Does Yelp Matter for AI Visibility? I Checked 41 Local Businesses

0:00 Yelp vs YouTube in AI Citations
Hey, I’m Jeremy with PushLeads, helping small businesses get more leads without struggle and frustration. And what we’re talking about in this video is how important is Yelp in showing up in AI visibility? The short answer is hardly at all. So the numbers that nobody’s talking about from actual data that I pulled this morning, so of thirty-nine different businesses that we’re working with, of that

0:22 Raw Data from 39 Client Businesses
twenty-three… Of thirty-nine businesses we’re working with, twenty-three of their thirty-nine businesses, YouTube showed up as an AI citation source, which is about fifteen point five percent of all citations. And what did Yelp get? Two. And so, like, what’s the point of even doing anything on Yelp, right? If, if you’re doing anything, you should be on YouTube. And of course, every SEO guy out there is saying optimize for ChatGPT because it has the biggest market share. But here’s the problem. No, no one really agrees on what the market share is. StatKiner– StatCounter says that Gemini has about nine percent of the market share, and then Similarweb says, you know, Gemini has… And Goody says ten point six percent. And here’s the thing. None of that actually matters to you anyway because nobody is opening up ChatGPT and searching for best drain cleaning near me. They’re still on Google, and they’re still getting an AI answer at the top of Google. So the real question is, which website does Google’s AI actually quote? So how do we collect this data? It’s not a survey. It’s not a study. We’re actually tracking AI citations weekly for every client we work with, and we’re logging which domains Google’s AI is pulled from when it answers questions in each client’s space. So we tracked thirty-nine contractors, restoration companies, vacation rental companies. We looked at a hundred and sixty-six records, and we looked at a hundred and fifteen distinct domains. And here’s the breakdown. When someone does a search in your industry, and the results might surprise you.

This is part of our AI search visibility guide.

1:52 Why Your Website Still Ranks First
Google had twenty-three of these, Reddit had fourteen, Yelp had two, and Angie and Thumbtack had one. Right? So what does this tell me? This tells me that if you have a service-based business and you wanna show up in Google, you should be on YouTube. I stopped posting on there years ago until about two or three months ago because I’m like, "What’s the point? No one ever looks at these long desktop videos, right? No one even cares." But actually, Google cares. Then I can upload videos all day long to YouTube, and I’ll start showing up in AI search. So that’s why this video is on YouTube, and of course, it’s on LinkedIn. And here’s the good news that no one expected. Your website is still number one, so thirty-eight of thirty-nine businesses were still the single most cited domain in their own space. AI is not replacing your website, the primary source, and it stacked YouTube and Reddit underneath it as supporting evidence. Why? Because AIs are constantly triangulating, and they’re trying to make sure that, "Hey, when you’re saying something on your website, are you saying the same thing on other places?" And they don’t, they don’t want to lie. They wanna say the truth, right? So here’s a real example.

2:59 Drain Cleaning Case Study YouTube Gap
Drain cleaning company, we work with a plumber. Their own site has thirty-three percent of their citations in their market, and then YouTube came in at twenty-six percent. This means that in one out of four times Google’s AI answers a drain cleaning question in their city, it’s quoting the YouTube video, not their video, someone else’s video. And that’s not a threat, that’s an opening. I need to get with that client and start making some videos about drain cleaning so they could show up for that, right? So that’s all part of it.

3:28 Search Everywhere Optimization Explained
This huge shift, though, is changing everything because basically, us SEO people, SEO or whatever you wanna call this thing, I like to call it search everywhere optimization. It’s really about showing up everywhere, not just in one place. Are you curious about what your customers are actually searching? So if you’re a plumber or a carpet cleaner or a vacation… So I thought this was interesting. We pulled volume from Ahrefs, and we found out that thirty-two hundred people were searching for "remove AI from Google" or "turn off AI in Google" or "searches without AI," right? And that was kinda hilarious. So roughly ten times more people are trying to turn this AI thing off than actually trying to show up in it, right? Which is kinda, like, hilarious. You know, your customers didn’t ask for AI, but it’s happening every– anyway.

4:15 What Customers Are Actually Searching
Your customers didn’t ask for AI search, but it’s here. The Pandora’s box has been opened. We can’t shut the box, right? And so by the time your competitors are starting to search for it, the citations are already showing up. So let’s say that you do care about AI searches ’cause they are about fifty percent of the equation. AI searches have gone from five percent to forty-five percent in the last year for service-based businesses. So what should you actually do? You should post a video on YouTube ’cause YouTube is the number one across our entire client base. You know, to be perfect, just shoot the job you’re doing and, and why. Answer the question when a customer asks it out loud in the video. Just do, do it. And make sure you have a title and description of the video. You need to get into Reddit in your market. You need to answer real questions in your own city’s subreddit and your trade subreddits. So fourteen of thirty-nine businesses had Reddit attached. So Reddit is where AI goes to find out what people actually think. Third, stop overpaying for directories.

5:13 Four Actions to Win AI Visibility
Two out of thirty-nine people are on Yelp. One is on Angie, HomeTac, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, BBB. So look at what you’re spending there and get out of there because that doesn’t help. And then write your answer. Your site is already number one in the source. Protect that. Put the direct answer when you write– Put the direct answer to any content you’re writing on the page. AI will quote the answer first in the first hundred words, and AI will quote that, and you’ll start showing up in AI search. And these are the types of content that actually gets found by AI search. Video content. You could post YouTube videos answering questions, narrating jobs on site, community forums in your local city and trade subreddits. Um, your own website, you can optimize your page answers, direct responses in the first two sentences, and then you need to course cut category spend. Yelp. I’m kinda convinced that Yelp is probably a scam anyway, so I just never really seen it actually work. So if you keep doing these four actions over and over again, you’ll get more visibility in AI, and you’ll start to attract everyone using AI, which is now half the equation.

6:18 Bottom Line and Free Snapshot Offer
So the bottom line here is in thirty-nine business with one snapshot, twenty-three out of thirty-nine businesses were cited from YouTube. Reddit was about half of those, fourteen of those. Yelp was two of those. The platforms you’re paying for is not pushing the envelope right now. You know, Angie, Yelp, what’s the point of that, right? If you wanna know exactly where your business shows up for AI right now, drop your city in the trade in the comments, and we can do a free snapshot for you and, and help you out. I’m Jeremy Ashburn with PushLeads, helping small businesses get more leads without struggle and frustration. Talk to you soon.