They are usually considered Social Networks, since users can interact with each other and share comments, but they have an entity in their own right.
The main feature of these websites is that they offer a categorized and sector-specific list of establishments, with the added benefit that users can express their opinions.
If you have an establishment open to the public (such as a restaurant, cocktail bar, hotel or similar), you must register in one of them, for the following reasons:
As we have already mentioned, Google values them very positively to occupy the first positions in local searches.
The profiles of the establishments are geographically localized, so they represent an additional local reference to our business.
Most of the visits that arrive will be qualified, since they will be users who know us and have expressed interest in our services.
FourSquare offers a very valuable feature: users register (“check-in”) when they enter an establishment and can leave photos and reviews of our services, which can have a calling effect on other users.
If you do decide to create an account on one of these websites, take care of it: you must pay attention to and manage user comments, especially negative ones, which can scare away other customers.
7.- Local SEO on Social Networks
This section may be the least relevant part of the action plan, but we should not dismiss it, given the impact it can have on web traffic and the number of qualified visits we receive.
The first step is to decide which Social Networks we are going to have a presence on.
I can only say two words: common sense.
A very common behavior is to create profiles on most of the most popular social networks... and then let most of them die due to inactivity.
If you are already in this situation, do not hesitate, stick with the "surviving" networks and forget the rest: if they have survived, it will be because you have already seen that they are the most suitable, and it is better to have few but active networks, than many networks sleeping the sleep of the righteous.
In principle, there is no Social Network better than another for Local SEO.
The difference will be determined by the level of activity and the content of the messages shared.
Generally speaking, Twitter and Facebook are suitable for most activities, but you should consider others, such as Pinterest, Instagram or YouTube, for your particular business.
For example, a tour guide agency may find it interesting to have an Instagram account to post photos of their routes.
Or a YouTube account for videos of your guided tours.
Once you have decided which Social Networks you will have a presence on, apply the following strategy to boost your Local SEO:
Each social network has an area reserved for naming and describing the philippine area code company, with more or less extension (Twitter, for example, is very short). Fill in all the information you can from the company profile we created earlier and, if necessary, expand this profile with the additional data that may have been needed for a particular social network.
Be especially careful to enter at least the following information: the name of the company (remember, always the same one), the address (or, failing that, the location), your most relevant keywords when describing the company, a photo of the company.
If you upload JPG images, add geographic information with your latitude and longitude. Use this JPG image EXIF data editor to do so.
Don't just share images: crawlers don't yet "interpret" images properly. Always add some text describing the image, which you can use to insert keywords (not always exact ones, but also variations, synonyms or related terms).
Always respond to user complaints. As with directory reviews, a poorly handled complaint can cost you other users.
Keep your profile active. If a user sees that you go several days without posting anything or that you don't interact with users, they may get a bad impression of you.
Conclusions
Local SEO optimization continues to evolve, along with the impact of semantic searches and new technologies for web browsing (such as mobile, GPS or voice recognition).
Local SEO strategies must evolve to adapt to this new environment, in which hundreds of factors can decide the Local SEO positioning of a link in search results and what information is displayed.
Although knowing and analyzing all these positioning factors may seem laborious at first glance, with an appropriate methodology, expressed in a relatively simple action plan with seven sections, we can achieve a high degree of satisfaction with these factors and improve the local positioning of our website.