Not so long ago, a restaurant’s storefront and menu helped attract customers, but now an online presence is more important than ever. The battle for visibility is no longer about street presence, but about web search results. So how do you optimize your online presence and dominate local search results? These 5 tips should help you implement a solid SEO strategy.
1. Claim your Google My Business listing
If you want to improve your local online presence, one of the first things to do is create a Google My Business listing.
Simply visit the Google My Business website and create an account. Make sure you have a variety of important information ready.
If you use a third-party tool to manage your reservations, you can also add it to your list so users can book a table directly from the search results.
Finally, you can also add any options the restaurant currently offers. takeout; delivery. This is very helpful in informing customers in real time of the options available at your facility based on new covid measures.
2. Optimize your content strategy and use local keywords
Content strategy is at the heart of most SEO optimizations. In order for your website to appear in search results, it is imperative to consider her two main factors:
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Satisfy the search intent of website visitors
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use appropriate keywords or vocabulary for visitors to search;
The first step is to know your visitors. You need to define your target audience. What is the average age of your customers? what city do they live in? what are their interests? Having a complete picture of your target audience makes it easier to deliver content that meets expectations with the right tone.
After that, you need to define the keywords you want to target, always aligned with your target audience. You can use the free Google Keyword Planner tool to get ideas for relevant keywords. Remember to target primarily local keywords. That’s where your customers are!
One good piece of advice is to choose “long tail” keywords. These are very specific searches that are often relatively long and may consist of multiple words. There may be fewer searches per month, but fewer competitors will provide websites that perfectly serve what searchers are really looking for. Here’s a good example:
Stay organized and remember to measure the effectiveness of your content.
Creating an editorial calendar is essential. Even if you manage only a small amount of content, you can anticipate and get a clear picture of different projects. Also, Google tends to give higher ratings to websites that offer fresh content on a regular basis.
To measure the effectiveness of your content strategy, you can use Google Analytics to monitor KPIs such as sessions, bounce rate, and time on page.
3. Implement basic SEO best practices
To build a solid foundation for making your website discoverable and optimizing your ranking in search engines, you need to implement some SEO best practices.
Title SEO and meta description
Every page and blog post on your website should have an SEO title and meta description. This is the title and short description that will appear in search results.
Therefore, it’s important to be as clear and concise as possible and include the keywords you’re trying to target. Otherwise, Google may rewrite them, but results are not guaranteed.
Schema markup
Schema markup is code that you can add to your website to increase your chances of seeing “rich snippets” in search results. Rich snippets are more viewable than other search results.
Not only does this ensure that you provide relevant information to search engines, but it also makes people more likely to read and interact with your listing, and by providing information in a machine-understandable way, You can optimize the search results of voice search.
Creating your own schema markup can be difficult, but this schema.org generator tool can help. Just enter your facility’s key information and the tool will provide you with a code snippet to add to your website. You can get help from your developer to put the snippet in the right place in your site’s code. Some website platforms also have plugins to do this.
4. Encourage reviews
Encouraging customers to leave reviews is only beneficial to the establishment. Google has never made it clear that sites with the most positive reviews are more likely to appear in search results, but we want to give our users the best possible experience. It doesn’t seem illogical to think that there are. Therefore, establishments with good reviews are more likely to receive better rankings.
Additionally, you can sort local business search results based on Google Stars. Getting the highest score possible is important because diners are more likely to click on “4 stars or more” instead of “2 stars or more.”
Remember that 92% of internet users read reviews of local businesses. It’s important to read and respond to each review, especially if it’s a negative review. Reviews can be left on Google, but they can also be left on listings such as Yelp and TripAdvisor, which often have significant weight in local search results. Remember to look everywhere and monitor all reviews.
5. Spread the word with local lists
The importance of reviews for local listings ties directly to the last point. Setting up your Google My Business profile and following the points just mentioned will greatly increase your chances of appearing in search results.
However, when searching for local restaurants, there are other websites that almost always appear at the top of the search results. A listing that contains content created by users who have visited the restaurant, such as TripAdvisor or Yelp.
Creating listings on these sites and providing correct information is another way to manage your brand online. This is important because your brand image is your online storefront.
We have guides for improving your rankings on these platforms, but the most important thing is to make sure your information is up to date and get as many positive reviews as possible.
If you have a list of other local restaurants in your area, we encourage you to contact them and add yours as well.
Measurement of results
You now have all the keys to improving your restaurant’s online visibility! How to create a Google My Business listing, how to create a content strategy based on relevant keywords, and basic SEO I understand how to implement best practices. But we also know how to increase visibility through reviews and local listings.
Following these few steps will establish the best foundation for implementing a solid SEO strategy later on. Also, don’t forget to ask guests how they found out about you or if they’ve visited your site. Also, don’t forget to monitor new visitors to your website to see how your online presence is attracting in-person diners.
