Introduction
If you’re in the restaurant business, chances are that you’ve already looked into local SEO for restaurants. But if not, then it’s time to get started!
In this article, we’ll go over 7 tips for improving your local SEO and getting more eyes on your page.
1. Claim your Google My Business
When you claim your Google My Business listing, this will allow you to track and manage your restaurant & google reviews.
You can also add additional details like contact information, business hours, photos, and more. To get started, go to GMB and click the “Manage Now” button on the top right corner.
2. Optimizing your website – keywords, and content
One thing you need to do is optimize your website for keywords. This means that you should first come up with a list of potential search terms that people might use to find your restaurant.
The next step is to include these keywords in your site’s title (i.e., “Joe’s Pizzeria, Serving the Best Pizza in Town!”) and throughout the content pages on your site.
Be careful not to go too far and make your site seem spammy or overly promotional; stick to using about 1-2% of relevant words in total to keep it natural and not overly promotional.
3. Get reviews from customers
Getting reviews is really important for improving local SEO for restaurants.
When people see that you’ve got a lot of positive reviews, they’re more likely to try your restaurant out and write a positive review themselves.
This is because it’s called “social proof”–people are naturally inclined to trust other people, so if they see that other people have had great experiences at your restaurant, they’ll be more likely to want to give it a shot.
4. Connecting with other businesses in the area to get referrals or cross-promote
One thing that’s really helpful for local SEO for restaurants is connecting with other businesses in the area.
If you’re trying to get more people to visit your restaurant, it can be helpful to work with a bar or coffee shop in your neighborhood and cross-promote by both of you advertising each other on your social media accounts.
You can also reach out to them about doing a collaboration on a dish or special cocktail.
5. Be active on social media
Social media is one of the best ways to get more eyes on your page.
Make sure you post on all of your social media accounts on a regular basis like once a day or every few days (at least), and try to have some sort of call to action on your posts.
One way I’ve been successful at doing this is with posts on Instagram where people comment something like “I want to try that place”, and then I’ll say “Oh hey, go check out my review!” And they’ll click over. Another good thing that you can do is use hashtags related to your restaurant (i.e., #pizza, #veggies).
6. Find ways to become an authority on a certain topic related to your restaurant
You can also become an authority on a certain topic related to your restaurant. For example, if you’re a pizza place, often people will search for “best pizza in town” on Google, so it’s helpful to have your own website with information about why you deserve that title.
You should work on creating content-rich pages where customers can get the information they need to make a decision about where they want to eat instead of having them leave and go look for more reviews or info elsewhere.
7. Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console
One of the most important things you can do in order to improve local SEO for restaurants is to use Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
In Google Search Console you can see the search terms people used when clicking on your website. If you want to see where they came from you can use Google Analytics.
Conclusion
Restaurants are usually in a tough position when it comes to SEO because they’re competing with chains for search rankings, especially those that have the word “fast food” attached to them. But there are ways for restaurants to get more eyes on their page and rank higher than other smaller businesses on Google, Bing, and other key sites with local SEO. In this article, we’ve provided 7 tips that will improve local SEO for restaurants.
