Foursquare Turns Into Powerful Local Search Engine
Posted on 20. Feb, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Duct Tape Marketing, foursquare, google maps, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, yelp
Foursquare Turns Into Powerful Local Search Engine
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Between you and me I had become a little bored with Foursquare. I think it has application for many small businesses and certainly know some businesses that use it quite well.
As a consumer user however, it never really offered up enough value.
I think that’s changed with the introduction of what Foursquare is calling the Explore function.
Explore has been on the mobile app for some time, but now it’s been added to the newly designed Foursquare website and it gives Foursquare a unique opportunity to compete with Yelp and Google Maps.
The way Explore works is that it allows you to search for businesses that your friends and the other hundreds of millions of Foursquare users have found and commented on.
You can use your current location or put in the location of your next vacation to start finding a place to eat lunch today or get a drink near your hotel.
When you find a place it will tell you if any of your friends have checked in there in the past.
Find by tips
One of my favorite features (and one that should get the attention of business owners) is that Foursquare also searches through the tips notes that users leave. So, if you want to find the “best biscuits and gravy” at a great breakfast place you simply add that to your search and Foursquare will go to work.
Filter by your history
You can also filter your searches to places you’ve been, have not been, your friends have been, or Foursquare recommended places. (Not sure what the criteria for that last one is, but should probably find out.)
My favorite though is that you can filter your searches to only places with specials. This effectively gives the user a great special finding engine and the business a great additional reason to run specials.
Claim and participate
To me that adds another great reason to add your business to Foursquare and start enhancing your business presence there. If your business is already in Foursquare, find it and claim the profile so you can information to it.
If it’s not yet listed download the Foursquare app and check in at your business and make sure you add accurate address information. Then you can go to the Foursquare website and claim your venue.
Optimized Reviews May Be the Next Local SEO Edge
Posted on 14. Jun, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, Descriptive Terms, google maps, google places, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
Optimized Reviews May Be the Next Local SEO Edge
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
I’ve suggested often that reviews in your Google Places and Yelp pages have become a very necessary aspect of trust building as well as local SEO. So much so that getting proactive in stimulating reviews in all the right places must be on the checklist of marketing action steps.
Today Google added an interesting twist to Google Maps searches called Descriptive Terms that injects another dynamic – search optimized reviews. Google has started indexing local search results with phrases that accompany things like reviews. So if you search Marketing Agencies Kansas City, MO you get one set of listing and if you add something like “digital work” to the search the list changes based on words in the reviews.
Right now this is just a Google Maps function, but Google claims it will spread in Place search on Google.com and Google Maps for mobile soon!
Better start suggesting keyword phrases for those reviews people are anxious to write.
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