The days are gone when you could ignore the internet to promote your restaurant, beauty salon, private dental hospital, brick-and-mortar business, or any home and auto service you may use as a profession.
Nowadays, people rely on the Internet to choose the right local business. They prominently read customer reviews or testimonials about a company. Those reviews shape the reputation of your business from a potential customer’s perspective.
According to the Local Consumer Report by BrightLocal, nearly half (49%) of all consumers say they trust the reviews they read online as much as personal recommendations.
If you do not use online marketing to shape your brand reputation, someone (most probably your competitor) will. By taking advantage of marketing strategies, they will utilize customer reviews to decrease customer acquisition costs and retain more customers.
Among many review platforms, Yelp is one of the most reputable platforms (with over 287 million reviews of businesses worldwide) that allow local businesses to create a profile (or claim an existing one), share business details such as location, opening hours, and contact details, and add photos.
Furthermore, customers can leave their reviews (with star ratings) about your business on Yelp, and others [Yelp users] can rate those reviews (reactions: Useful, Funny, Cool) and even embed Yelp reviews.
Search engines crawl these reviews, and people use their Yelp mobile app to check out testimonials about local businesses.
Over 32 million monthly unique devices use Yelp, and its service coverage has widened across many regions, including all major US cities and several countries across Europe and Asia Pacific. Here are a few facts about Yelp:
- There are over 287+ million cumulative reviews of businesses worldwide.
- Share of recommendation distribution:
- Recommended: 76%
- No Recommended: 16%
- Removed: 9%
- Top three reviewed businesses by category:
- Home & local services: 20%
- Restaurants: 17%
- Shopping: 15%
- Distribution of star ratings:
- 5 star – 53%
- 4 star – 15%
- 3 star – 08%
- 2 star – 06%
- 1 star – 18%
That means Yelp reviews have a significant impact on sales generation. As adding Google Business reviews to your website helps in convincing on-the-fence potential customers to convert (by using the credibility of Google Business reviews), and so does embedding Yelp reviews on a relevant web page.
However, Yelp does not have a tool to embed multiple Yelp reviews. It only lets you embed a single review on your site. For example, you cannot have a grid view or a slider widget that displays Yelp reviews on your site.
So, how do you add Yelp reviews to a website?
You can add Yelp reviews to a site using a Yelp review widget. This article will list the best Yelp reviews widget generators, features, and things to consider when using them. Also, check out the list of best Amazon Review widgets to embed Amazon reviews on your site (if your business involves Amazon to sell products).
6 things to consider when using a Yelp Review widget on a website
- Customize the widget – Most Yelp review widget builders listed below allow you to filter which content to show up on the widget, change the color scheme, fonts, widget size, and more. Make use of customizing tools to integrate the Yelp widget with your site using the brand color palette, font families, etc. Before adding the widget to your site, preview it on the mobile view to ensure Yelp reviews are undoubtedly visible.
- Do not leave negative reviews – According to the “How Online Reviews Influence Sales” report by Spiegel Research Center, customers seek out negative reviews, shoppers are skeptical of overly positive reviews, and negative reviews lend credibility to other reviews. Hence, to increase the authenticity of the site’s review content, do not overly moderate the Yelp reviews on the website, including negative reviews.
- Reviews from verified users are more consequential– Reviews from verified users are more critical than those submitted by unverified or anonymous users. Hence, when moderating content, keep in mind that you should include verified reviews.
- Concern about the page loading speed – The last thing you want is to increase your site’s loading time because of the Yelp widget! According to a report, page loading speed directly correlates with the conversion rate. You can load the Yelp review widget’s script code (JS) asynchronously to load the widget after other contents are loaded on the page. Furthermore, you can use a script manager such as Google Tag Manager or Cloudflare Zaraz and limit the number of reviews shown on the Yelp widget to decrease initial HTTPS requests.
- A/B test your landing pages – You will not know if adding Yelp reviews to a website results in increased conversions if you do not split-test your pages — experiment using different Yelp widget variations (Slider, Grid, Masonry) and styles.
- Use other conversion boosters – It is not guaranteed that using a Yelp reviews widget on a site will boost sales on your site. Utilize other techniques such as website HTML countdown timers (to entice urgency), popup widgets (to convert exit traffic), service comparison tables (compare your service with competitors), customer testimonials widgets, progress bars, sticky bars (announce discounts), before and after photo sliders (to showcase performance before and after using your service/product), social proof widgets, and high-converting checkout pages.
