Local seo services for restaurants

Are you striving hard to increase your restaurant’s local rankings and boost the traffic to your website?

If yes, continue reading.

When you own a local business, you must seize every opportunity possible to promote it to local customers. The best opportunities, if used correctly, can help you attract new customers to your restaurant and make it grow.

One of the most beneficial methods to market your business locally is search engine optimization. SEO is the process of increasing your website’s ranking in local search results through site optimization. The tactic enables more local customers to find your restaurant online.

As a local business owner, you must pay attention to local SEO. Here are some local SEO tactics that you can use to get more foodaholics to your doorstep:

On-page SEO

To begin with, you can optimize your website’s SEO for local search. You just need to add your target location to your website’s home page and landing pages, along with:

• Title tag: Add your restaurant name in the title of the page that a user will view within the Google search results. The title tag should be concise within 50-60 characters.
• H1: The heading of the page should inform users what the page or its content is about.
• Content: Content constitutes the text written on the page. Make sure to add target keywords, like location and others.
• Alt tags: Alt tags describe an image that the page holds. Make sure it includes the target location and other major descriptions.
• Meta Description: This is the snippet of text below the search result on Google that includes the target location, along with a relevant keyword appearing at least once. You must enclose the description within 150-160 characters.

Schema Markup

Schema Markup is the structured data markup that enables local businesses, like a restaurant, to provide search engines with useful information. By using schema markup for your restaurant business, you can boost its visibility within SERPs, along with:

• Adding reviews to help visitors decide which menu to order.
• Promoting offers and events to allow easier discovery.
• Adding more information about the cuisines or products you offer.

The structured data will also enhance your chances of getting featured and rich snippet opportunities. 

Content

Your website must be able to answer a number of different search queries. To do so, you can create different sections on your website, like FAQs, blogs, About Us page, and others to answer the questions that your customers may have. 

Blogging is one fine way to answer customers’ queries and target long-tail keywords. Plus, you can show your restaurant as a leader in the marketplace. Isn’t that great? And here’s one more good news, Google loves blogs! With blogs, you can show off your restaurant business in a non-sales manner. 

Using content is not only restricted to your website. Here are some other ways to use content to enhance your online presence:

• Guest post on local blogs
• Collaborate with influencers or food bloggers
• Frequently post in forums in the food industry
• Be active on social media platforms and run quizzes, competitions, and whatever to stay in touch with local customers.

Geotags on images

Another way to stay on top in local search results is to use geotags on images. As modern technology kicks in, the photos taken are larger, allowing you to alter meta tags as required. Therefore, you can add unique titles and descriptions to your photos.

This may not significantly improve the rankings, but seizing every opportunity in the competitive market can be helpful in one way or another.

Another thing you can do is upload the photos to image platforms, like Flickr, along with mentioning the details such as location and keywords. With stunning photos of your restaurant and dishes, you can take another shot at showing up in Google Image search results.

Make User Experience Better

You may get a quantity of traffic to your website, but unless you can convert it, there is no use.

Therefore, think about the information your customers might want from you and help you make an easy find. Don’t make it complex for your customers to find your location, contact information, menus, and price on the website or even to make reservations. People have little patience, and instead of striving to find information, they will move to other options in the search result. 

Even Google has introduced a new Page Experience update, where it is biased towards websites that offer good user experience and rank them better on its search results. 

Restaurant Directories

Citations and backlinks are key elements in increasing your website’s organic search rankings. It provides Google with credible sources of data about your restaurant (like name, address, and phone number) so that you seem accurate and legitimate to your potential customers.

Business directory listings can help you in multiple ways. A study by Burke also says that about 80% of customers use directories while researching a product or company. That makes it crucial for a restaurant business to be a part of directory listings.

Some business directories you can use are:

• General business directories
• Restaurant directories
• Review sites (like Trustpilot)
• Local news websites
• Social media

Google My Business

A Google My Business account offers you more than just a business listing. The account helps you seamlessly connect with local customers. It also enables you to post photos of your dishes and add offers to your profile to step apart from the competition and give more reasons to customers to choose you every time.

Your customers can engage with your profile and directly call and message you to make reservations. They can also leave reviews that add more advantage to your local business promotion.

Social Media Marketing

Social media offers you a great platform to promote your business. You can pick Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote your restaurant business. Ensure that the social media profile includes a consistent NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) so that Google can see your business as genuine and reliable. 

Plus, the social media platform will allow you to interact with your customers, share content, and engage with them. Make excellent use of social media to persuade your potential customers to turn into long-term customers.

Conclusion

Enhancing your local presence is not an overnight job, and for restaurants, it is not that easy as well. We hope that the tactics mentioned above help you kick-start your journey to rule the local search results.