Yelp is a DIY and Skill job: you set up the profile once in an afternoon, and after that the AI you already pay for drafts each review reply in about five minutes. The DIY part is claiming the page, filling every field and adding real photos. The Skill part is a saved reply brief you paste each time a review comes in, so every answer sounds like you on a good day. There is one thing this page will never tell you to do, and it is ask customers for Yelp reviews. Yelp asks businesses not to, and its software may not recommend reviews that look prompted. The one description you paste into Yelp, the BBB and your trade lists lives on our business directories page, so this page sticks to the profile, the photos, the replies and the ad decision.
- Shape
- DIYSkill
- Sitting
- an afternoon
The shape: DIY and Skill
The setup is DIY because Yelp wants proof that you run the business, and that proof comes to you. You claim the page at Yelp for Business, verify by phone or email, and fill in the fields yourself. No assistant can receive the verification call or take a photo of your front counter.
The replies are a Skill because they come back again and again, and each one is a small writing job with a fixed shape. A saved brief does the hard part, which is staying calm and short when a review stings. You write the brief once, keep it in a note or a saved project in ChatGPT or Claude, and paste each new review under it.
That split matters for your time. The afternoon goes into the profile, and it rarely needs touching again. The replies take minutes each, for as long as you have a Yelp page.
What you give the AI
For the setup, gather these and paste them in as plain text.
- What your Yelp page shows today. Open your business on Yelp and copy the name, address, phone, hours, categories and the "from the business" text, even if the page was created by a customer and is mostly empty.
- Your Google Business Profile details. Name, address, phone, website and hours, exactly as Google shows them, so Yelp can match.
- Your service list, in your words. Every service or menu category you sell, one per line.
- Your specialties and history. What you are known for, when you opened, and who runs the place, in a few plain sentences.
- The photos you already have. A list of what each one shows: the storefront, the inside, the team, five or six pieces of finished work.
- Your three most recent Yelp reviews. Good and bad, copied in full, so the AI can see what customers actually mention.
For the reply brief, gather these.
- Two or three replies you were happy with. From Yelp, Google or email, so the AI can hear your voice.
- Your real policies. Refunds, rebooking, wait times, deposits, anything a reviewer might complain about.
- What you will and will not offer. A redo, a call from the owner, nothing beyond an apology, so the AI never promises more than you would.
- Topics you never discuss in public. Health details, legal matters, staff names, anything about a customer's account.
What comes back
The setup prompt returns a field-by-field profile ready to paste: the specialties text, the history text, a "meet the business owner" line, a category shortlist and a photo plan. Paste this, with your inputs underneath.
You are helping a small local business complete its Yelp page.
Below are what the Yelp page shows today, the business's Google Business Profile, its services, its history, a list of its photos, and its three most recent Yelp reviews.
Return five parts.
Part 1: the basics.
Name, address, phone, website and hours exactly as the Google profile shows them.
Then a table listing every field where Yelp disagrees with Google today.
Part 2: specialties.
About 100 words on what the business does and who it is for, in plain words a customer would use.
Part 3: history and owner.
Two to four sentences on when and why it started, and one short line introducing the owner.
Part 4: categories.
A suggested first category and up to two more, in plain words the owner can match to Yelp's list.
Part 5: photos.
Which existing photos to upload first and in what order, plus up to five photos still missing, each described in one line.
Use only facts from the text below.
Do not add awards, review counts, guarantees, or words like "best" or "top-rated."
Do not mention reviews, ratings or asking customers for anything.
Flag anything you had to guess.
[paste your inputs here]The reply brief is the part you save and reuse. It returns a public comment and, when it helps, a private message, both under 80 words.
You draft replies to Yelp reviews for the business described below.
Every reply is read by future customers, so write for them as much as for the reviewer.
Rules:
Thank the reviewer by first name if the review shows it.
Name one specific thing from the review so it is clear we read it.
For a critical review, acknowledge the concern without agreeing to facts we have not checked, say what we do about it, and offer one next step from the allowed list.
Never argue, never call a review fake, never mention any customer's private details or a staff member's name.
Never ask the reviewer to change, remove or update their review, and never offer anything in exchange.
