In this digital age, if you want to see your restaurant abuzz with customers, your business must have a robust presence online. Once potential customers have found your space, the process of converting them into permanent customers starts from having a stellar website and giving them reasons on why they should try out your restaurant!

If you are clueless on how to achieve the abovementioned steps, follow these tips to enhance your Google ranking and catch the wandering eyes of customers:

 

SEO strategy and optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a technique to optimise your website for better Google ranking.

SEO is an ongoing effort, and you need a strategy to tap its full potential. First, define your audience and geographic location to narrow down the competition. Then research keywords and phrases that customers are searching for, which can be done by Google Keyword Planner or another third-party keyword research tool.

Add relevant and engaging content to your website, off-site listings, and correct contact information. Focus on back links, on-page, indexing, and White Hat techniques to better rank your webpage on Google.

 

Local SEO

Your ranking is dependent on the restaurant’s proximity to a user’s geolocation. To increase your chances of getting in the top searches, focus on improving Google ranking in a specific location. To do so, emphasise your location on the website.

Use context and keywords indicating where your restaurant is and what area it serves. For example, there are 42,000 searches for “pizza near me” in Melbourne every month, if you are serving pizza in the city, then optimise your website such that when people look for pizza in Melbourne, Google lists you on top.

 

Google My Business Profile

Google My Business is a free and easy to use tool that’s the best source of traffic for local businesses. Google prioritises local businesses via this tool, so it is of utmost importance to create a profile on it. Follow all the guidelines, choose the correct category, and optimise it to perfection. Add as many details as possible; the more the information, the more Google will prefer you over other competitors. Add photos, menu, FAQs, links to the menu, and your website.

You can even add Google Posts that are 300-worded articles. Add pictures and links to make it more eye-catching and use them to promote special events, offers, star guests, and anything special that can help draw in crowds.

 

Mobile-Friendly Website

The majority of your website traffic is going to be from a mobile or tablet. So, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you are losing valuable business. If your website isn’t responsive, then redesigning it takes top priority, since Google uses a mobile-first index to rank mobile-friendly websites higher in searches.

Ensure that the website provides optimum customer experience with user-friendly navigation, readable text, screen size adaptive content, and enough space between clickable links. You can use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to determine if your website is mobile-friendly.

 

Develop Robust Restaurant Online Ordering

Restaurant online ordering system would not only enable customers to place an order online, save man-hours behind the phone but it also helps rank your website high on Google. One of the criteria of how Google algorithms determine the site’s relevance to popular searches is the amount of time your customers spend on the website.

If your website is missing online ordering or redirects to a 3rd party, in essence, your customers bounce off your website quickly enough to not create the strong metric of customer engagement for Google.

Majority of the users do not go past Google’s first page. If your website is one of them, follow these tips to drive more hungry customers into your restaurant.

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