Best Yelp Review Widgets for Websites to Use Today
Elfsight’s Yelp Review Widget
Elfsight is a no-code website widget builder with 90+ apps in its library. Its apps range from data representation to utilities. Some of its apps are the All-in-One Reviews widget (a review aggregator that supports 30+ platforms including Yelp, Google, Facebook, G2, Apple App Store, and Trustpilot), pricing tables creator, logo slider (displays clients’ logos), and testimonials widget (shows clients’ reviews on different layouts).
Elfsight’s Yelp Review widget creator is free-to-use, highly customizable (with its visual editor), provides many styles, lets you manage which reviews to show, and includes many features.
Features
- 7 responsive Yelp review widget layouts: Elfsight’s Yelp widget creator is not limited to one form. It gives you a wide range of designs to choose from. They are Carousel, Badge, Floating Badge, Grid, Slider, Masonry, and List. These mobile-friendly layouts let you create any Yelp widget for your site. Plus, there are several templates to help you get started quickly.
- Customize layout as you prefer: The highly customizable Yelp review widget editor of Elfsight enables you to set widget width, number of columns (i.e., reviews to show on a single view), the gap between testimonials, autorotate reviews, enable/disable arrows and hide or show title (Yelp rating name), star rating, number of reviews and “Write a review” button.
- Customize the appearance of a review: Change the review style and Yelp logo’s style, and show or hide the verified badge, author’s name & picture, date, rating, and review source (i.e., Yelp.com). When clicking on a review, the reader will be redirected to the exact review on the Yelp official website. Also, you can display the full review or a part of it (with a ‘read more’ text underneath it).
- Change appearance of widget: Choose a color scheme (Light and Dark are options) and customize the widget’s appearance thoroughly. All these settings are available at the click of a button. Elfsight enables using the website’s fonts (i.e., inherit font) on the widget, perfectly blending the Yelp rating widget with your existing theme.
- Make reviews search engine friendly: Elfsight supports Schema.org settings for the Yelp widget, making it possible to display review content (ex, total star rating) on Google. Review snippets will increase the CTR (Click-through rating) on Google by highlighting your snippet on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
- Localize your widget: Let’s say you want to translate all Yelp reviews from English to Spanish. In that case you can utilize Elfsight’s Auto-Translate feature to translate them all to Spanish.
- Options to open new links in a new tab, sort reviews (oldest, newest), custom CSS, preview the widget on mobile view before publishing, duplicate Yelp widgets, share widgets with others with a URL, and more.
Additionally, Elfsight will fetch all the latest reviews on your Yelp profile in real time and show them on the widget without you having to do extra work. And you can utilize the custom CTA (Call to action) button (i.e., Write a review) to encourage website visitors to write a review on your Yelp Business page.
How to create a Yelp Review widget on Elfsight
Use the free Yelp review widget builder below.
Or Sign up for free on the Elfsight website and create your Yelp Review widget.
Here’s a video tutorial that shows how to add reviews from Yelp to a website using Elfsight.
Embed the Yelp Review widget on a website
Elfsight Yelp Reviews widget consists of a JavaScript file and HTML div element with a unique ID. You do not need to place the JavaScript file if you already use any other Elfsight widget on your site.
Copy and paste the embed code where you want to display the widget. If you created a floating badge, add code before closing the body tag (</body>), and you only need to add the JavaScript part (bolded below) once even your website has other Elfsight widgets, such as the announcement bar, which has already been installed.
<script src="https://static.elfsight.com/platform/platform.js" async></script>
<div class="elfsight-app-80478dc9-527c-48f9-941f-2c535305a03b" data-elfsight-app-lazy></div>Demos
Yelp reviews carousel widget (for Dry Clean Super Center. Location: Dallas, Texas, USA)
Yelp inline review badge (for Aire Ancient Baths – New York. Location: New York City, NY, USA)
Click the badge below to reveal reviews.
Pricing
Elfsight’s Yelp widget is free to use. However, its free plan limits to only 200 views per month, one widget per account, and Elfsight branding on the widget. Paid plans start from $5 per month, and all paid plans remove Elfsight branding from widgets and provide more views.
Also, Elfsight pricing includes an All Apps package, which provides access to 90+ apps, including an All-in-one Reviews widget and Yelp widget. Prices start from $15 per month.
Common Ninja’s Yelp Reviews Widget
Common Ninja is another site that provides widgets for websites. Its widget catalog comprises over 200 plugins ranging from data collection items to utilities. Its all review widgets, such as the Facebook Reviews widget, include features such as AI Content Generation based on user reviews, device-specific editing tools, and localization (find more details below).
