How to Do SEO for Restaurants to Increase Online Visibility

Unlike other industries like SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) or telecom, local businesses like restaurants sometimes believe that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) isn’t a valid marketing strategy. Many restaurant owners believe that having a solid social media presence is all it takes to get online bookings and that implementing SEO is too expensive.

Both of these opinions are based on myths. Building an online presence requires SEO and social media activity, which can drive sales. And more often than not, restaurant SEO doesn’t have to be expensive, nor does it take much time to do on your own.

The importance of SEO for restaurants

Why is SEO for restaurants important in the first place? Simply put, when you’re not working on the SEO for your restaurant website, you’re losing potential customers.

Despite social media being a good source of traffic and bookings, 65% of traffic to food and recipe websites is organic search traffic.

Even if we were to go with a pessimistic forecast, incorporating SEO into your marketing strategy could result in your website receiving 25-40% more traffic.

The increase is likely because when a user does a local Google search like “restaurants near me” or “Mexican restaurants in my city,” the first thing that comes up in an organic search is the local search results with a map.

If your website pops up in those results, you will likely grab the user’s attention and get a reservation. Even if that doesn’t happen, you’re still building brand awareness by appearing in those searches.

Now, if your restaurant is in a big city, dozens of competitors are already doing SEO and could be tough to beat in the SERP (Search Engine Results Pages). But the beauty of local SEO is that you don’t have to be better than every restaurant in your location.

You have to be better than the restaurants close to you because many of these local searches will only show restaurants close to the user.

Where to start building an SEO strategy

Before you set out to do SEO improvement on your restaurant website, you have to come up with a strategy.

The first step towards that is analyzing your competition. Do a couple of local searches on Google and see what restaurants pop up for your targeted query. Check the number of reviews they have and their GMB (Google Business Profile) profiles.

You’ll need a tool like the SE Ranking Local Rank Tracker to analyze local competitors better. This tool lets you check the local SERP for your city and even ZIP code and view how competitors rank in Local Pack results and Google Map searches.

It also comes with an array of other tools that let you check what keywords your competitors rank for. For instance, this NYC-based restaurant ranks high for branded keywords but doesn’t rank high for general search queries.

In addition, you can use this SEO tool to spy on your competitors’ backlinks and compile a list of websites that link to them. Use the list later to improve off-page SEO.

The next step towards building your restaurant SEO strategy is checking local search trends. The techniques used in local search and search optimization, in general, may change pretty rapidly, and you may find something that your competitors aren't using yet that can improve your online presence.

With that, create a list of things you could do to improve your online visibility by including your competitors' new practices and practices.

After that, set clear goals. Whether you’re looking for more traffic or bookings, set a goal and create a way to track it. If you want to increase sales, make sure you can track where the bookings come from to attribute the sales.

Implementing SEO for Restaurants to Increase Online Visibility

Perfecting SEO for restaurants when you don’t know where to start may take a lot of trial and error. Here are several best practices that, when implemented, will quickly improve your restaurant website’s online presence.

Create a Keyword Planning Roadmap

Keywords are the primary way Google understands what websites are about. Using keywords strategically across your website is a crucial first step in SEO for restaurants. If you don’t have the word “restaurant” anywhere on your restaurant website, the search engine may not know what you are selling.

Keyword research can get increasingly complicated in some niches, but it's pretty straightforward when it comes to restaurants. In your keyword research, you should focus on these three primary types of keywords.

• Brand keywords. Keywords that people use to find your restaurant specifically, usually the name of the place and the word restaurant or cafe.

• Niche keywords. Keywords that describe what food you serve, like “Italian restaurant,” “Mexican restaurant,” etc.

• Local keywords. Keywords that denote a state, city, county, neighborhood, or any other specific location like “restaurant Cleveland,” “Ohio city restaurants,” etc.

Do your research with a specialized tool, as people sometimes use keywords you can’t think of to find your place.

Create a list of keywords and include them on your restaurant website’s pages. Spread them across the pages of your website in a way that makes contextual sense.

If you have access to a tool that shows you how many keywords should be on each page, follow its instructions. 

Perfect Your Google Business Listing

The next important step is ensuring your Google Business listing is filled out fully and has all the necessary information for guests. The off-site aspect of SEO for restaurants relies on building citations with your business name, address, and phone number (known as NAP), so having those listed correctly on Google is crucial.

Filling out everything on your restaurant’s Google page is important because users can call you or reserve a table directly from the SERP once it appears in a search.

Users can add photos of your restaurant’s exterior, interior, and the food you serve. But it’s important to add high-quality photos yourself as well.

