Yelp, wired in properly.

No platform divides contractors like Yelp. Its review filter suppresses legitimate praise with cheerful indifference, its sales calls are persistent enough to qualify as a subscription, and yet — in many metros, and for a certain careful-researcher customer — it still gets consulted before the phone rings. The correct posture is neither devotion nor boycott. It is a tended profile, a disciplined response habit, and deep skepticism about the ad products.

What tending involves

• A complete, photographed, accurate profile — real installs from the CompanyCam pipeline, not clip art.
• Review responses written for the next hundred readers, the craft described in the reputation service.
• Request-a-Quote messages answered in minutes via the automation desk, because Yelp shows your response time publicly.
• If ads run at all: tight geography, capped budget, and a cost-per-booked-job line in the dashboard they must defend quarterly.

The filter, played straight

Yelp punishes solicited reviews harder than Google does, so the review machinery treats it differently: no direct asks, just an excellent trail — easy links, great service, responses that read well — for customers already inclined. Reviews that survive the filter carry outsized trust precisely because readers know the filter exists.

Yelp is a supporting actor in a machine built on rankings you own. Keep it tended, keep it measured, and never let it sell you the lead package on the third call of the month. The estimate covers the whole apparatus.