You may be having the best chef serving outstanding dishes at your restaurant but, what if only few people step into your restaurant?—may be people of just your surroundings. Of course, there are chances where you may reach globally through the WOM strategy but it is quite unpredictable and unmeasurable.

Don’t you think it is time to make a strong online presence for your restaurant business?

84% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations for dining decisions

Online presence is something crucial for any business to survive. People, today, have a tendency to reach their requirements from wherever they are hence, online presence is very much essential for a business to experience global reach efficiently. Similarly, an online presence for restaurants/food marketing industry plays an important role as most of the people look for restaurants’ websites, online ordering, and more. Maintaining an SEO optimized website for your restaurant would bring in great results to your business.
2/3rds of consumers say that they are more likely to visit a restaurant if they have previously ordered from them online

As the online food ordering and delivery has buckled, the traditional restaurant model, it is essential that your website’s SEO must be as good as the food that you serve at your restaurant. In this article, we have few SEO strategies that could help you in bringing global reach for your restaurant with an efficient online presence in almost all the popular search engines.

What is SEO and benefits of restaurant SEO?

SEO is all about optimizing your website to appear in search engines like Google, Yahoo and more. The ultimate goal for SEO is to drive more traffic and to bring in more conversions to your business. Restaurant SEO can help with maximizing your visibility to potential customers and is an effective way to promote your business to the local clients.

Benefits of restaurant SEO

Implementing SEO in the right way to your restaurant business can bring in the following benefits,

• Helps diners to find your restaurant through organic search
• Improves brand awareness
• Creates a better user experience
• Brings in more traffic and online engagement
• Increases online orders and reservations

SEO strategies to increase your online visibility

Keyword Planning

This is the very first thing to do if you are planning for a SEO optimization for your restaurant business. Keyword planning is not but framing of target search words using which you want your website to get ranked for. The target search terms can be single or more than one words (Example: the best restaurant in Seattle)

Here is an awesome tip which might help while researching keywords:

Look for high-intent, niche and branded keywords

Keyword planning tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush can help you with in-depth analysis of similar keywords to that of the one that you have framed. Making a list of potential customers would help in understanding your customers’ requirements and also in framing some specific keywords for your restaurant.

Work on Local SEO

Local SEO can help in targeting audiences in your location. This location-based approach can effectively bring in more conversions by promoting your business to local customers of the targeted area. 
Add your business information to pages like Google My Business, Yellowpages, Yelp and more

Adding business information to all the directories and social media platforms would help you to stand out from your competitors in your local area. If you miss getting listed on the above-mentioned pages, then you are missing out  potential customers. Hence, optimize local SEO and reach your local customers efficiently.

Get Listed on Review Sites and Encourage Reviews

Reviews play a vital role as always, Google displays high-rated restaurant/business in local search results. Most people get influenced by the feedback/reviews submitted by other customers. 
Get listed in review sites like Zomato, Foursquare, Google My Business and more to get more traffic flow

When your restaurant gets more positive reviews, it would help your business to reach more customers globally. 

Work on Link Building

Link building is another important factor in search optimization. It is the strategy of getting other websites linked back  to your website. When other websites link to your website, every link will be a seal of approval in the view of Google.

The more of the links you receive from reputable websites, the more you will appear in search engines for your targeted keywords. 

Engage Your Customers

Engaging your customers online will make your business more interactive also, help in analyzing your customers and their requirements. Acknowledging their reviews, comments, tweets on various social media platforms will make them feel appealing about the effort you make to keep them engaged and interactive online. 
86% of the buyers are willing to pay more for better customer experience

This strategy would create a better user experience in your business

Ensure Your Website is Mobile Responsive

Today, people want everything to be handy and so always ensure your website is mobile responsive. 

72% of People Want Mobile-Friendly Websites

This would make your existing customers feel appealing and also bring in more conversions.

Create a Blog Room for your Restaurant’s Website

A restaurant’s website usually has a home page, menu, events page and may be a review page. Do you have a blog room?

Have a blog room with some creativity added to it. Write about the cuisines you have, about locally served ingredients, or you can even use the blog for promoting your campaigns. Adding a blog room to your website would surely help in improving your rankings in search engines, drive traffic and bring in more customers.

Configure Online Ordering System

How much ever optimized your website is, establishing an online ordering system for your restaurant will make your existing customers feel appealing and will also bring in more new customers to your restaurant. 

Ensure to build your online ordering system with better user experience and simple ordering process to avoid cart abandonment at your restaurant.

Build Online Community

By implementing SEO and online communities in the right way, can help bring in more customers to your business again and again. The online community can be used by your customers to share your website content, your events and many more happenings at your restaurant.

This is really a smart way of campaigning your business and is more effective for reaching customers globally.

Wrapping Up

In this digital era, you don’t go giving leaflets or brochures for your restaurant and its events. The trend is going online. Hence, you have to work for it to have a rigid online presence to reach more customers. Never stop with establishing a website for your restaurant business, work more on your online presence, i.e., SEO. 

Doing SEO for a restaurant’s website would help you to stand out of the crowd. As there is a vast competition in the food industry, it is essential to work on your online presence so that people would land on your website while searching for restaurants. This would also help in increasing your online visibility and keeping your growth inclined.