Never ask anyone for a review, on Yelp or anywhere else.
No discounts, no sales pitch, no links.
Keep each reply under 80 words, in the voice of the sample replies.
Return: a public comment, then a private message only if the problem needs details we cannot discuss in public.
If the review describes something we need to check before replying, say so first and list the questions to answer.
Business details, policies, allowed next steps and topics we never discuss:
[paste once]
Sample replies in our voice:
[paste once]
The review:
[paste each time]Yelp lets a claimed business reply with a public comment, a direct message, or both, and Yelp's own help page suggests starting with the public one on a critical review. The brief follows that order.
How to judge it
A bad profile draft invents. Read every sentence of the specialties and history text and ask whether you could show a customer it is true. A year you did not open, a service you stopped offering, or "award-winning" with no award is a reason to reject it.
A bad profile draft also tidies your details. The name, address and phone should match Google character for character, not look neater. If the AI added "LLC" or shortened your street, put it back.
A bad reply defends. If the draft explains why the customer is wrong, lists what they failed to do, or uses the word "unfortunately" three times, throw it out and run it again. A future customer reading it should come away thinking you are reasonable, not that you won.
A bad reply promises. Check every offer in the draft against your allowed list. A refund you would not give, a "we have retrained the whole team" that did not happen, or a free visit you never approved will be read by every customer after this one.
A bad reply fishes. Any line that asks the reviewer to update the review, or invites anyone to leave one, comes out, even if it sounds friendly.
One-minute test: read the public comment as a stranger who has never met you. If it would make that stranger more likely to call, post it.
What stays with you
Claiming the page is yours. Verification comes to your phone or inbox, and the account should sit under an email the business controls, not a past employee's. You also need an approved profile photo and account name before Yelp lets you reply, so set those up during the afternoon.
The photos are yours. The AI can tell you which shots are missing, but it cannot take a picture of your storefront, your work or your team. Real photos, taken in decent light, do more for a Yelp page than any text you paste.
The facts behind every reply are yours. Before you post a reply to a critical review, check what happened: the booking, the receipt, who was working. For anything touching health, money owed, a legal threat or a staff member, decide yourself whether to reply in public at all. Our guide to negative Google reviews walks through that decision, and the same thinking applies on Yelp.
The send button is yours. You read the draft, change what is wrong, and post it from your own account.
Getting reviews is not a job here. Yelp asks businesses not to request reviews from anyone, and not to offer anything for one. Do the work well, keep the page complete, reply to what comes in, and let customers decide on their own. You can still use the kind words customers leave you, and our piece on turning customer reviews into social proof shows how.
The ad decision is yours too, and the next section makes it a short one.
The ad decision
Yelp sells ads and paid page upgrades, with current prices on its advertising page. None of it is needed for a complete page that customers can find and review.
| Where you are | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Page unclaimed or half empty | Finish the free profile first | Ads send people to the page, so the page has to be ready |
| Profile complete, few people viewing it | Watch a month of your page's activity before spending | You need a baseline to know whether an ad changed anything |
| Customers in your area search Yelp for your kind of work | Test a small budget for one month, then judge | A short test with a known baseline tells you more than a sales call |
| Most customers find you on Google or by referral | Skip Yelp ads and keep the free page current | Money goes further on the channel your customers already use |
Whatever you choose, the replies and the profile do not change. An ad never fixes a page with old hours or an unanswered complaint.
An editorial example
This is an invented business, used only to show the work. Say you run a small taco shop with six tables and a busy lunch rush.
You paste in your Yelp page, your Google profile, your menu categories and the last three reviews. The setup prompt finds that Yelp still shows your old closing time, and that two of three reviews mention the salsa bar, which your specialties text never names. You fix the hours, add the salsa bar to the specialties, and the photo plan asks for a shot of it, which you take the next morning before opening.
A week later, a two-star review says the line was slow and the order was wrong. You check the ticket and see it was a Friday you were short a cook, and you have since put a second cook on Friday lunches. The brief returns a public comment that thanks the reviewer, names the wrong order, says you have added a second person on Friday lunches, and invites them to ask for you by name next time. You post it as written, because every word is true.
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