People need to be able to discover you online if you want to keep your restaurant full every day – or if you want to increase your delivery and carry-out business. You must rapidly win them over with an excellent online experience and motivate them to take action once they have found you.
Having a strong online presence is imperative for any restaurant to grow its business today. Over the past 2 years, owing to the pandemic, there has been a radical shift from dine-in to take away or delivery. This has increased competition with many new cloud kitchens and restaurants entering the space. At present, improving your visibility is important for both dine-in and takeaway/delivery businesses.
You can always gain visibility by running ads on various platforms to drive traffic. However, the most effective, long-term, and reliable way to increase traffic to your business is by rising to the top of the organic search results on Google. And how do we do this you ask? Well, this is where SEO or Search Engine Optimization comes into play.
Trust us, it is not as complicated as it sounds. SEO is nothing but optimizing your website so that when someone searches for a particular keyword, for example, “Best Biryani Restaurant in Bangalore” on Google, your restaurant appears at the top of the search results.
In this blog, we will cover 8 easy tips for you to begin your SEO journey and improve your restaurant’s visibility and organic website traffic.
The first step is to build a content and SEO strategy and plan the project timelines. So before you start exploring different tools, software, and platforms, you must first define what your content and SEO strategy will be. The best way to start is to narrow down your geographical target. This can be the entire country, city, or the area you are serviceable in.
The next and most important step is to do your keyword research. What are people in the targeted area searching for on search engines? There are plenty of free tools like SEOptimer, SEMrush, Wordstream, etc, that are available to help you narrow down your keywords list. Then, you need to build your content around these keywords. There are different levels of keywords - high-level, niche-specific, and brand-specific.
For example, if you have a biryani restaurant named Biryani Empire in Gachibowli in Hyderabad, some high-level keywords may be “Restaurants”, “Restaurants in Gachibowli”, “Gachibowli restaurants”. Examples of niche-specific keywords are “Biryani restaurant in Gachibowli”, “Best biryani in Hyderabad”, “Top Biryani in Gachibowli”, “Hyderabadi Biryani in Gachibowli”, “Top eateries in Gachibowli”, “Top biryani restaurant around me” etc. And lastly, brand-specific keywords are in the tune of “Biryani Empire in Gachibowli”, “Biryani Empire Restaurant”, etc.
Without getting into the nitty-gritty of all on-page and indexing optimization approaches, I'd like to advise you to follow the basic on-page SEO action items first. You can devote a lot of time to developing a comprehensive SEO strategy, but if you're just getting started, I recommend setting aside the rest and focusing on the following:
This may seem overwhelming, but start with your most important pages, such as your homepage, menu page, about us, and contact pages, and work your way down as time allows. Create a Google Search Console account to monitor the issues or use a free tool such as SEOptimer to check the health of your website and suggest basic corrections.
One must understand that content doesn't have to be only written copy. There are different formats. You may utilize video, photography, and graphics to show off your menus, in-house promotions, and more. The search engines are more concerned with the context of your site than with the keywords. You can keep the pipeline full of compelling information that helps you stand out from the competition by recognizing and consistently producing new content. If you own a niche restaurant, for example, embrace it and differentiate yourself from the generic chain down the street. Share details about the company's founders, culture, and, most crucially, its product. Check out this video by the restaurant chain “Biryani By Kilo” where they paid tribute to the delivery fleet in India.
It's difficult to conduct a restaurant search without seeing reviews and rating scores among the results. This is because individuals are more likely to click on higher star ratings. Reviews are frequently encouraged on social media as an engagement tactic, but they also have a larger impact on visitors to your website via search results pages. You may have your star ratings appear in search results using organized data markup, giving users another reason to click on your site rather than your competitor's.
If your restaurant's internet ratings don't accurately reflect its quality, you must develop a strategy to obtain as many reviews as possible to help raise your score. A better star rating will almost certainly result in a higher click-through rate to your site, as well as increased foot traffic.
Make sure you give users and search engines enough cues and context about where your business is and what area it services. You can assist everyone by offering content that is related to the community and does not simply presume that everyone knows where you are located.
For example, if you have a 100-site chain, begin with a single line for each location in the local language, written specifically for the business, according to the local history, neighborhood, and community engagement. This will make it easier to distinguish the outlets from one another.
Nearly 60% of visits to websites are made on mobile devices, and it is as high as 70% in the food and beverage industry. To grasp a website's content, Google increasingly focuses on the mobile version. Hopefully, you've already built a responsive website or one that passes the mobile-friendly testing. But when it comes to mobile, that's just the beginning. It's also important to consider page load time, accurate rendering, and a positive mobile user experience.
There is no direct correlation between you engaging with customers on social media and your SEO, but it can drive traffic to your website. Social media may be an important part of the consumer journey, demonstrating what clients can expect from your business. Because content, interaction, and popularity coincide with the crucial SEO pillars of relevance and authority, a strong social presence frequently corresponds with a high organic search presence.
Make an effort to interact with your followers and respond to them as soon as possible. Customer perceptions of your overall customer service and strategy are shaped by how you communicate online. Find your target audience, engage them, and persuade them to advocate for you. Finally, you will see an increase in visits from social networks as a result of engaging with fans and pushing material on social media that funnels users to your main website. This will then be linked to the benefits of your other SEO initiatives.
This could have been the first piece of advice, but I'm placing it as the final one as it's crucial throughout the process. There's stuff to do and implement with the previous suggestions, but before you start optimizing anything, be sure your efforts are measurable. When it comes to investing in your strategy, you want to know which elements are working, which aren't, and where your efforts were (and are) most effective in terms of generating a return on investment.
Track exposure, engagement, and conversion data as far as your business will allow. Beyond that, you'll need to determine the correct goal-related progress measures to ensure you're on the right track.
People need to be able to discover you online if you want to keep your restaurant full every day – or if you want to increase your delivery and carry-out business. You must rapidly win them over with an excellent online experience and motivate them to take action once they have found you.
Restaurateurs have to deal with multiple issues and increasing visibility with SEO is just another piece of the puzzle. What seems like an increasingly complex issue, can be demystified with the tips given above. Remember, the first 5 results on the Google Search engine results page accounts for 67% of all clicks. So what’s stopping you from getting into the top 5? Start your SEO journey today!
Are you looking for ways to increase your restaurant’s online presence and attract more customers? If so, you’re in the right place! In this comprehensive guide, we’ll be discussing how to master Google My Business, a free online tool that allows you to promote your restaurant across Google Search and Google Maps. By creating a Google My Business account, you can ensure that your restaurant is easily discoverable by potential customers searching for restaurants in your area.
At UrbanPiper, we understand the challenges faced by restaurant owners, and that's why we're constantly working to improve our products to make your life easier. Our teams have been working tirelessly to bring you the latest features, and we're excited to share them with you! Read through to discover the exciting ways our latest product updates will transform your restaurant business.
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In 2021, UrbanPiper and Polaris Technology joined forces, recognizing the changing dynamics of post-Covid dining, where home delivery emerged as the new norm. This partnership harmonizes Polaris Technology's state-of-the-art ERP solutions with UrbanPiper's unmatched delivery management capabilities, crafting an unparalleled ecosystem for restaurants aiming to scale operations seamlessly in the digital landscape.
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Did you know that a mere one-star increase in your restaurant’s rating can spike your revenue by 5-9%? That's right, according to Harvard Business School, those stars do translate into dollars. It's all about strategy and a pinch of magic in customer service.