Common Ninja’s Yelp Reviews Widget is equipped with a visual editor (Like Elfsight), layouts & color skins, and many customizable options (probably the best in terms of widget editing tools).
Features
- Three review types, multiple layouts, and color skins: Common Ninja’s Yelp widget for the website comes with three review types and four layouts (Carousel, Grid, Slider, and List). Color skins let you quickly change the widget’s overall appearance without gradually changing each element one by one, saving you time. A perfect option when you want to create multiple widgets for clients etc.,
- Yelp reviews filter: Use advanced filtering options, like displaying reviews with a minimum of a certain number of stars, to remove low-rating Yelp reviews from your widget. Plus, you can use the ‘Include/Exclude’ feature to filter reviews based on keywords on a review. These options will allow you to remove bad Yelp reviews from showing. Also, you can sort reviews based on publication date and rating.
- Manual reviews approval: Want to go one step further and display the exact reviews you want? Common Ninja got it!; With a simple toggle of a button, you can highlight, pin, label, and even hide reviews.
- Automatic updates: This is an optional feature. Once enabled, Common Ninja will look for new reviews on provided Yelp Business page and add them to your Yelp reviews widget based on conditions specified.
- AI content generation: This is one of the unique features of Common Ninja. Essentially, once enabled, AI will analyze all reviews on your Yelp Business page and generate content. These content are grouped into three tabs: Top features, User Endorsements, and FAQ. Of course, you can re-generate content, edit it, and even de-activate the feature anytime.
- Customization options: Common Ninja’s visual editor lets you easily customize the widget’s appearance in many ways – more than you would actually need! You can change visibility of widget’s items such as header, total reviews, and modify colors, fonts, sizes, and more. If you want to customize further, you can utilize custom CSS as well.
- Add Yelp reviews to emails: This is another unique feature. It will enable you to embed an optimized version of Yelp Reviews widget in your email marketing campaigns.
- Devices-specific editing tools, sharing Yelp widgets with others via direct links, widget management, collaborators, and more features.
How to create a Yelp testimonials widget on Common Ninja
Register your free Common Ninja account from here and start designing your widget.
Watch the following tutorial to find out how to use the widget editor.
Demo
Here is a live demo of a Yelp review widget (gird layout) made on Common Ninja.
Pricing
Common Ninja’s Yelp review plugin is free to use. However, the free plan has many limitations: 1 project and widget per account, 300 total page views per month, five reviews per widget, and no editorial control, custom styles & CSS, or automatic review updates.
Its paid plans start from $10 per month [Essentials plan], eliminating the number of views barrier, including one team member, and removing the branding from Yelp review widgets.
Click here to try Common Ninja.
TrustMary
Trustmary provides tools to embed reviews on your website. Currently, it supports Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Capterra, and the G2 platform. And it supports all the major CMS and website builders such as WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix, and you can install review widgets on any HTML site.
Trustmary’s free Yelp review widget lets you display relevant customer reviews from Yelp on your site.
Features
- Widgets library: Choose a pre-built widget style that fits your current website theme.
- Filter reviews: Import existing reviews from Yelp and highlight the best ones on your website based on minimum star rating, reviewer’s credentials, etc. Also, you can manually pick reviews to show. If you only have a few Yelp reviews, you can import reviews from various sources and use them in the widget.
- Rich snippets for SEO: Enable Schema.org markups on the Yelp reviews widget to display rich snippets on SERPs.
- Customization options: Change the layout (Wall of Love, Grid, Sliding Wall, List, Carousel), and edit the widget’s colors, fonts, and contents to fit your brand.
Pricing
TrustMary’s Display plans include a free plan and three paid plans. The free plan allows 200 widget monthly pageviews. Paid plans start from $19/month, and the brand removal from widgets provided by the Business (costs $59/month).
TagEmbed’s Yelp Reviews widget
TagEmbed is another widget provider that provides 20+ applications for websites. Its apps library includes apps in many categories, such as social feed & stories (i.e., Instagram feed, Pinterest Shorts, TikTok video feed), Review widgets (Airbnb, Etsy, etc.), and aggregator (Hashtag, X, and UGC aggregator).
The Yelp Reviews widget is another one provided by TagEmbed to showcase Yelp business reviews on a website.
Features
- Four layouts: Slider, Grid, Masonry, and List view.
- Showcase reviews based on two options: Display all the reviews based on the Business Page (by entering its Yelp URL) or aggregate Yelp reviews from any specific business via location or keyword input.
- Fetch reviews from multiple Yelp business listings: If your business consists of branches across different locations, you can fetch reviews of all those and showcase them in a single Yelp reviews interface.
