Visiting a new city or traveling or moving to another country can be really very difficult if you are not aware of the locality, particularly the places to eat out or, the supermarkets from where you can buy the things for your daily use.Multipurpose apps like Yelp have made our lives easier, considering you can find everything you want to know about the city or town using this app. It lists out all the top eateries, places to visit and other business needs, all in one place. And not just that, you can check out the reviews and ratings of the places of your choice from the people who have already visited those places. All of this provides you an insight into the place making your visit more interesting.

What is Yelp and what was the aim behind its foundation?

Yelp app is a business directory service and crowd-sourced review forum. It is a public company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Yelp develops, hosts and markets the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app through which people can find out publish crowd-sourced reviews about various businesses. The company also provides an online reservation service called Yelp Reservations.Yelp was established in 2004 by ex-PayPal employees- Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman. The company expanded in usage and raised several rounds of funding in the following years. In the year 2010, it had raised around $30 million in revenue. The website had published more than 4.5 million crowd-sourced reviews until the same year. Gradually, Yelp expanded throughout Europe and Asia and became a public company in March 2012. By the end of 2017, the company had 148 million reviews on its site.Here is a chart from App Annie showing the ranking of Yelp app in the last week:

The below graph displays the number of unique mobile visitors to Yelp recommendation platform from 2016 to 2019, every quarter. There is a steady growth in the local searches and review site's mobile visitor numbers. The number of unique visitors has reached over 35 million in the first quarter of 2019.

How does the Yelp app works?

Any person having an Internet connection can browse the Yelp Website. It's simple to look through business reviews and ratings and read about experiences of the previous visitors. On the Yelp's home page, the site recognizes the nearest influential city or town in which you live and presents the recommended locations and highlighted reviews.

For example, if you are reaching Yelp from New York City, you will apparently open up yelp.com/nyc when you type in the usual address.To write your own reviews or to follow others, you need to have and manage a personal account. Signing up for a Yelp account is exactly like signing up for most other social networking sites. Once you are signed in with your account, you are officially a yelper which is a common nickname for Yelp users.

• To write a review, you can just click on the "Write a Review" button on the top of the page.
• Search for the establishment that you wish to review by typing in the business name and the city and ZIP code in which it's located.
• Select the business from the search results and click on the "Write a Review" button next to it.
• You can provide the business with a star rating from one to five where one means poor and five means great.
• You can find a text box where you can type your review right below the ratings.
• You can even get to know about the events, reminders and special offers through the app and you can also make a lot of like-minded yelper friends.

► Competitors of YelpInfluential competitors for Yelp's review service comprise of TripAdvisor, Foursquare, and user reviews on Google Maps. Dianping.com in China is also alike Yelp, even though Yelp does not operate in China.According to Similarweb, the app ranking of the Yelp app is displayed in the following figure:

App Features to include while building the Yelp Clone app or App Like Yelp:

 Building a clone to an already successful app is just not an option for you to be able to rule the world of apps. The app needs to have a uniqueness in order to gain acceptance according to the rules of the App Store and Play Store.To get your target audience’s attention, you cannot ignore some of the classic features that make the app user-friendly and accessible. Here we will list out these top features.» Reviews and Ratings: This is critical for the user who wants to know the top establishments in the town. The user will be able to access the reviews of the past user who has been to the place. They will know everything about the offerings and will also get an insight into what is good/bad about the company. The claims made by the establishment will either be backed or denied by the reviews and ratings offered. Word of mouth has always been an important factor in getting people to visit a place. It is said that most people trust other people’s recommendation, and are more likely to visit a place if recommended by their friend.» The Notifications: Personalizing the offering is possible with the help user profile but, giving the users what they need at the moment or helping them explore possibilities is possible only with notifications. You need to include push notifications in your app, as that will offer the users with information based on their preferences.» Geo-location Search: The user wants more information regarding the place they are in. The app should take the user’s location into consideration before offering choices. So, when the user travels to a new place, the geolocation feature will be activated, and the user would be given choices based on the new location. This feature, in turn, will enhance the user’s experience.» Activity History: The app should store the notifications you have received, the ones you have clicked on and the searches you have made. The history will help the app deliver better results in the future, and personalize it better for you. In case, there are some notifications you are simply not interested in, then the app will consider not sending them to you in the future. The app will take into account your preferences and your history before sending you the notifications.In order to improve user engagement and interaction on your app, you can consider adding gamification to the app. Foursquare does it seamlessly with the help of reward points, badges, virtual currency, and other such tools.To further enhance the convenience for the end users and making it easier for them, allowing the users to book their table through your app can be a good step forward.

Business Models to consider for Your Yelp-like app or Yelp clone app :

When you decide to begin a new business venture, thinking about different business models is a good idea to start with. You should have a clear idea regarding your business requirements, investments, target audience and how will you be able to earn more profits.Here we will discuss a few app monetization methods for your Yelp clone app. These techniques can help you to gain more benefits in less time.» Paid Hosting: This is one of the easiest ways of generating revenue for your business. Ask the corporations who want to enlist themselves on the app to pay a certain amount to you. This way they can get noticed and you can generate the income.» Advertisements: In-app advertisements manage to earn a lot of money to app owners. In fact, this is one of the most reliable ways of generating incomes and maximizing your profits.» Deals: Offering deals on your website, and earning a commission for every visit made to the website with the deal can also help you generate good returns. You tend to incentivize the users, and they, in turn, get a good offer from your website. This also benefits the businesses as they gain traction as a result of the deals offered. This model works for all three sides involved.

How to get started with your own Yelp-like app?

 There are two things you need to consider when developing a Yelp clone- cost and market needs.1. Research the Market: A complete market research is needed before proceeding with your Yelp clone app development. You need to comprehend what the market needs, and how best you can close the gaps that exist with the potential solution you are aiming to offer. There are several instances and app solutions already available in the market that will help you with understanding the solution that you can offer.Here are a few things you might want to consider before plunging in:

• Identify the target for whom you are building the app.
• Know what they need and how they use the Yelp and other apps in the niche.
• Consider the kind of solution they are looking for and how your idea will benefit them.

2. Cost of Development: The cost of development also depends on the time taken to develop the app. The app development involves designing the UI/UX, including the significant features discussed earlier, coding the app, and finally testing the app for the different features.Each feature requires a specific time period and costs a certain amount. The total cost will depend on all the features listed, the development cost and the team hiring cost as well as the cost of maintaining the team at the office.

How can Coruscate help you to develop a Yelp-like app or Yelp clone app?

 Developing a Yelp clone requires a great idea and some clean methods with the understanding of the market needs. You should have the specific features listed out for the same. Once you are clear about the features and the market needs, planning the entire mobile app development is important for a uniform rollout.We partner with startups and enterprises to deliver capable and meaningful app solutions to uplift your businesses. We have been devising unique solutions that are in sync with the needs expressed. Connect with us via the contact us form to know more about the scope of the Yelp-like app. Click below to connect with us for a free yelp like app demo.