How to create a review website like Yelp quickly & easily

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If you want to start a website so that you can make money from home, how about creating a review website like Yelp?  You can let people review businesses (like restaurants, beauty salons, hotels, plumbers, electricians, auto repair…really, the list goes on and on) on your website.  You could limit it to specific businesses (such as restaurants or hotels) or you could limit it to certain areas (such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, Boston, San Francisco, etc.) – or you could make it the next Yelp (and you could make it even better!).

In this blog entry, I’ll go over why should make a website like Yelp, how a website like this could make you money and how you can easily create a website like this with no experience whatsoever.

Why Should You Create a Review Website like Yelp?

Creating a review website like Yelp is a great idea for a few reasons:

  • People trust reviews they read online (myself included) and seek them out, so there is a definite audience for a website like this – which of course is a good reason to build a website
  • Because a lot of the content will be reviews submitted by other people, it will require less work by you so it could end up being more of a passive income stream where your website could be updated daily without you having to do anything
  • You can create a website like this easily with no coding or previous experience creating websites (more on this later)

How Could You Make Money from a Website like Yelp?

So you might be wondering, how would I earn money with a website like Yelp?

  • Run Google Ads: If you can get a lot of people on your website to read the reviews, then you can run Google ads on your website and then when people click the ads, you’ll make money.  You can read more about this on our blog about how to make money blogging.
  • Charge businesses for listings: You can offer a paid listing option to businesses, which could allow them to post photos and links to their website, respond to bad reviews, etc. (really, what you want the listing to allow them to do is up to you – this is your website!  You have the power here!).  Businesses will want to do this because if, say, people visit your website for reviews on, say, restaurants in Nashville, they will want people to easily discover their Nashville restaurant and see great photos or videos or a menu or whatever you let them post.  And you can put them on a recurring payment even which help you bring in a more steady income (more on how to do this later).
  • Charge customers for access to see your site: The other way to do this is to use the business approach Angie’s List used to offer where customers would have to pay to see the reviews.  Personally, I think it works easier to make it free for customers and have the businesses pay because you’ll need a lot of reviews to make this work and it will be easier to achieve that if you make it free, but I know every niche is different and if you have a way to make this work, then great!

How Can You Create a Website Like Yelp?

So, the big question you may be asking is – how do I do this?  The best – and easiest – way to go with this is Brilliant Directories.  For a monthly fee, you’ll be able to create a directory website that can work like Yelp – and you’ll be able to build it quickly, because Brilliant Directories was created to enable those without much of a background in web design to be able to quickly develop amazing website.  They have tons of helpful videos to help guide you through the process, support documentation and unlimited technical support to help you whenever you have questions.

And there are so many features your website can have:

  • Credit card processing, including recurring payments (which is how you could bill business each month and make money!)
  • A self-service member dashboard, meaning that if businesses do buy accounts, they can upload their own information – and this saves you so much time rather than you having to add the information yourself!
  • The ability to have membership levels, which allow businesses who have paid to have privileges that those who haven’t paid you won’t – because without this, anyone could do it and therefore no one would pay you (and of course you don’t want that!).
  • The ability to easily track revenue and see if any members are past-due, an important feature for any business
  • A rating and review system that is easy to set up
  • The ability to easily add Google banners, if you want to have Google ads to monetize your business
  • Customizable tools for SEO, meaning that your website will be set up correctly so that search engines like Google will able to find you and rank you higher when people are searching for websites like yours.
  • The ability to customize the website the way you like it
  • Fast cloud hosting, which means your website will be fast – which is important because speed really matters.

You can get people to come to your website originally by being active on social networks (like Instagram, Pinterest & Facebook) and you can run Bing ads, Google ads, and Facebook ads.

So good luck getting started and creating an amazing new business that can allow you to make money and be your own boss!

 

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If you want to earn money, be your own boss & work from home, why not start a review website like Yelp? It can be a great passive income source where other people write the reviews & you make the profits! We'll tell you how you can easily create a website like this with no experience & make money from it!