Most of TripAdvisor’s revenue was generated by users clicking from its site to hotel booking sites, on the other hand, Yelp mainly makes money from advertising. Should I even compare them?
I’d argue, YES! because in terms of SEO, they both focus on local searches.
Overview
| Yelp.com | TripAdvisor.com | |
| Market cap | 3.0B (as in 2021 June) | 5.6B (as in 2021 June) |
| Type | ||
| Overall /mon | 209.4M | 208M |
| Search traffic /mon | 117M (49.62% of overall) | 103.2M (49.62% of overall) |
Tripadvisor structural SEO
How the hell do you rank at the top of Google in nearly every town/city/county? This is where structural SEO comes in.
Let’s use Port Dover (small town in in Ontario) as an example.
Location level
Keyword: “tourism in Port Dover”
Page: https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Tourism-g940854-Port_Dover_Norfolk_County_Ontario-Vacations.html
Category level:
Keyword: “Things to Do in Port Dover”
Page: https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attractions-g940854-Activities-Port_Dover_Norfolk_County_Ontario.html
Business profile level
Page: https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attraction_Review-g940854-d2232978-Reviews-Port_Dover_Harbour_Museum-Port_Dover_Norfolk_County_Ontario.html
Keyword: “Port Dover Harbour Museum
UGC is the ultimate fuel of structural SEO
If structural SEO is the engine to a lot of marketplace startups, then UGC is the ultimate fuel! Why?
- UGC content is typically unique
- UGC is scalable
- UGC strategy is hard to copy.
Backlink strategy
1, “People love us on Yelp” sticker
According to Brad Porteus, Yelp Marketing VP (’06-’08) “[in 2007] We started hearing from business owners that they needed a new one, because someone had stolen theirs right off their storefront window….so it could be peeled off a window and pinched by a customer or competitor. Stealing?! Now we really knew this thing had legs. “
Not only it creates brand awareness, but also taps into important human psychology: social proof—-when other business owners see that, they want the sticker too; when potential users see that, they want to write reviews as well.
What does “brand awareness” have anything to do with SEO?
It increase branded search, which increases the domain authority.
2, Review embed
Tripadvisor doesn’t have this feature.
3, Media mentions: “There is no such thing as bad publicity”?
Yelp used to get a lot of negative press.
Both Yelp and Tripadvisor released white-paper style statistics to established thought leadership. According Tripadvisor’s early PR agency:
“[We] leveraged interesting research studies/statistics on travel topics as well as information gleaned from TripAdvisor’s unique insight into the travel industry to proactively pitch stories that tied to national travel trends for the business, broadcast, consumer and travel media.
Red Javelin Communications
Examples:
- Yelp‘s report: https://www.yelpeconomicaverage.com/covid-19-anniversary.html
- Tripadvisor‘s reports: https://tripadvisor.mediaroom.com/2021-01-21-5-Travel-Trends-to-Watch-in-2021-According-to-Tripadvisor
Internationalization
They both use localized domains for targeted countries, because they mainly focus on local searches. Local TLDs(domain extensions) help them rank better on Google in each country.
Examples
| Yelp | TripAdvisor | |
| German | Yelp.de | tripadvisor. |
| United Kingdom | Yelp.co.uk | tripadvisor.co.uk |
| Canada | Yelp.ca | tripadvisor.ca |
| India | Yelp.in | tripadvisor.in |
Sources
- https://www.builtinboston.com/blog/9-boston-unicorns-transforming-citys-tech-scene
- https://searchfacts.com/do-domains-matter-for-seo/
- https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/820039-PDF-ENG
- https://mashable.com/2015/12/21/tripadvisor-cmo-marketing/
- https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/yelp-pr-head-discusses-companys-pr-challenges-and-opportunities/
- https://www.redjavelin.com/portfolio_page/tripadvisor/
- https://www.yelpeconomicaverage.com/covid-19-anniversary.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/11/20/what-is-the-back-story-behind-the-people-love-us-on-yelp-window-sticker-marketing-campaign/?sh=4bc9e5925a25
Willie Jiang is the founder of SolarFeeds and SEO growth hacker. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada. <a href=”https://www.williejiang.com/contact/”>Hire me </a>