- Modification: Choose a Yelp widget theme that resonates with your website theme, and customize it using design options like banners, CTA, colors, fonts, and more.
- Moderation panel: Keep your Yelp customer review widget fresh and clean by filtering out unwanted content (with the profanity filter and reviews filter) and displaying the latest reviews.
- Analytics, collaboration, API, CTA button, custom CSS, and more.
Pricing
TagEmbed offers a free plan and three paid plans. The free plan does not support Yelp. So, you must subscribe to a paid plan (starting from $17/month).
JustReview’s Yelp Reviews Aggregator
JustReview is an online customer reviews aggregator that supports many review platforms. The list includes platforms like Google Shopping, Walmart, ProductHunt, Google Maps, Booking, Yell, Google Play Store, eBay, and Yelp. You can connect your review profile with JustReviews and create numerous widgets to showcase ratings on your site.
JustReview’s Yelp Reviews aggregator is easy to use and has six widget types.
Features
- Six widgets to embed Yelp reviews on the website: Badge (a sticky widget that reveals Yelp rating etc., when clicked), Testimonials (a slider with CTA text), Counters (displays average Yelp review rating), Summary (overall rating displayed on a box), Stars (average total Yelp rating), Page (dedicated page filled with Yelp testimonials and a call-to-action button at the top of header)
- Reviews moderating and filter: Display reviews you want to show on your site.
- Google Rich snippet data: Enable Schema.org rating markup to enrich your SERP result in Google and other search engines.
- Widget customization: JustReview lets you change the appearance of the widget. However, it does not offer advanced customization like other services provide.
Widget installation is relatively easy as JustReview integrates with major site builders such as Webflow, Squarespace, and WordPress. Once the widget is created, please copy and paste the Yelp review widget HTML code on the site where you want to show it.
Pricing
JustReview’s free plan does not support Yelp. Therefore, you must upgrade to the Plus plan, which costs ₤9/month.
WP Yelp Review Slider
WP Yelp Review Slider WordPress plugin by LK Apps (aka Josh White) is available to use for free and allows you to embed Yelp customer reviews on a WordPress website. This will enable you to load resources from your server and have more control over them. For instance, you can use a cache plugin such as WP Rocket and Perfmatters to optimize resources within the Yelp Review widget.
Features
- Keep all reviews in the WordPress database.
- Create templates
- Shortcode support (Embed Yelp reviews on the sidebar and within post content even when you use page builders such as Elementor, Page Origin, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, and Divi)
What is the best Yelp review widget?
It depends on your requirements and customization options.
For instance, Elfsight’s Yelp Review widget, which is a third-party widget builder that is not dependent on your web hosting, comes with light, dark, and custom color schemes and several layouts that you can use to create the right widget for your circumstance (i.e.: Yelp rating badge that floats with user scrolling, and Yelp testimonials slider with next and previous buttons, minimalistic Yelp reviews aggregator for narrow spaces such as sidebar of a site).
On the other hand, WordPress plugins allow you to host all the reviews on your server while having the same customization options services such as Elfsight, Common Ninja, and TagEmbed provide.
On price wise, Elfsight provides the best value for money as features will not be locked out depending on the plan you subscribed to, and All Apps packs of Elfsight let you create multiple Yelp rating widgets for websites of your own and clients and manage them efficiently. That is why Elfsight is a must-use service for digital marketing agencies.
When considering integrations, all services listed above, apart from WordPress plugins, let you embed Yelp reviews on any platform (Google Sites, Wix, Shopify, WooCommerce, Unbounce) or any HTML site by copying and pasting the embed code.
FAQs
How to Create a Yelp Review Widget?
Choose one of these Yelp Review widget creators, and create your widget by inserting your Yelp business listing URL, filtering content, and customizing the appearance.
Preview the widget and correct any responsive errors. Once created, copy the embed code and paste it to your site’s HTML editor, where you want to showcase Yelp reviews.
Final words on Best Yelp Review widgets for websites
According to a report by Spiegel Research Center, using even five reviews can increase the likelihood of a purchase by 270% compared to products without any reviews. So, if you have a local business, a good reputation, and customer feedback on Yelp, there is no reason not to use Yelp reviews on your website to boost ROI on your online marketing campaigns.
That does not mean you will see immediate results once Yelp customer reviews are used on your website. It depends on many factors, not just showing customer recommendations on sales pages. Use CRO tactics such as time-sensitive promos, countdown timers, and email marketing campaigns to increase conversion rates.
Also, to increase your business’s Yelp listing ranking, encourage users to leave reviews by offering discounts, etc.