There’s been a lot of buzz recently about Foursquare and I’m sure you know all about it by now (for those who don’t, here’s a guide to Foursquare). I’ve seen lots of people going on about how amazing it’s going to be for Social Media marketing and local businesses. While this is true; I think it’s going to do more for small, unique businesses with a niche market or focused offering.
What I haven’t seen so far is anyone advocating the benefits of Foursquare for Mobile SEO, so I thought I’d highlight 5 reasons why Foursquare is for Mobile SEO too!
- Foursquare is inherently mobile: Foursquare is all about going to venues, saying you’ve been there and leaving notes for others; you’re out and about and will be mainly checking in on your mobile. Making sure your venue is listed on Foursquare and that your venue page has all the correct information will have a direct effect on your mobile search efforts.
- Foursquare is being used as a citation source: Small Business Search Marketing recently pointed out that Google is using Foursquare as a citation source for Google maps seach (ergo m.Google Local search). Being a citation source means Google is picking up the location and details of your business from Foursquare, it’s generally considered that citations are the “links” of local search. Remember that a third of Mobile searches have local intent; by making sure your local offering is on Foursquare you’ll improve your local search traffic. N.B. In the blog post they look at citations for the US, however after quickly checking this does apply to the UK too.
- Foursquare reviews count: Bing recently announced integrating Foursquare in their Maps App section of Bing Map. This means that notes and new badges are picked up and displayed on the map if you choose that function. While Bing is a small player in the mobile search world currently, I think this does show the way things are going, and I would be surprised not to see some similar offering by Google. In terms of SEO, making sure that you have lots of positive notes on your business will dramatically improve click through when users are using Bing Maps and (if Google does do something similar) Local search.
- Use a Foursquare widget to improve conversion: A great way to boost conversion on your mobile site is to include a Foursquare widget on each of your venue pages. This nifty widget will take tips about your venue and place them directly on your site; customer ratings like this have long been known to improve conversion and the small size of the widget makes it perfect for a mobile site.
- Foursquare will dominate Local searches: Now this point is slightly theoretical, however I think it will ring true over time. The idea is, that popular Foursquare Venue listings are going to rank highly for search. Now I have a couple of reasons why I belive this, firstly as Foursquare is in vogue it’s getting a lot of links from authoritative sites meaning that its own Domain Authority is very strong and only getting stronger. The Title tag depends on name of venue, so if you’re careful setting up your Foursquare page you can sneak some keywords in, and if people place your venue in their top 12 lists then you get additional (keyword rich) user generated content on your page. If people start linking these pages to each other, say for example they recommended a venue to a friend, then venue pages will really dominate the ranking for local searches. Take Giapo Gelato one of the more popular venues in Foursquare, giving a simple search for Gelato New Zealand you get this:
It’s the seventh ranked term for quite a generic term, not bad for a company without a website. Yes this is obviously a biased example, using a niche restaurant etc. however I think it underlines Foursquare’s potential for taking up Google’s top ranks in local venue queries.
So remember Foursquare should be used as part of a Mobile SEO strategy going forward, it’s only going to get bigger and more powerful.
Caliban
Tags: Foursquare, Local, mobile apps
Great stuff. Do you know how many checkins it takes to make a venue pop in search?
chris reilly´s last blog ..I’m in Portland for SearchFest by SEMPDX
Hi Chris
Thanks for your reply. Sadly check-ins won’t directly leading to improved rankings; however they are a good indication of popularity which in turn will lead to higher rankings. The key things you need to do to make your venue rank higher is to include relevant keywords in the Venue name (e.g. “Mario’s Italian Restaurant”), get included in a users “Top 12″ (at this adds keyword rich content to your venue page) and get users to link to your venue from outside.
FYI you will probably already be ranking, but only on very specific terms, the key is to get ranked for local generic searches, such as “Ice cream near Oxford Street”.
Caliban