5 Reasons Your Restaurant Needs SEO Now

By January 2023, the quantifiable number of online users had escalated to an impressive 5.16 billion, an overwhelming 64.4 percent of the world's population. Even more astonishing is that 4.76 billion people (59.4 percent) were actively utilizing social media daily and night – a remarkable mark for 2021-22 worldwide technology trends.

Hence the need for restaurants to reach out to potential customers online. It would be best to put as much effort into optimizing your online presence so visitors will flock through your doors.

What is SEO?

SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization” and involves streamlining your website to stand out among the competition in search engines. When customers look online for products or services you offer, SEO propels your pages up search results by improving visibility. The higher they rank on a query results page, the more eyes will be drawn to your business and increase customer interest.

How Does SEO Work?

Crafting a successful SEO campaign requires intelligent optimization of content, extensive keyword research and selection, and generating inbound links to boost that content’s rankings on search engine results pages (SERP). Although visible progress can generally be seen after the webpage has been crawled by a search engine and indexed, these efforts often take months to take effect.

Rankings

Search engines use rankings to place web pages in the SERP, ranging from zero to the last query result. Web pages typically appear at one rank position and can shift over time due to factors such as age, competition within the SERP, or changes made by search engine algorithms. 

You’ll want to aim for being in the top 10, which generally lands you on the front page of Google search, which gets the most clicks —ask yourself: when was the last time you bothered to go to the second or third Google page? 

Visibility

Search visibility is an expression that highlights how noticeable a domain is in search engine results. The domain has higher visibility if it appears for a few relevant searches. On the other hand, if it pops up frequently with relevant queries, it has higher search visibility.

Keyword selection is hugely important for SEO strategy. It has to align with your business goals (what would you like to be known for? On which searches would you want your business to appear?)

Reasons Restaurants Need SEO

Restaurants need to work with SEO specialists to help them connect with their markets. Here are five reasons why restaurants should use SEO now.

1. Target Local Customers

SEO specialists can optimize content and use local keywords to make it easier for customers to find your restaurant online, increasing their chances of coming to your restaurant. By targeting a local audience, you can reach out to people in the same city or vicinity who may be looking for a place to eat.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center revealed that about 32 percent of adults had placed orders for food online or via a mobile app from restaurants in their area.

2. Increase Brand Visibility

Brand visibility measures how much your brand appears on various marketing outlets. For instance, if a restaurant or ghost kitchen releases branded content to its consumers once per week compared to one that does it every two weeks, the latter has double the chance of getting in front of a potential customer.

Because of how users behave on Google, you can’t guarantee that customers will specifically look for your restaurant name or website unless you’re an established brand.

SEO helps you gain visibility on relevant searches and ensures your website appears more often.

3. Get a Competitive Advantage

SEO is a never-ending process; competitors constantly try to outrank each other and ensure they remain one step ahead. Investing in SEO ensures you don’t fall behind and stay one of the top contenders for customers looking to dine out.

SEO will help search engine crawlers look for websites that offer their users the correct information. 

For example, when someone Googles Italian restaurants in their area, they expect pages that include words like “restaurant,” “Italian,” or “delivery.” Ensuring that your website uses these keywords correctly makes it easier for potential customers to find you first before considering other alternatives.

4. Boost Website Traffic

SEO isn’t just about getting customers to visit your website; it is also about ensuring that they stay for a bit and explore all your offerings. Optimizing content and ensuring that pages rank high on search engine results can attract more visitors who may be interested in what you offer. 

Leveraging SEO on your website can help guide visitors to pages where they will find exactly what interests them, encouraging engagement in different parts of the site. 

When someone checks out your menu, for example, that’s an opportunity to tell them about Happy Hour, get them to the booking page, or read about an upcoming event. 

This affects essential metrics like session length, number of pages visited, and other ways to measure visitor experience. It also signals Google that your site is relevant and fulfills searchers’ needs.

5. Increase Revenue

SEO is all about getting customers to your website. Still, it also helps boost revenue by ensuring that they stay and make a purchase– what digital marketers call conversion. 

By ensuring pages are optimized for the right keywords and high-quality content and making sure that visitors have opportunities to interact with your site (book a reservation, call a delivery number, or sign up for a newsletter), you can increase the chances of visitors staying on your website and becoming customers.

Investing in SEO ensures that your restaurant remains a top contender for customers looking for dining options. Not only will it help you target local customers and increase brand visibility, but it will also give you a competitive advantage, boost website traffic, and ultimately lead to increased revenue. Restaurant owners should consider investing in SEO to help them connect with their markets.

About the author:

Itamar Gero is the founder of SEOReseller.com, an SEO Services and digital marketing solutions provider that empowers agencies and their local clients worldwide. When he isn’t working, he’s traveling the world, meditating, or dreaming (in code).