You could also add augmented reality elements to your GMB page to give users a sneak peek into your restaurant’s interior. Create a 360 photo of your restaurant or a walkable tour.

This way, people interested in your restaurant can check out the atmosphere before eating there and may be more willing to book.

You should also add menu and menu items to the page. Adding high-quality images to illustrate menu items can improve your conversion rate in the SERP because they’re displayed in mobile searches.

Users can also find your restaurant website by looking for a specific dish instead of a restaurant if you add menu items.

Some other essential elements of your Google Business page are restaurant reviews and the Questions and Answers section. Replying to reviews and questions from visitors ensures users see that you’re involved and caring, and having both is good for restaurant SEO.

Optimize your website for Local SEO.

The next small step is optimizing your website for local SEO specifically. Here’s what you have to do:

• Add local and niche keywords to restaurant website pages

• Сreate a Google Business Profile and listings on trusted local directories

• Ensure your name, address, and phone (NAP) are consistent and up to date across all your listings
  

Optimized images

While you’re working on your restaurant website, optimize the images. It’s an SEO best practice to compress images on the website to reduce loading time. So is providing alternative text tags for images (you may add keywords there) and naming your images in a descriptive way.

This means naming the photo of your exterior something like “Joes-italian-restaurant-toronto.jpg” instead of “20200513.jpg.”

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is not specific to local SEO, but paying attention to it is important to ensure a better online presence.

Start with running an audit to see what areas of the website could be improved. You can do a Google Search Console audit for crawlability and a basic Page Speed Insight test for website speed and correct page loading.

These two should give you plenty of ideas for improvement.

If you’re using AR-based interactive content on the website, make sure it doesn't load first to make the overall website loading time faster.

Pay attention to Off-Page SEO

SEO for restaurants doesn’t only include optimizing your restaurant website and Google page. Building a strong online presence matters, too, as search engines use backlinks and mentions to establish your business’ authority.

Here’s what you should focus on:

• Build links and NAP citations on business directories

• If your business is mentioned on some directories with incorrect NAP or without a link, find those mentions and fix them

• When you host events, get backlinks from event websites and add the correct NAP to the listing

• Get your restaurant on review sites like Yelp. Add your business profile on those websites with an up-to-date NAP and a link to your site.

• Get publications from a local newspaper either by commenting on a recent story or doing something newsworthy.

Doing something newsworthy doesn’t have to be expensive or over the top. You just need to find a way to present something you do for your business. For instance, if you have interactive features on your website, like a 2D sticker that suggests video interaction to come alive, a real-life object with an AR overlay, or an activity that encourages social sharing, it can be a noteworthy novelty and earn you a lot of mentions.

Get Listed On Review Platforms

Another way to receive online mentions that will boost your restaurant's SEO and increase traffic and sales directly is to get listed on review pages.

When you search for restaurants in a particular location, the first thing that comes up is the local search results with a map. The following organic results are typically not restaurant websites.

You’ll likely see a collection of pages listing the best restaurants in your area.

You can contact those websites and ask what you can do to submit your business. In some cases, it may be an advertising opportunity. In others, website auditors will be glad to look at your website, review it in person, and add it for free. 

Use Social Media To Your Advantage

Social media marketing for restaurants is a craft in and of itself, but it can also help your search optimization efforts.

If you have a solid online presence on Instagram or Facebook, you can ask your subscribers to leave online reviews and photos of your restaurant in exchange for a discount or free coffee. GSupposeting more good reviews than your competitors is always challenging; using your existing online audience to help with that is a great strategy.

Suppose you have augmented or mixed reality elements on your Instagram, like augmented menus, a fun filter, or a shareable menu item, in that case. In that case, you can use this to gain significant media mentions. Talk about it with your local newspaper editors; it may become a news story.

Summary

Restaurant SEO tips aren’t tough to implement, and they can potentially improve your restaurant business’ bottom line by up to a third. Add SEO to your marketing strategy now, and you'll reap the rewards in six months or even earlier if your location has low competition.

Focus on three key areas: website optimization, Google Business profile optimization, and off-site optimization. The first two may need monthly updates. Out of these three areas, only off-site optimization requires continuous effort.

Even with off-site SEO, the odds are you won’t have to spend too many resources for very long since restaurants aren’t such a competitive sphere in SERP.

The faster you start, the sooner your efforts impact your bottom line.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stacey Wonder is a content marketer who enjoys sharing best practices for self-development and careers with others. In her free time, Stacey is fond of contemporary dance and classic French movies. You may feel free to reach out to her at GuestpostingNinja@gmail.com or for collaboration suggestions.