Local SEO for Restaurants: How to Get More Diners

What is local SEO, though?

It’s the practice of optimising your restaurant’s online presence to rank higher in search results for local keywords. In other words, you want to make yourself easier to find when people search for restaurants nearby.

Why Local SEO is Important to Restaurants

That’s why local SEO is so important for restaurants. It makes it easier for people to find your restaurant, because it’s right there in the search results when they do a search with keywords related to food or dining out.

While it’s important for all restaurants, it becomes even more crucial for local businesses. If you have a brick and mortar location, people will expect to find your restaurant on Google Maps when they search for “pizza near me” or “Italian restaurants nearby.”

If you don’t show up in the first page of results, chances are they won’t bother trying another search term—they’ll just go elsewhere.

How to Use Local SEO to Rank Higher in Search Results

There are many ways to use local SEO to rank higher in the search results. We’ll go over some of those strategies below, but first let’s look at what Google considers when determining where your business shows up on its Maps platform.

What Google Looks for in a Local Business Page The most important thing to remember when creating an account on Google Maps is that it’s not just about listing your business and putting up some photos—you also need to fill out all your information correctly.

That includes using the right categories, making sure your address is accurate, providing detailed descriptions of what makes your business unique (and why people should visit), uploading high-quality images and videos, and adding as much contact information as possible.

Having a Google Listing is the first step to online presence. It’s important to remember that Google Maps isn’t just a directory of businesses. Instead, it’s an online tool that helps users find information about specific places around the world.

If you have a listing on Google Maps, people can search for your business by name and location—or even just by category if they have no clue what they need.

Get a Google My Business Account

Before you can upload information about your business, you need to set up a Google My Business (or now called ‘Google Business Profile’) account. This is what will let you manage your Google Maps listing and ensure it’s always up-to-date.

To get started with this account, go to google.com/business and click on “Get Started” under the “List Your Business” heading in the top right corner of the page.

On the next page, you’ll be asked to enter your business information. You can also add photos of your store or office, as well as hours of operation. This will allow people searching for your business in Google Maps to see exactly what they need before they even get there!

Once you’ve set up your account, it’s time to add a listing for your business on Google Maps. To do this, simply go to google.com/maps and search for your business. You should see a “Get Your Business Online” button in the top right corner of the page. Click it and enter your information into the form provided.

When you’ve completed this work, you can start work to get yourself into what is known as the ‘local pack’. This is the Google map with red pins, which show the location of businesses.

You will see only three businesses on the map, namely the ‘local pack’. You can get your business into it by optimising your website and Google Business Profile correctly. Do it correctly, and you will appear in the local search rankings.

Local Citations for Restaurants

If you have a restaurant, it’s important to have local citations. This means your business should appear in the local search results of Google and other search engines.

Citations are references that show up in search results. They can be a physical address, phone number or website URL. The citations you want are from local directories and review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google My Business.

You should also try to get mentions in newspapers, magazines and blogs about your restaurant.

This will help build trust with customers, so they know what they’re going into when they visit! Once you have some positive reviews online, it’s time to start getting citations for your business.

The Quality of Your Content Matters

One of the most important things to remember when creating your restaurant website is that content matters. That’s why it’s a good idea to have someone who knows what they’re doing write it for you.

This can be an employee or freelancer. Just make sure they understand how search engines work and what kind of information people are looking for online.

If you’ve hired a writer to create a blog post or series of blog posts, they should create a page that includes all the following:

• A description of your restaurant and its atmosphere
• Menu items
• Dining options (takeout, delivery, etc.)
• Location and hours of operation
• Contact information for reservations, takeout and delivery

Bear in mind that many people will find your company details from a mobile search, so it’s important to have web pages that load quickly. One of the most important factors is not to load images of your dishes onto your website with a file size of more than 100KB.

Get Reviews on Google, Yelp and Other Websites

The more reviews your restaurant has, the better. People are more likely to trust a place with many positive reviews, instead of one with only a few or even none at all.

If you have time, ask all your customers for feedback on Google or Yelp (depending on what kind of business you run). You can also create an online survey through Survey Monkey, which allows people to rate their experience using stars and leave comments.

If you don’t have time, consider hiring someone to help manage your online reviews. You can also use a tool like Facebook’s Page Manager or Google My Business to respond to people who leave reviews on your page, either publicly or privately.

Use the same strategy with online reviews as traditional word-of-mouth. If someone has a negative experience, try to fix it as soon as possible and ask them for feedback. If they’re happy with their experience, ask them to leave a review on Google or Yelp. These local business directories are helpful in getting you more business for your products or services.

Social Media Is Not Local SEO But Still Important

Social media is still a powerful tool for local businesses. Studies have shown that most people turn to social media when searching for a nearby business.

Many people think social media is local SEO, and that’s not true. You should still be doing everything else we’ve talked about in this guide, like optimising your website for mobile devices and implementing schema markup.

But if you aren’t already doing those things, it’s time to get started. If you don’t have the time or money for local SEO, focusing on social media is a good place to start.

In fact, many businesses can rank well in Google without any other local SEO efforts just by using social media.

Working on your local SEO can help bring in more diners

Make sure your business is listed in Google My Business, Facebook and Twitter. Then post regularly with photos and videos to attract new customers.

Make sure your website is optimised for mobile devices and has schema markup. Putting these strategies into practice will help you rank higher in local searches and attract new customers for your restaurant.

Google is great for helping small businesses. The search helps them become more visible to potential customers nearby. With good local content based on sound keyword research, you will soon find customers calling or visiting you because they found your details on Google.

If you’re looking for a professional to help with your local SEO, contact us today.