
Some trades have review sites that matter as much as Yelp. Tripadvisor carries weight for wineries, tour operators and restaurants that serve visitors. Houzz matters for remodelers, architects and landscapers. Zillow, Realtor.com and Redfin matter for real estate agents. Healthgrades and Zocdoc matter for medical practices. Chapter 13 goes through these directories trade by trade.
A monthly Yelp and booking check
- Name, address, phone, website and hours on Yelp match the master record
- Special hours set on Yelp for every holiday in the next two months
- Categories still the three most specific choices
- Owner-controlled amenities complete and correct
- New reviews read; any that call for a reply answered
- Every booking platform's hours, services and prices match the website
- Intro offers and seasonal specials updated or removed everywhere at once
How long it takes
Claiming and correcting a Yelp page takes an hour or two the first time. Booking platforms vary; some take minutes, some require a support ticket to change a name or address. After the first pass, the monthly check takes under half an hour for a single-location business. That is a small price for removing one of the commonest sources of conflicting facts an assistant can find.
Look at Yelp the way an assistant does
Read your last twenty Yelp reviews and write down the phrases that describe what you do. Then ask Perplexity a customer question in your category and see whether any of those phrases turn up in its answer. If they do, Yelp is already one of the sources describing you.
Related chapters11. Apple Maps and Siri · 13. Industry directories · 31. Review language · 22. Menus, event schedules and offer lists