Pixelrage.net

I always found it intriguing to see how Foursquare never really bothered to even cover the basic elements of SEO on their site, nor do they even rank for anything significant. Not as if they needed to, though. Here’s a look at what Foursquare failed to do with their own site:

• Title: Strangely enough, their site’s title is set to “foursquare”. They didn’t even bother to capitalize the “F,” nor is there a single descriptor or keyword in there that helps define what the site is about. Not even a mentioning of “local check-in service,” “local business” or anything of that sort; you know, the obvious stuff that they’d probably want up there.

• Heading: There’s not even an H1, H2 or H3 on the home page of Foursquare.com (go view the source code and see for yourself!) Their heading is nothing other than a .PNG file. Subsequent pages are barely any different: some pages such as the “Foursquare for Android” page use an H1 (and a keyword-devoid one at that), whereas the “Foursquare for Palm” page doesn’t have one at all.

• META Description: It’s…empty! If you Google Foursquare, you’ll see the text found at the top of the page within the splash screen being used as the META Description. That’s all search engines have to work with, here!

• META Keywords: Also blank, but does this even matter anymore? Of course not.

If you use a SERP checker like SEM Rush, you’ll note that Foursquare.com isn’t really ranking for anything worth their while: their top 5 positioning includes “foursquare,” “apple store,” “history channel,” “blackberry” and “four square.” The only reasons they appear for those brand names are due to the branded URLs that Apple Store, History Channel and Blackberry are officially running on their domain. Foursquare is nowhere to be seen for keywords like “local business(es).” I’d seem to think that is what their focus is, after all.

This little case study shows that if your idea and brand name are strong enough, SEO is an afterthought.

It also shows that these incredibly unique ideas probably have keyword terms that are not (and may never be) solidified – what would you type in to find a site like Foursquare, anyway? “Check in services?” Who really searches for that, especially if they’re not a techie? Looking at Foursquare’s complete brush-off of SEO personally gave me a new perspective on what matters most for these new ideas.

Much like Twitter, you simply have to know that it exists!