The Importance of Yelp for Apple Maps Local SEO

tmblast

Yelp reviews play a critical role in ranking listings on Apple Maps / DuckDuckGo searches. One of my clients is a doctor in New York City, and they have been struggling to gain much traction on Apple Maps. After running multiple  ⁨@localfalcon⁩  keyword heat map scans, I noticed that the top competitors all had one thing in common. They had Yelp Reviews, and they consistently received positive feedback from that platform in 2025. If you are looking to capture more leads for your business, then getting on Yelp can do just that. Timestamps  0:00 Introduction  0:12 My Client Does Not Rank at All on Apple for their Primary Keyword  0:33 Who is Winning via the Heat Map  0:58 The Top 3 Listings All had Yelp Reviews  1:52 My Client's KPIs are Not Strong  2:07 My Client's Searches are Low Too  2:39 The Breakdown by Month  3:09 What to Do Next  4:50 That Category Breakdown is Key  5:25 In Summary    https://tmblast.com/services/hourly-seo-consulting/apple-maps-local-seo-service/    https://tmblast.com/case-studies/225-more-website-clicks-from-apple-maps/    #AppleMapsSEO #AppleSEO #LocalSEOApple

Transcript

00:00Hey everyone, what's going on?

00:01Greg here again from TM Blast.

00:02So I want to talk about Apple Maps, Local SEO, and why Yelp is so critical to improve

00:07your keyword ranks, which will give you more impressions, more website clicks, and more

00:10phone calls for your business.

00:12So to start, I have a client, they're in New York City, they're a doctor.

00:15So I searched in Apple Maps for the keyword gynecologist, and I'm using Local Falcon to

00:19get this view.

00:20My client is 20 plus everywhere, which basically means they're not ranking at the top.

00:24Local Falcon uses DuckDuckGo for this, but this also translates directly into Apple Maps

00:29specific search.

00:30So they're not ranking at all for this keyword, which is gynecologist.

00:33Then I looked at the top couple listings that were ranking for the keyword gynecologist.

00:38So I clicked on each one, and I can see how the map was basically all green or mostly green

00:42for them.

00:44What I'd notice for my clients, once they're doing really well on Apple Maps, if you can

00:46rank for these non-brand keywords like gynecologist, gynecologist, near me, gynecologist, NYC, it's

00:53going to drive in more impressions, which will result in more website clicks and phone calls

00:57for your business.

00:58So I looked at the top three listings, and this is actually what I summarized.

01:02They all have a prominent Yelp listing that is displayed at the very top, and also the

01:07ratings and reviews in the bottom.

01:08So I can see reviews.

01:10Now, one thing to note is that it's not necessarily who has the most Yelp reviews or who has the

01:17best Yelp score.

01:18What I noticed, even with Google, is that it's consistent reviews on an ongoing basis will

01:24be more beneficial for your ranking.

01:26So someone could have 145 reviews, but let's say 120 of them came from a year ago, and now

01:33this year in 2025, they've only had a handful.

01:35Compared to another company that's been getting consistent reviews all throughout 2025, might

01:39even have a slight ranking factor in their favor because they're getting consistent and

01:44up-to-date reviews.

01:45It's more relevant, and it might be helping them rank a little bit better.

01:48But the point is that the top three that I saw all have Yelp that are showing.

01:53This is what I did next.

01:53Next, I went into my client's account, and I wanted to pull the main KPIs to really display

01:58how much of an opportunity we have here.

02:00Directions in the past 12 months is 438, website's 111, and phone calls is 190 out of 12 months.

02:07Next, I scrolled up a little bit, and I looked at the number of searches that people do before

02:12they tap on the location in the search results.

02:14Basically, what that means is let's look at TM Blast as the example.

02:18The brand name for TM Blast means absolutely nothing, but that would come up as a brand or name

02:23search.

02:23The category search for me would be like marketing agency, SEO, local SEO, et cetera.

02:29Notice that for my client, less than 20% of the time when people search for, they're using

02:35a non-brand keyword, which is why when you look at this over here, they have so little KPIs each

02:41month.

02:42Direction request on average is 37.

02:44We can assume most of this is coming from current clients that they have who are just using Apple

02:49just to click on directions just to get to their location.

02:51Website visits is nine for the month.

02:55That's very small.

02:56Calls is 16.

02:57Again, that's very small.

02:58That's less than, that's basically one every other day.

03:01And then 41 name searches, so that's the brand name like TM Blast, and then 10 searches are

03:05the non-brand part.

03:06There's a huge difference right there.

03:09So the reason why I'm recording this is that when you're thinking about ways to grow your local

03:14business, get more phone calls, get more leads, get more bookings, whatever the goal is.

03:19First step is you want to get on Yelp and fill out your basic information.

03:23I know there's a lot when it comes to Yelp.

03:25I hear this from every client of mine.

03:27There's a love-hate relationship with this platform, and I get it.

03:31However, I look at it and say, this goes beyond Yelp.com.

03:35If Apple is pulling in Yelp for their reviews, you have to get on that platform.

03:39Next is you want to encourage users to leave reviews on Yelp.

03:42So we all know Google reviews, 90% of the leads are going to come from Google Maps, but

03:48you really want to focus on encouraging a diversity of reviews on different platforms

03:53like Facebook, TripAdvisor, Yelp, TrustIndex.io, et cetera.

03:59Get reviews, but specifically for this, encourage people to start leaving reviews on Yelp, and

04:03then you can respond to them as well.

04:05Next, upload photos to Yelp.

04:07So the reason why I share this is that Apple will actually pull in your profile, and they

04:12will actually bring in the photos that are on the platform.

04:16So photos of your location, of your team, of the service you provide, these are all going

04:21to be engagement factors, and they're also being brought into by Apple Maps.

04:24So that's going to be a ranking factor.

04:26Next, track the results using Local Falcon.

04:28So I use it for all my clients.

04:30I track the keywords, usually on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

04:33I'm just trying to get an idea of if the changes we make are improving our share of local

04:37voice, which then have more phone calls, website clicks, and leads.

04:40And then finally, the track the people search category, I think is actually a really important

04:44KPI, so I'm going to go back to this.

04:46If in the last 12 months, I can say, okay, we have 124, so divided by 12, that's around

04:5110 or so people each month are searching for a non-brand keyword.

04:55I would look at that and say, that's the baseline because we're not really ranking.

04:59If we can increase that from 10 to 100, so all of a sudden now we're getting from more

05:05and more people now finding us for non-brand search terms, then these other metrics over

05:10here are going to naturally increase, phone calls, website clicks, people clicking on

05:15photos, and even directions too.

05:16If you can see that increase that happens based off the non-brand searches are improving because

05:20your ranks are improving, it kind of all goes together.

05:24So really in summary, I'm creating this video just because I look at a lot of local accounts

05:29that I have.

05:30The ones that are doing the best on Yelp obviously have photos, they have a description,

05:35they have all the filters, they're responding to reviews on Yelp.

05:40But the ones that are really struggling, in my opinion, are the ones that are not on

05:43Yelp.

05:44So we can do all the other hacks we can do with description, the filters, the photos,

05:49the showcases.

05:50But if you're consistently not growing on Apple and your top competition is on Yelp and they

05:56seem to be always outranking you for your terms, you may want to invest this month or

06:00two on Yelp, maybe run some Yelp ads as well, and see what that can do for your rankings for

06:04Apple.

06:04You can track the results and ultimately see to drive more website clicks, bookings, services,

06:10phone calls, back to your business.

06:14Anyway, thanks for watching this video.

06:15Let me know if you have any questions and as always have a good rest of your day.

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