Groupon, Living Social and other daily deal websites have been known to drive offline traffic into local business of all kinds. From Yoga studios to Pizza shops, daily deals are a great way to get the word out about your business and create an influx of customers. But did you know that the benefits extend beyond that? Let’s take a look at how these platforms can help your website rankings and increase social media following.
Search Engine Optimization Benefits
A lot of SEOs will argue that backlinks are the key to increasing search engine ranking and I tend to agree. One way to get a quality, one-way link to your website is to run a feature. Groupon, for example, applies SEO techniques to each feature they write. They do this to not only rank well themselves but also to help the business they feature. With contextual links that point back to your website embedded in the copy, an increase in SEO love is sure to occur. Groupon links to a merchant website in several ways. Depending on the quality of your website they may link to it multiple times in one feature and help you rank for several keyword phrases overnight. When a site as large as Groupon links the keyword phrase “Hot Bikram Yoga” to your local Yoga studio, the chances of it moving up the rankings, at least locally, for Hot Bikram Yoga (enter your city here) are likely. The changes in ranking are likely to be dramatic and often generate an increase almost overnight. So consider thinking through how your feature is structured when running a deal and work with your chosen vendor to draft the most SEO friendly feature you can; your SEO will thank you!
Social Media Love
Another benefit to running a feature is the social media buzz that is created. When a feature is created and ran on a site like Groupon, a lot of social media discussion takes place on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Online reviews will also increase and websites like Yelp and Urban Spoon will burst with new reviews from the people who visited you and took advantage of the offer. It’s common to receive dozens and sometimes even hundreds of new fans or followers as a result of your daily deal feature. So be sure to stay on top of the discussion by engaging with your social media following and making the most of the attention.
In Summary
- A daily deal feature is more than just a way to generate customers.
- A strong website will benefit from the SEO techniques that platforms like Groupon use to promote features.
- Social Media is an important part of a feature so be sure to monitor and engage in the discussion.
In closing, be sure to be picky when deciding which daily deal website you partner with, there are several hundred to choose from these days. My advice would be to focus on the quality of the daily deal and that usually means working with the industry leader. Groupon, LivingSocial, Facebook and now Google all have a platform to run a feature on. Be careful about local start-ups or old-school business models like local coupon mailings that have added daily feature to an archaic business model in an effort to look modern and relevant. These platforms are typically built as a “me-too” and do not have the support or savvy of the larger platforms that strictly focus on daily deals.
Since Groupon & Living Social comprise the lion-share of the local deals space I decided to include some links to relevant articles.
- Break down of a revenue figures for Q4 2011 from the Huffington Post
- 2012 Preidictions from VentureBeat on where the Daily Deal market is headed
And here are some links to helpful resources that are official corporate resources of Groupon and LivingSocial
I’ve personally consulted with local businesses on which route to take. Groupon seems to outsell LivingSocial in terms of volume. Living Social also seems to have less technology available when it comes to redeeming vouchers. In doing some research it also appears that only 20% of Groupon subscribers receive a LivingSocial email for daily deal notifications while 60% of LivingSocial people also subscribe to Groupon. This means that more people from LivingSocial also subscribe to Groupon than vice-versa. Probably because Groupon tends to run more deals, thus keeping people interested, longer.
Feel free to weigh in with a comment on your experience with a daily deal platform.