Restaurant SEO – Our Top 9 Tips For Your Restaurant

As a restaurant owner, I’m sure you already know the importance of SEO for your business. And if you haven’t been using SEO, you may want to focus on incorporating it into your marketing. SEO brings loads of traffic to your site and has the potential to get you more customers. Your restaurant needs customers, and it needs new customers to find you every day to stay in business. So, let’s delve into why SEO is so important for your restaurant and how you can use it to get more customers.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of getting more customers and potential customers to your site by using keywords that resonate with your audience throughout their search. Using the right keywords or keyword phrases will get your establishment higher in the search rankings on search engines like Google. There are simple things restaurant owners can do to be higher up in the search rankings.

While best practices are always evolving, starting with the basics is always important. For one, when people google you on the internet, and you’re not there, or you’re not on Maps, they can’t find you. Every restaurant should be accessible by Google Maps. Did you know that over 50% of leads come from maps? If you’re not there, you’re missing a lot of customers, which means a loss of revenue.

Here are nine ways to increase your customer base using SEO.

Our Top 9 Restaurant SEO Tips

Website Basics

There are some basic things you can do with SEO to lead you down a viable path for being found. Most restaurants have websites, so let’s start there. Start with the customer in mind. When you write page descriptions or design your web pages, consider what is best for the customer. What resonates with them that will make it easier to find your restaurant?

Mobile-Friendly

Almost 60% of customers visit a restaurant’s website from a mobile device, so you want to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly. Your website should be responsive to different devices, and it should load quickly. Because so many people are on mobile devices during their search, a poor mobile experience leads to lost customers and lost revenue.

Title Tags

Title tags are the titles on every page of your website. Those title tags are also displayed in Google results. Your title tags should all be different and have a single focus. Keep your title tags short and descriptive, between 20 and 60 characters.

Meta Descriptions

The meta description is the black text in Google under your title tags. They provide potential customers with what they really need to know about that page. It should be specific for each page, about one or two sentences with no more than 150 characters per description.

Physical Address

Make sure your physical address is displayed on your website. That should be a no-brainer, as customers can’t come to your establishment to eat if they have no idea where you’re located. Google also uses the address in its search results.

Content

When it comes to marketing your restaurant, SEO should be incorporated into every aspect of it. Every aspect of your website, from the About page to the Blog page, should be intentionally integrated with keywords and keyword phrases that your customers and potential customers are searching for. Remember, while blogs are informational, they should also provide a call-to-action that will allow the reader to take some action with your restaurant. It could be booking a reservation, joining a mailing list, inviting them to take advantage of a first-time free delivery, or other action.

Menu

Schema.org has a specific markup for restaurants to focus as much attention as possible on the menu(s). After all, that’s why people visit restaurants — to enjoy the delicious food and great atmosphere while eating. It’s all about the food. Schema markup allows you to break your menus down into as many different menus as you have. You can highlight the specifics within each menu, even the calories and fat content. Google does a great job capturing all of this information for you, which people want to know before getting to your restaurant.

Contact Page

Your contact page is more important than you think. The contact page helps to establish trust in your establishment. Is the contact information, physical location, etc., consistent throughout your site? Does it match what google is showing? If so, you just passed the first trust test for people who are not familiar with your restaurant.

You can also consider adding information on this page that will help people find you, like a ‘get directions from’ button that will allow people to enter where they’re driving from to get directions to your restaurant. Add a map if you think that would benefit potential customers eagerly looking for you.

Consider other bits of information that could benefit the customer on your Contact Page or About Page like the hours of operation (when are you open), allergy details, dietary requirements, a view of the location, and securing a reservation.

Local Restaurant SEO

When your information is listed with local sites, it’s another signal to Google to prove that it can trust your restaurant is genuine. Some examples are:

• Industry, niche, or sector-specific directories
• Local newspaper and press websites
• Local blogs
• Social media websites like Twitter, FourSquare, Facebook, and YouTube

Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is designed specifically to benefit local businesses like restaurants. Google makes it easy for people on the go to use their smartphones and tablets to find you. It’s free to register on Google Business Profile. The information you provide is what people will see, but they should have everything they need to find you.

Optimize your space on the profile by adding relevant photos and promotional google posts. Adding photos of some of your best and favorite meal options is a great marketing tool. When people see good-looking food, they want to try it. Add pictures of your decor to give them an idea of the atmosphere. Feature photos of your staff and videos of happy customers. Keep your information updated at all times with the most relevant information, including business hours, contact information, website, etc. That is also a great place for customers to leave reviews of their experience in your restaurant.

Encourage Reviews

Encourage Reviews on your business profile. Google shows the highest-rated restaurant first! Eighty-six percent (86%) of consumers read reviews before doing business with you; so, a google review can get you customers. Getting reviews is free and quite simple. One of the easiest ways to get reviews is to ask customers who visit your restaurant to leave a review on google. You can personally ask them or leave cards on the table or information on their receipt to encourage them to leave a review. The review card or receipt should provide instructions for how to leave a review.

Restaurant Directories

Make sure you register in regional directories that focus on Restaurants, like Urbanspoon, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and Foursquare. Provide a correct physical address and description that will resonate with your audience. The more your address is listed the more likely Google is to list the correct address and allow people to find you.

Social Media

Food is a hot item on social media. Throughout social media, regardless of the platform of preference, people are always posting good-looking meals. And nothing attracts attention better than food. Use your social media platforms as often as possible to attract attention to your restaurant. To do that, you can:

• Develop a consistent voice for your posts that is in tune with your overall branding.
• If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, they’re perfect for images and videos, but they are also good for business-related content and calls to action. Keep the posts short and to the point.
• Instagram and Pinterest are ideal for images, videos, and media campaigns. Again, don’t make the posts too lengthy.
• Encourage interaction by asking questions in your posts or taking a poll. That helps to develop a relationship with your audience, and it makes them even more curious about what you offer.
• Use your dashboard to see your metrics and engagements per post. Learn the best times of the day to post and the types of posts people really seem to respond to.
• Get an influencer to post about your restaurant. That’ll drive the attention up a notch.

Get on The Map

Word of mouth is still a useful way to get people to your restaurant, but nowadays, people are so much on the go that their first point of reference is online. They’re looking for good food in the area they happen to be, and if you’re not listed, you’re losing revenue. In addition to Google Maps, there’s Directory Marketing, Mapquest, GrubHub, Manta, Yellow Pages, and other local directories. Many people will refer to these options when looking for the best place to eat.

On any of these sites:

• Make sure to have the most up-to-date information, including the menu.
  Include photos of your delicious food and the decor.
• Add contact information and any other pertinent information you think your audience needs.
• Add relevant SEO throughout.

Our Top 9 Restaurant SEO Tips To Help Your Restaurant Rank #1

There you have it. Our top 9 Restaurant Search Engine Optimization Tips to help you grow your restaurant sales by ranking number 1 for local search. Implement these tips and you’ll set a strong foundation for your restaurant. Take a look at your website or have your webmaster take a look at your website and see how many of the techniques described above you are using. Each week add one of the techniques you’re not implementing to your website. Measure the results and see which techniques offer the best ROI on your Restaurant SEO efforts. Pick the ones that get you the best results and scale them. Pretty soon you’ll have to worry about how you’ll handle all the new customers coming in the doors.