Foursquare Archives

Small Business Guide to Pinterest Place Pins
This is obviously ideal for destination locations, as well as promoting tourist events. However, local and small business owners can put their pins to work as well.

How to Add a Place to Your Pinterest Boards

When viewing your boards, select “edit” at the bottom:

Add your map location:

Add a place on the map:

You’ll notice the locations are accessing the Foursquare database.

How to Add Pinterest Place Pins from a computer:

After adding your pin, view the board and edit the pin to include a place.

How to add a Pinterest Place Pin from mobile:

From Pinterest on your mobile device, add a pin (bottom middle)

Find a place. This will access Foursquare’s listing of locations:

Select the correct venue, and add a photo to your pin:

You’ll need to provide a description of your pin before saving:

Pinterest Place Pins Strategy for Local and Small Business Owners:

Now that you know how to use Pinterest Place Pins, it’s time to form your strategy around why to use them.
- Pin the websites of local business owners (and consider making it a community board).
- Feature multiple boards on your business account that showcase local businesses based upon their industry
- Curate a board of your products in use around your community
- Promote events and locations where your business will be appearing
- Feature items in your store with locations mapped to them.
What are your ideas on how to make use of Pinterest Place Pins? Leave your suggestions below.
December 12, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Local SEO

Add Pinterest Place Pins, business, Collecting, Foursquare, Pin, Pinterest, Pinterest Place Pin, Recreation
How Your Small Business Can Include Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is growing rapidly for small business owners. Are you keeping pace with how your customers are already using mobile devices to find the products and services that you offer? Are you missing out on opportunities because you aren’t mobile ready?

Here’s a quick overview of the types of mobile use that your company could potentially implement.
1. Google Analytics – are you measuring what mobile traffic your website already gets on desktops vs. tablets vs. smartphones? This is the starting point. I’m seeing on average 1/4 to 1/3 of all traffic coming from mobile devices on sites that I maintain.
2. Mobile optimized website – do your entire website work on a smartphone in particular? Your visitors shouldn’t need to pinch to zoom in on content on your website. Ideally, your website will be mobile responsive and include some mobile landing pages.
3. Phone Links – Do you include a “click to call” number on your website so that mobile viewers can click a link and it will start dialing their phones with your number? Do you include an address with a map to your location if you have a physical store?
4. Email Newsletters – Increasingly people preview their email inbox on their phones while they have just a few minutes to spare. If they have time to read your message, is it also mobile responsive like your website? Is the text large and readable without zooming? I love Mailchimp because they offer easy mobile responsive newsletter templates.
5. Photo sharing – photos are great for viewers to see your newest products. Are you sharing photos to Instagram (which can syndicate to Facebook and Twitter) as well as to your Google+ company page? More people are using the mobile versions of all of these sites than the desktop versions.
6. Check-Ins & Reviews – Do you encourage visitors to check in on Foursquare, Yelp, Facebook, and Google+? Are you asking them to review you as well on these places?
7. Text Message Marketing – like email marketing, do you have a way for people to receive text messages about current promotions and important announcements?
8. Phone call tracking – You can create call-tracking phone numbers that all route back to your primary number. These are helpful at measuring specific things like if your Yellow Pages ads still work, how many people called because of that postcard you mailed, who found your number on your website or other online outposts. Services that provide these numbers will show you all the call data based upon each number that you configure.
9. Mobile Ads – whether it’s your local newspaper or an advertisement on The Weather Channel’s app, you can run ads that only display to people in your local community. Consider using ads to bring mobile viewers to your website, but only if your website is really ready for mobile traffic.
10. iBeacon & NFC – While not widely implemented yet by small business owners, these services offer your foot traffic targeted information, such as current specials or promotions. For example, when I’m within 50 feet of my nearest Starbux, it causes the app on my iPhone to send me various notifications. It’s time to start thinking about how you could use this related to your store.
Related articles
October 7, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

Facebook, Foursquare, Google Analytics, ibeacon, iphone, Mailchimp, Mobile device, mobile marketing, near field communication, nfc, Weather Channel
Monitoring Reviews

Do you monitor what your customers are saying about your business online? Reviews can have a significant impact on your local search results and thus on the likelihood of new customers visiting your business. But do you know where should you be monitoring?

