Ranking a restaurant with local SEO can be a challenge, but it’s definitely doable with the right approach. In this video, Toby Danylchuk goes over his SEO strategy for ranking local restaurants.
There’s no denying that for restaurants, Google is one of the first places hungry customers go to find food. So it cannot be ignored if you care about new business. If you want more traffic from Google organically and without ads for your restaurant, then this post is for you. Here are five tips and strategies you can implement now to improve your rankings and traffic.
What’s in this video:
- Intro to Restaurant SEO
- What is restaurant SEO?
- Optimize Your Google Business Profile
- Schema Markup
- NAP – Name, Address, Phone
- Website & On-Page SEO
- Citations and Links
- Reviews
- How long does Restaurant SEO take?
- Summary
What is Restaurant SEO?
SEO for restaurants is the process of optimizing your restaurant’s presence in Google so it shows at the top of Google for relevant search terms. The process focuses on optimizing two core assets: your Google Business Profile, and your website.
Step 1: Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) – formerly known as Google My Business – is the main element for optimization and ranking in Google. What shows in Google local search at the top of the page is a 3-pack of GBP profiles. And similar for Google Maps – what shows is your GBP.
So the first step in improving your restaurant’s Google exposure is ensuring you have claimed and set up your restaurant’s GBP. Make sure you fill out your profile as thoroughly as possible, including images and videos of the food and experience, your hours, links to your website and online ordering, and most importantly, choosing the correct category for your restaurant (i.e., pizza restaurant, Italian, Korean, etc.). The category is one of the essential elements so choose wisely.
Step 2: Google Business Profile
Schema markup code is unique code that is placed on your website and tells Google all the crucial details about your business – what type of restaurant you are, your geolocation, your days and hours of operation, and other necessary information.
Without schema markup, it can be difficult for Google to understand what type of restaurant you are, when you’re open, where you’re located, and more.
Step 3: Website and On-Page SEO
Many SEOs believe that on-page optimization is the most crucial part of ranking a website. Even if your website is visually appealing and has a high number of backlinks, poor on-page SEO will damage your page ranking. Incorporate the following practices into your work.
Mobile Responsiveness
Make sure your website is mobile responsive. If it doesn’t render well on mobile devices, that will negatively affect your site’s chances of showing in search results. Of course, your GBP will still show, but a poor user experience on mobile devices for people who click through to your website will hurt your conversions and new customer business.
Think of Google search results like the shelf space at a grocery store – the more spots you occupy, the better it is, and the fewer spots your competitors have.
Use Image and Video SEO
Add alt tags of what the image is about Make sure the file name of the image is descriptive – for example, pepperoni pizza, rooftop bar, and more.
Add schema markup for any videos – video schema can help with your SEO and enable your video to show in the video tab of Google search.
Page Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Create unique title tags and meta descriptions for each page. This is one of the first things Google reads when it crawls a page to determine the topic. It’s not a ranking factor per se but tells Google what the page is about. Title tags should be approximately 55 characters long, and meta descriptions should be approximately 155 – 165 characters long.
Best practices
Make sure to use the same keyword in both the title and meta description for each page.
- Be descriptive – sell your restaurant
- Include calls to action
- Unique titles and meta descriptions for each page on your site
Step 4: Citations and Links
Citations are essential for improving your presence within Google. Citations are just other websites that list your NAP – name, address, and phone number. Google uses citations as 3rd party validation that you are whom you say you are. The closest analogy is personal networking – the more people you know, the more prominent you are and the more conversations you will come up in.
Examples of citations include Yelp, Facebook, Yellowpages, Dunn and Bradstreet, and hundreds more. What’s most important is the consistency of your NAP information. Because inconsistency in this information means it may not be correct. And as a result, Google loses confidence in your business information and demotes your ranking. The last thing Google wants to do is provide a user with incorrect driving directions or the wrong phone number; thus, your business will rank lower.
Step 5: Reviews
Nothing kills business more than negative reviews. Therefore, make sure you are actively monitoring and responding to your reviews.
Timing
Timing – How Soon Will I Rank? When you start an active local SEO campaign, at a minimum, it can take 90 days to begin to see traction. And in many cases, it can take far longer.
Read Toby’s full article, with images, at https://www.39celsius.com/seo-for-restaurants-rankings-guide/
