Foursquare is, at its core, a game. Users check-in at locations where they are, shout a few words to their friends and fight over mayorships, badges and special offers. Unlike Facebook, which took some time to find a true revenue source, and Twitter, which has yet to outline a stable business model, relevance in Foursquare will prove instant value to any local institution.

Foursquare takes word-of-mouth marketing to a whole new level. Receiving a ‘ping’ from a friend checking into 416-Florist.com and shouting, “Just picked up birthday flowers for Susan” will have a far greater affect on you than a bland advertisement on a billboard. As well, advertisers can find great use in Foursquare to collect data on customers checking-in and participating in certain promotions. Soon enough, the hot shots on Madison ave. will be able to pinpoint a message to meet your demands exactly. Although that may seem scary to some, the pros do exceed the cons. Like this story about Miss Shirley’s in Baltimore (via aboutfoursquare.com):

The Sunday brunch line at Miss Shirley’s Café’s two locations in Baltimore often stretches to two hours or more. Since April, they’ve offered to let their foursquare mayor jump to the head of the line.

The competition for that coveted honor has been fierce. According to Ryan Goff of agency MGH, Miss Shirley’s has seen a 427% increase in foursquare checkins since the special launched. They’ve heard several anecdotal reports of people visiting more often just to try to earn the mayorship.

In Toronto, I recently got a friend request from the nationally distributed newspaper, the National Post. I didn’t see any reason to ignore the request and so I accepted, wondering where this paper would be checking into. A little later on in the day, I checked into Hemingway’s Restaurant for a nice lunch with a friend. Only a few seconds after checking-in I received a recommendation from the National Post’s food critic about a particular sandwich. I figured I would give it a shot, and it paid off! The meal was delicious and it was because I put trust in this particular recommendation.  Local businesses can tap into this and gain new customers just by setting up their profile on the city grid. “Special offers nearby” always attract visitors and to be “Trending Right Now” is a sign of immediate success.

Foursquare, and its growing partnerships around the globe, is here to stay. Although there is considerable competition in the market from Gowalla, Foursquare is winning the people over in droves. With connections in Facebook and Twitter, updates may eventually come solely through third-party apps and with Foursquare’s fun and easy to use location-based service, it only makes sense that in time all your tweets will come through the Foursquare platform.

Still don’t get it? Watch the video below. You’ll be hooked after your first checkin.

Join Foursquare, You Won’t Look Back is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

No related posts.

Quick Facts:

• 40% of searches have local intent, but fewer than 7% have local modifiers (Ian White, Urban Mapping)
• Potentially 500 million local searches on Google per month
• Search engines will try to gauge local intent on general searches like “restaurants” or “theaters” to provide users with the most relevant results
• The “New” Local Search shows the 10-pack of local listings, which defaults to the #1 or #4 listing for all local searches
• The 10-pack levels the playing field for mom and pops

What you can do for yourself

• Build a search friendly website
• Avoid duplicate content
• Keep your domain name short, memorable, and brandable. Try to use keywords if you can, but don’t force the issue if it’s going to keep you from being memorable.
• Redirect all domain names to the primary URL
• Use search engine friendly URLs, this is a great place to utilize keywords
• Build a custom redirect page
• Avoid an entirely flat directory structure or a structure so vertical you need to go 7 or 8 clicks deep before you get what you’re looking for.
• Use search friendly links so your content can be spidered
• Links should be as keyword rich as possible (but still make sense) and not just be “click here”
• Have a Site Map available in your footer
• Prevent broken links (good program for this is Xenu)
• Don’t duplicate your title tags from page to page, every page should have its own unique title tag
• Link to related content whenever possible
• DIY Checklist from PolePositionMarketing.com

Tips for ranking better in local results

• Utilize the Google Local Business Center to provide basic information about your business
• Free to submit to both Google Maps and Yahoo Local – Total No Brainer!
• Claim your listings manually (in general it’s more trusted)
• Categorize properly and try to use one or two relevant keywords in your business listing (example: John Smith Finance & Accounting vs. John Smith Co.)
• Make sure your data (business title, address, and phone number) are consistent across all directories
• Claim your listings at the following places: infoUSA, Localeze, UniversalBusinessListing.org
• Other great places to submit: BOTW Local, OpenList.com, CityVoter.com, InsiderPages, SuperPages.com
• Check the “Web Pages” tabs of your competitors
• Create a contact page on your website with your address + phone coded in HTML hCard Microformat, don’t use an image that can’t be read by the search engines
• Link out to various listings from your contacts page
• Incentivize user reviews and respond to negative reviews

How local businesses can use paid search successfully

• Design campaigns for low maintenance, keep it simple
• Stay within the major search engines, take a laser focused approach
• Make sure you are able to measure your campaign
• Imply local intent by including your phone number in the ad
• Track your conversions (can use Excel for this)
• Determine your cost per order (cost spent on ads / number of orders) and figure out whether your campaign is paying for itself

Simple SEO Tips for Local Businesses is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

No related posts.