Local SEO For Restaurants

So far this month an advertisement has appeared to me three times to buy donuts very close to my house. I love donuts! Just looking at the images my mouth starts to salivate and my stomach to roar. In that state of hypnotism, I was determined to buy until something stopped me: the orders had to be done for the next day.

This has taught us an important lesson about how restaurant marketing works. It has to be local and fast. Many who want to position their food establishment on the internet start with a blog. Do not get me wrong, there are some very clever tricks to achieve sales for a restaurant through a blog. But this should not be priority number one.

If you think about when was the last time Google or Facebook led you to choose a restaurant, the answer is clear. What you need to do to increase conversions in your restaurant is to optimize what is known as Local SEO. You must position yourself very well on Google Maps, and have good reviews, glamorous images of your business, and also incredible images of your dishes.

Configure your business data in Google My Business

Putting your data in Google My Business will give you that extra advantage in SEO since you can appear in Google maps and search recommendations. These are some of the things you can configure and how you should do it:

Category: select the category that corresponds to your business. Otherwise, Google will not show your business to anyone as it will not respond to search intentions.
Of course, there are different categories that are suited to restaurants, ranging from haute cuisine to Asian cuisine, for example. Choose the one that best describes your business.

Restaurant menu: if you want to be successful, this is not optional. The people who find you will be able to know immediately what your dishes are without having to search your website or social networks. This will prevent them from wasting their time and you from losing sales. You can upload all the dishes on your menu, with a description of the product, image, and price.

Publications: remain for 7 days. You may think that it is unnecessary since that is why you have your website or social networks. But it is something that will give your business a professional appearance, indicating that you take care of even the smallest detail. Be creative and attract attention.

Reservations and orders: you can redirect customers to your website. To request reservations you can use phone calls, WordPress or Shopify plugins, or platforms such as Appointlet or SimplyBook.me. The order option should be included only if you deliver home delivery There are also platforms that you can use for this.

Reviews: This is probably the part you have to take care of the most. Not only because it favors the positioning of your business in the search results, but also because it works as an excellent social proof, increasing your conversions. It would be a good idea to integrate a QR menu service at your tables that encourage your customers to review your business.