Local SEO for restaurants

 "Local SEO is a bundle of practices that local businesses should adopt to get their business read more often by people in their local area."

Since there are so many restaurants to choose from, what is one thing you could do to make sure your restaurant gets seen? Whether it's hiring a great chef or serving up the best old-fashioned ice cream sundaes in town, word-of-mouth is still an effective way to get your name out. The key is making sure that people feel like they need to spread the word. Fortunately, local SEO for restaurants can accomplish that.

Local SEO is a bundle of practices that local businesses should adopt to get their business read more often by people in their local area. While there are strategies you may want to take that are not covered in this article, here are some tips for making sure your restaurant is seen and heard around town:

1. Pay attention to how others do things in your niche.

2. Focus on the local customers that are going to buy from you.

3. Identify where people get their information and share best practices.

4. Set up a blog or website to promote your business and make it easier for people to find you online.

5. Monitor your competition and how they do things, then adopt a similar strategy.

6. Create an appealing online presence to attract people from your local area.

7. Look for ways to get your business in front of the people who need you – often, it's through offline events and promotions.

8. Promote your social media accounts to make sure people can find you on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.

9. Encourage your employees to engage with their customers.

10. Make sure you're on Yelp and other online review sites so people can leave you comments with a review of your service (and a star rating!).

11. Identify local media that covers your business area and reach out to them for content submissions or interviews. Make sure you have a clear message to deliver in the pieces they publish about you or about your industry in general.

12. Understand the local search results and how people find things they want in your industry.

Researching Your Peers and Competitors

It's incredibly important to pay attention to how your peers and competitors do business, whether it's at restaurants or other industries. These are agencies you should be emulating when deciding on a local SEO strategy. Look for other businesses that have websites, Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and online listings that are similar to yours. These are things that you should mirror so that you're not left behind when it comes to the latest marketing trends.

Some of the things you may want to monitor include:

Do they have a Twitter feed? If they do, what's their social media strategy?

You may want to consider a similar URL (website address) to their business name. Keep an eye out for branding options and how they use them.

What kind of information do they share on their website? Do they have a blog? Try to think of ways to share similar content that will be relevant to your industry.

Make sure you know what social media platforms they use to connect with people. Is it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other platforms? Reach out to them and ask questions about how they use their accounts. It's always best to connect with others in your industry who are doing things that are similar.

Identify the Key Online Resources that Matter to You

In this step, you want to identify the key online resources that matter to you. Sometimes even though you're doing everything right, people still won't know about your business and what's going on in your industry. For example, let's say you do a lot of catering for events (maybe it's the local community center or organization that holds all of their functions at a specific location). Looking at your competition will be beneficial because it will show you how they're marketing themselves.

Analyze how other businesses in your industry are getting themselves out there. You can use a tool like Google's Local Guides program (which we'll dive into more later) to find out what people are talking about online. There may be a website, Facebook page or other important online resource that you want to monitor so you're not left behind.

When you identify these key resources, make sure you're doing your best to contribute relevant content that is useful for your audience. You may also want to get involved with the conversation and comment on things that relate to you. This kind of activity can help you gain exposure and brand awareness with your local customers.

Monitoring Your Competition on Google Maps

One of the best ways to monitor your competition is to use Google's Local Guides program . This is a great way for you to learn what people are saying about businesses in your area. You can also learn things about your competitors that you may not be aware of otherwise.

Here's how to get started:

Visit the Google Maps program page and click "Become a Guide." You will need to sign up for an account if you don't already have one. From there, you will see a list of locations that are prominent in your target area. Next to the location, you will see a button that says "Request edits.” Click that button to request an edit on the location. You will need to write out what's wrong with the listing and provide evidence that supports your claims. You can also request that a new location be added, but you will need to follow the terms of service here: https://support.google.com/local/answer/6305300?hl=en

You can use this program as a way to keep tabs on your competition by looking at their Google Maps listings and making edits if you find them inaccurate or misleading.

Optimize Your Local SEO Strategy with Reviews and Social Media

Any good local SEO strategy needs solid content that's going to appeal to your audience. It's also important for you to monitor your own online reputation so that you can get a handle on how people are seeing your business when they search for reviews. If the reviews are negative, you will need to establish a plan of action for how you're going to respond (with positive content) or perhaps change the way that people are viewing your business altogether (use social media marketing methods).

What you're going to do is start with a review audit. A good practice is to look at all of your Yelp listings and consider how well you are representing yourself on the site. Especially, research all of your Google reviews. You want to make sure that they show up on review websites when someone is searching for them.

After you have become familiar with what people are saying about your business, work on improving those online reviews. You may want to pay special attention to negative reviews and get an understanding of why they exist. Then you can take steps to fix the problem, like offering a valuable discount, resolving their issue or perhaps addressing the content in their review. After you have fixed the problem, you may want to leave a "revised" message under your original review.

If there are positive reviews, make sure they're all correct and consistent with one another. One of the best ways to do this is by using a review management software to store all of your reviews in one place. This will make it much easier for you to edit, add and remove reviews easily. You can also use tools like Mention Pro or Fanpage Review Service to help you track the online visibility of your business.

You can also use Facebook ads for local SEO . This is an effective way that you can gain exposure fast without having to spend lots of money on advertising. There are several different ways you can use Facebook to market your business or get people talking about you.

One thing you'll want to do is run ad campaigns that will be targeted specifically to people in your area. The idea here is that if you're doing work for local clients, then it's important for those clients to see your ads when they're on Facebook. This way, they are more likely to refer more business your way because of their positive experiences with previous interactions.

You can use things like "increased visibility,” "enhanced conversion rates" and other phrases to influence how a Facebook ad is targeted. It's important to know what's going on so that you can be clear about what you're offering and how it will help people. Create an ad that is specific to your local market, but be sure to present yourself professionally — just as you would in any approach that you use for marketing your business, whether it's online or offline.

Boosting Your Local SEO Strategies to Increase Visibility

If you are hoping to boost your local SEO strategies, there's a lot that you can do to improve the way people discover your website or business. As you have read in this guide, optimizing your business listings is a good start, especially if you already have a website.

Another thing we talked about was the importance of monitoring what is being said about your business online. People typically want to find information from people who they know and trust.

Conclusion: 

As you can see, optimizing your local SEO strategies is an effective way to increase visibility and boost sales. These are things that you want to do on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be a laborious process if you use the right tools and approach the task in the right manner.

If you have any questions about monitoring your local SEO strategies or about anything else related to online marketing, please contact us .