Running a restaurant can be one of the most rewarding experiences. You can provide unforgettable
experiences for families, couples, and kids. No one can resist good food. However, having a great
cooking staff and an exquisite menu will only get you so far. You also have to work on your digital
marketing, where good search engine optimization (SEO) should be one of your top priorities if you
want your content to get to the right people. This is especially true for restaurants where
outperforming other businesses through local SEO is paramount for your success. With that in mind,
here is a guide that will let you in on everything there is to know about improving the way you
market your restaurant online.
Create your web hub
The go-to approach for marketing any local business is to create a professional website. This is due
to a couple of reasons. A good website will serve you as your digital business card. This is because it
opens up many doors, and quite literally; it allows you to link to your other digital media platforms
and most importantly of all it allows you to create a better Google Business profile. A big part of SEO
revolves around optimizing web content. Without a solid website you are sacrificing a lot of the
online real estate to post this content. A well-structured professional website will allow you to
create a blog section where you can post unique and professional articles which serve as lead
magnets and aid visitors in discovering more about your business. For instance, if your restaurant
specializes in Korean cuisine, you can post articles about everything related to Asian cuisine and
culture. This is how you establish yourself as an authority in a given niche.
Clean up your Google My Business profile
Google has created an online tool My Business where you can fully represent your business and
allow it appear on top of the search engine results page (SERP). The best part of all is that it will
appear on the right side of the user’s view port, for quick and easy access. This is what nearly all
customers are looking for, and if your business is not showing up for the relevant keywords you are
doing something wrong. That is why you should optimize your Google My Business profile. This will
allow users to quickly find out where your restaurant is located and when it is open.
Leverage online reviews
One of the best ways to rank up on Google and other search browsers is to actually make use of
customer feedback. If you know that you had visitors who genuinely enjoyed your food, you should
encourage them to leave online reviews on your Google business page, which you can later
showcase on your website as well. You do not even have to have a perfect score, just make sure to
have plenty of reviews. In addition to that, you should reply to any negative comments as well, in
order to address any concerns that your customers might have. This will make your restaurants
appear as that much more genuine and professional. Besides creating massive trust, you will also
index easily with regards to Google’s algorithms.
Make use of social media
Social media marketing is the go-to budget approach that can also boost your SEO strategy. Posting
on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook is completely free. This is a great way to
repurpose some of your existing content, make user engagement and gain viral following which you
can then link back to your official webpage. Social media posts are also great for finding out what
people in your niche like because you can leverage the convenience of hashtags and find almost any
topic.
Interact with your customers
When running a restaurant business, you really want to create a strong connection with your clients.
No matter how abstract this notion might seem, it can translate really well into your SEO strategy.
Because greater client engagement and retention can be expressed through performance metrics
such as dwell time and click rate.
Deliver the best user experience
In order to further boost your website’s SEO, you will want to improve your UX design as well.
Websites should look and feel intuitive. Leverage different color to help users navigate the pages.
Make sure to use a clear and easy-to-follow layout and implement plenty of visual content. This will
result in people staying on your page for longer and reduced bounce rates.
Make your branding cohesive
When growing a restaurant business, you want to make everything cohesive. Do not allow your SEO
strategy to suffer simply because you fail to deliver content with consistency. For instance, if you
have updated your restaurant’s menu but you do not update it on all of your social media pages at
the same time, you might create a lot of confusion and distrust. This can only negatively impact how
your content ranks because users will be leaving your pages before you know it.
Grow with analytics
Once your website is gaining some momentum and you get good responses, you will want to
maintain that flow and refine your SEO strategy further down the line by using analytics tools. You
can easily set up Google Analytics, which will help you monitor daily traffic on your website. Not only
that, but you will be able to improve your blog as well since you will have an evidence-based
approach to tracking how your posts are doing.
Running a restaurant business is both extremely fun but also very challenging. This is in part because
you have to have a top-notch SEO strategy that will help you propel your business forward on the
web. However, if you follow the steps outlined in this article you will be on the right path. Some of
the most notable strategies are: creating a website, collecting reviews, and marketing on social
media and through Google My Business.