How to Outrank Your Competition: A Tutorial for Restaurant Owners

Given the widespread accessibility of smartphones, consumers are constantly searching online for the best pricing. Therefore, a business needs to develop the right internet resources to promote growth in the Internet.

Consumers heavily depend on digital platforms, like reviews, testimonials, and presentations, as valuable tools for choosing the best products and services.

Large restaurant chains can manage to spend a lot on advertising to bring in customers. A lot of media and public relations work can help big food chains win over the hearts and minds of diners.

Just keeping your name out there can bring in millions of new clients. Smaller and medium-sized restaurants must figure out how to spread the word. That’s where a well-built website and proper SEO can help you become known online.

Optimize Your Restaurant Website

For nearly two decades, website optimization has focused on tactics like building backlinks and monitoring keyword density.

Google just released the biggest improvement to its algorithm in five years. Google’s ability to index content based on language has been improved with the latest release.

This means the algorithm may look at the semantics of what you’ve written instead of just looking for specific keywords. This change is to place a focus on writing quality content instead of quick fixes for your SEO.

Know your competitors inside and out

Conducting a competitor analysis is crucial when creating a new website or improving an existing one so that you may gain an edge over the competition in search engine rankings. The four-step process for analyzing the competition and raising your Google ranking is as follows:

• Find the best keywords.
• Identify the right competitors.
• Create a page requirements document or brief.
• Create exceptional content with enhanced on-page SEO.

Post Quality Content Regularly

The days of a restaurant website simply featuring an About page, a menu, and a contact form are long gone. There is no hard and fast rule on how often you should publish new content.

You should also check on your competitors like you did with keywords. One indicator to look at is how often your direct rivals update their websites.

You can also use analytics to inform how frequently you publish content. You can set up a timetable where you post once per week about forthcoming specials, twice per month about new recipes, and once each holiday.

Having a timetable will keep you accountable and help you avoid extended stretches between posts.

Numbers are your friend

Forgetting to track your marketing results is the single biggest blunder you can make. Putting your freshly outlined marketing strategy into action for a few months, you can look at the results and see what’s working and what isn’t.

There are tools to help you manage your restaurant, like the restaurant POS system in Canada by POSRG. Data, not anecdotal evidence, drives the world’s most profitable companies. Instead of talking, numbers walk.

Write for Your Customers

Today, search engines like Google are more concerned than ever with providing their customers with precisely the information they need and want. Conversational posts that address readers’ concerns and feedback tend to do better in search engine rankings.

Do not sound too salesy. Use conversational language and direct calls to action to propel your lead generation. Don’t make the mistake of overusing keywords in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings.

Write in a casual, conversational style and make sure to provide enough white space. Use headers to break up the material and make the content simpler to read.

Get More Reviews For Your Business and Stand Out

Providing customers with a great experience can help boost your restaurant’s image and could even help if they decide to write a review. Here’s how to get 5-star reviews from your customers:

• Thank your customers and solicit their opinions. After a successful interaction with a client, don’t slack and get them to give you a review. Let them know how grateful you are that they went with you.
• Help your customer with the review process. Walk them through the steps of making an account on the most relevant review sites.
• Drop mild hints. Subtly remind customers to provide a review whenever it’s convenient for them.
• Keep an eye on feedback and act on it. Always respond constructively to feedback.

Not establishing an appropriate customer feedback loop is one of the largest errors made by businesses. When they receive negative feedback online, they typically attempt to conceal it or do not investigate the matter sufficiently.

Critical comments on review sites and social media provide valuable insights into how your business can be enhanced, while also bolstering your online brand reputation with a measure of authenticity and transparency. Asserting your availability to the public cordially and honestly will go a long way.

Account for Voice Search

Voice searches are predicted to account for more than half of all smartphone interactions by 2023. Voice search technology is evolving rapidly, and businesses are adding new and better voice-enabled capabilities all the time.

Finding a place to eat while on the run is a task that lends itself well to voice search. Consider optimizing your content for highlighted snippets, as they account for over 40% of all voice-driven results.

Snippets are the highlighted results that appear at the top of a page of Google search results. To rank in the featured snippets, your material must succinctly address user queries and provide actionable advice.

Optimize for Mobile Devices

Given the prevalence of mobile searches, your site must be optimized for mobile consumers. Either make your regular website mobile-friendly or build a second one specifically for mobile visitors.

Make sure the fonts and text size are optimized for mobile devices. You should use colours that complement the restaurant’s branding and interior. Have an easy-to-navigate menu and the option to download the article as a PDF.

Utilize Social Media

Even while social media exists outside of your website, it can nevertheless greatly assist your SEO efforts. Search engines analyze social signals to ascertain how popular a piece of content is.

Your website’s search engine rankings can benefit from a popular social media post that includes a link to your site.

How and where you promote your restaurant via social media will depend on your intended audience. Potential customers can be shown advertisements based on their location, informing them of sales and other offers available, like Elle Cuisine’s virtual cooking classes in Toronto.

Instagram and Pinterest can be valuable lead-generation tools for restaurants. Because of the visual nature of these services, you can attract customers by showing off your delectable food.

You can get photos or videos to post online with a videography service from Twenty5Films. The link traffic necessary to improve your ranking on search engines can be generated by including links to internal pages and posts in your postings.

Create a Complete Google My Business Listing

One of the most important things you can do for your business is to use Google My Business. Google My Business listings frequently appear in the top positions of search engine results pages.

You can increase your site’s visibility and traffic by including detailed information about your company in a comprehensive listing. You may gain useful and practical SEO insight from Google My Business by seeing how visitors engage with your website.

Ranking in Maps

Connecting your business with Google Maps is another feature of Google My Business. When generating a listing, be sure to include a map so that patrons can easily locate your restaurant.

A listing that stands out to users from a mere dot on the map has a complete Google My Business page. The following is a profile that can be seen on Diib.com.

The Google My Business listing with a map and driving directions will be on the right, while the traditional listing will be on the left.

Citation Building

Think of citation building as dropping digital breadcrumbs that potential diners can follow back to your establishment. It’s the process of submitting your restaurant’s details to several listing directories online.

Building citations helps with search engine optimization and also drives more customers in person. In SEO parlance, this is a form of link building because you will be collecting references to your site.

Your restaurant’s location and contact information, at the absolute least, should be widely disseminated.

With the preceding advice, you’ll have a solid foundation for entering the complex world of restaurant SEO and the assurance to implement changes that will propel your restaurant to the top of search engine results, where it will be seen by thousands of potential consumers.

You may learn a lot about the market and what will work in it by observing your competitors. Use them as a benchmark against which you may measure your success and shape the direction of your brand and offerings.

Your competitors are merely the springboard from which you may launch your method of communicating with your ideal clients.

If you follow the advice given above, you should be able to create a successful advertising campaign for your business.