Facebook Business Page Customer Reviews

Whether you’ve claimed your Facebook business location or not, there is a strong chance that either Facebook or a customer has started the process of your business appearing.
Facebook uses phone directories and customers can just check-in (to tell their friends that they are at your location, even if you never started a page). As a result, you may have reviews and not even know it. Search
Facebook to find your business, or browse to manage your page. See the reviews on the lower right column from a desktop, or view it as “public” on mobile and see reviews near the top.

Google+ Local (Formerly Places) Customer Reviews

Do a search for the name of your business in Google. Do you see those little red balloons? Click on those to see the reviews of your business and the automatically created listing of your business. If you haven’t yet, claim this. Look over the reviews here as well. Android phone users can search for what your business offers easily from their phones, and other mobile phone users can search on the Google app on their device.

Also note that Google finds other sources of reviews when you view the full listing. Browse to these other sites that Google has incorporated and see what reviews are on those sites as well.

Yelp

Yelp is most popular in more urban areas, however it is important to know that iPhone users conducting a search via Siri are getting suggestions based upon Yelp reviews. Also, even if you are a business in a small town, you never know who may be driving through your town. Claim your business profile here and check back at least monthly. You can respond as the owner.

Foursquare

While originally started as a site for people to “check-in” or share their locations to Twitter and Facebook, Foursquare has evolved more into a discovery tool. I often use Foursquare to find a new place to eat and see what reviews others have left. In addition, business owners can publish special promotions on Foursquare.

Industry Specific

In most every industry, specific review sites pop up specific to that niche. Do a search in Google for “Your Industry AND reviews”. See what other results you can find and be sure to monitor any that your business already appears on.

Local Reviews

Search for local business directories on places like your nearest Chamber of Commerce, TV news, radio, and newspapers to see if you can or are listed on these sites, and if these sites allow users to review your business.

Reviews Matter

Reviews can make or break the likelihood of a new customer visiting your business. It is good to encourage people to leave you reviews on any of these networks, and to know what is being said.

July 28, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Local SEO

business, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, iphone, local search, twitter, Yelp
How to Increase Local SEO for Your Small Business
Search engine optimization is important for local small business. With it, you can stand out when potential customers are searching for what you have to offer. By claiming your listings and including data on your website for search engines to know exactly where you are located and help your community discover you in search, you will see higher search engine rankings.

Local SEO Tips:
1. Claim the big social media sites like Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Complete your company profile thoroughly.
2. Claim your business on the local check-in places like Foursquare, Yelp, and any niche systems related to your industry
3. List your business on free local news websites. Many tv, newspapers, radio, and other traditional media outlets have sections of their websites for businesses to freely list their business.
4. Include your address, phone number, and hours of operation on the main page of your website, along with your email newsletter. Preferably as a click-to-call link.
5. Include Geotag data in the meta information on your website. I use Yoast’s Local SEO plugin for this, but you can also include data from http://mygeoposition.com/. The important addition that Yoast’s Local SEO plugin includes is Schema.org data, which can be complicated to hand-code.
6. Claim your listings anywhere and everywhere else that you can. There are countless directories in your niche, but also many listings such as the online Yellow Pages. Find as many of these listings and precisely claim each. Plan for this to be at least an afternoon of tedious but simple work. Each asks you to verify that you are in fact the business owner by using your company email and phone to verify these. The more claimed listings that are all the same, the better your standings will rank.
7. Ask customers for reviews.
Check your local seo citation listings at:
1. GetListed – a great base start if you are trying to do it all yourself for free
2. Yext – an inexpensive option if you pay, or a good listing for free places to claim
3. Nuestar’s Localeze – a thorough listing, but works best when purchased
4. UBL (not free)
5. WhiteSpark (very limited in free mode)
Local SEO services:

It isn’t complicated to claim your accounts, but many just don’t know where to go to do so. In addition, seeking out a local seo company can provide the benefits of monthly reports on reviews, monitoring activity on the networks, and claiming additional listings as they become available.

I can help with your Local SEO needs if you’d prefer to go that route. Contact me for further information.

Related articles
- Easy Ways To Improve Your Local SEO – Citations
- 5 Reasons Your Small Business Needs Local SEO
May 14, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Local SEO

business, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, LinkedIn, Search engine optimization, Yellow Pages