What Makes a Successful Restaurant
Restaurants Need SEO & Digital Marketing - Here's Why
With covid constantly changing the restaurant industry, we find many local restaurants need to alter their way of marketing.
If you are interested in getting more customers for your restaurant, the ideal thing to do is invest in a good website. When I talk of a website, I don’t just mean an ordinary website, I mean an SEO-optimized website that will drive visitors to your site and create new customers for your restaurant.
Why Can't Customers Find My Restaurant?
When someone is looking for lunch or dinner, customers typically resort to searching on Google or Yelp for good restaurants in the area. That means SEO for restaurants is no longer optional but necessary to bring in new customers. Local SEO is extremely important to restaurants because it’s what customers see first when searching for restaurants near me. Let’s face it — we are visual animals and customers skim quickly through web pages to find what they want. Having an appealing website with eye-catching photos helps gain attention and look professional. To get more customers, you will need a well-designed website that is fully optimized to deliver results.
Did you know that ordering online for catering services is now the most fashionable thing in the restuarant industry? Most organizations and individuals have invaded the online market to search for catering services as well as place orders for different foods and meals — all conviently located online. Coming in to order is the way of the past with delivery services and online ordering.
Benefits Of SEO For Restaurants
Increasing Traffic to Your Website
When you invest in your website with SEO, you will increase the digital traffic to your website. More traffic to your website means more opportunities to gain customers. It also creates more awareness of your restaurant and the services you offer. Imagine delivering pictures of your mouth-watering dishes to hungry people searching for dinner. SEO can help get your website in front of those hungry people.
Building Brand Awareness
New restaurants can really benefit from SEO by creating brand awareness in your area. Even if you are a well-established restaurant, search engine optimization can launch your business to greater heights if done by an expert. SEO experts in restaurants know what content to include and how to identify the right keywords for your restaurant. SEO websites for restaurants must contain the right content so Google can correctly and positively give it a high ranking.
More Money
More traffic to your restaurant website means more conversions. More conversions mean more money for your restaurant. This is why many restaurants are now seeing the necessity for search engine optimization to help their business grow. Competition in the restaurant industry has become fierce — don’t get left behind.
Increasing Customer Engagement
Good content is engaging and informative. People are becoming hungrier for good content and Google uses it as a ranking factor. Keep customers engaged with content they want to see like healthy cuisine, how to cut weight while eating healthy, and other informative health news. Relative and unique content acts like magic and soon you will find your website flowing with more and more visitors.
While content is extremely important, including a good keyword strategy on your web pages is also crucial as Google and other search engines use it to rank your website.
SEO Tools For Restaurant's Websites
Keyword Planning Roadmap
You should incorporate target search terms that will give your restaurant website ranking with search engines. Some restaurant websites have become very prominent online with simple keywords such as ‘Chicken Wings’ or ‘Pizzas’. A keyword plan with the right target can boost your restaurant business to greater heights in the long term.
Local-based SEO
Your restaurant serves customers within a certain range of your business location. Location-based SEO helps restaurants reach their goals through local SEO for restaurants by optimizing your Google Business Listing and geo-tagging. Local SEO ensures that your restaurant features prominently to customers searching for “food” and “restaurants” within your proximity.
List Your Restaurant On Review Sites
When your restaurant receives positive reviews from existing customers — it can propel your business even further. Word of mouth and online reviews are like striking gold. They can make or break a thriving business. Make sure your restaurant is listed on Google My Business, Yelp, and Facebook. Reputation management is another key element in maintaining a great ranking online. As hard as we try, every customer may not leave happy, so make sure to respond to reviews online — whether they are good or bad.
Get Relative Websites To Link To Your Restaurant’s Website
When your website appears on other websites related to your business, it builds trust. Google uses backlinks as a ranking factor and can help improve your visibility in search. A great example would be a blogging customer who tries your restaurant, writes a compelling post about it — then links to your website. Not only do you gain a backlink but also referral traffic. Another way to discover your restaurant in search which means more people will visit your website and may become customers.
Online Ordering System
One of the biggest adjustments due to the pandemic is the importance of online ordering for restaurants. One of the many industries hit hard by COVID-19 was restaurants and hospitality. The online ordering system is another SEO tool for restaurants to perform better. Many visitors now resort to online ordering and delivery services to get their favorite dishes and drinks. Even after Covid , online ordering will more likely be necessary and be expected by customers to use.
Mobile-Friendly Website
And finally, make your restaurant website mobile-friendly. 75% of searches now happen through a mobile device instead of a desktop or laptop. Google recognized this and now ranks web pages based on the user experience through a mobile phone. Not sure if your website is Mobile-friendly? Try Google Mobile-Friendly Test.
Get An SEO Expert For Your Restaurant
An SEO Specialist can provide maintenance to your website’s visibility, increase traffic, and gain more customers with measurable data! Laced Media has the professional SEO experts to get your restaurant thriving. Schedule a free consultation call today.