How to Make an App Like Yelp?

Be it a matter of navigation, lifestyle, food and drink or any other local business search, Yelp mirrors the real image of all local business goods and services on the notch of its reviews and ratings.

Touting over 142 million of average monthly users, $713 million revenue in the last year, Yelp has turned into a largest multi-national social-local business platform for restaurants, clubs and local businesses from merely being a simple website, and with good reason. Look up to the top businesses regularly searched on Yelp:

Even study at Harvard business School, found that every star in a Yelp review leads to 5-9% spike in revenues that easily translates ‘more reviews on Yelp registers more business’ that worth about $8,000 (or maybe even more) per annum without advertisements and the average soaring to $23000 with advertisements.

The Yelp Effect has gone viral circumscribing the local business territory in the United States. The scope of launching the Yelp like App in other countries cannot be denied. The startup fanatics looking to host a stronger market like Yelp in their own country should relentlessly inch forward with these paramount Yelp App features and Components.

Decoding the Yelp like App Features

User Authentication

Simplify the access of users to experience your app. Make the on boarding process easy by allowing them to login through their existing social networks.

User Profile Description

A User Profile must include photos of local businesses, top rated bars and restaurants, a feature to add their favorite places to list, browse all places they have visited, view ratings and reviews.

On contrary, for local business account creation you can add layers of functionalities like profile verification, reputation management, ratings and reviews and online advertisement and campaign management.

Reviews And Ratings

Yes, this is the backbone of Yelp App. The aspect that increases the authenticity and relevancy of any business by the weight of ratings and user reviews! Not surprisingly, this is what that draws potential clients to Yelp and check the authenticity of any business and make a buying choice.

As per a Nielsen Survey Consumers Rank Yelp Most Influential, Most Trustworthy, and with Highest Quality Reviews. Look at the numeric below.

Geo Location based search functionality

A key feature of app indeed! Your app should be able to track user’s location for which you can use Google Maps API for iOS, Android and Web browsers and help your client to search and browse businesses in surrounding area or by browsing the category or directly typing the name just like the Yelp does.

Push Notifications

Get your customers covered with their preferences and lifestyle. Send them reviews and choices of places based on their last check INS, send them gift cards, share offers and promotions.

Check-ins

Allow real-time mapping and sharing current location quickly and easily on social media accounts.

Tech Stack for Yelp App

• Programming Languages : Python/ HTML5
• HTTP Server Technologies : NGINX
• Databases and NoSQL Datastores : MySQL, Elastic Search
• Server Software : Apache Solr
• Operating System : Ubuntu
• Cloud/Hardware Infrastructure : Amazon web services AWS (Works wonder for applications with large traffic)
• Load balancing : LVS and HAProxy
• Social Media Logging : Facebook Scribe
• MySQL Monitoring Tools : Nagios, Graphite, Percona Toolkit, Grafana and Sensu