All restaurants aspire to become household names with a legion of loyal diners that frequent their premises or place orders on a regular basis. While there are a plethora of different methods business owners can utilise to accomplish this incredibly difficult achievement, there are plenty of avenues available to increase your restaurant’s search visibility in the online world.
To help your Australian eatery grow its online presence, we, at Chef Collective have accumulated 9 essential tips and tricks you can use.
1. A website revamp
Your website is essentially a virtual storefront that showcases what your business is about and the incredible food you serve. When doing a complete website revamp, keep user experience in mind as your customers have to be able to find everything they are looking for without feeling like they are in a maze.
It is also important to have a reservation button, an online food ordering system, and links directing customers to your eatery on the various food delivery platforms in Australia, such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo and DoorDash. In addition to this, any content that is published on your website needs to be optimised – such as implementing keywords, and ensuring content is helpful and insightful, as per the new guidelines unveiled by Google’s Helpful Content Update. This will ensure your restaurant’s search visibility increases when people are on the lookout for your particular type of cuisine or eateries in your specific location.
2. An online menu
This may sound obvious, but it may surprise you how many restaurants overlook this. Having your menu available online will allow more people to find your establishment and facilitate making orders online as well. Be sure that the menu you post online is not outdated and can be easily found on your social media accounts, website, and Google My Business Profile.
3. Optimise your Google My Business Profile
It isn’t stressed enough how important your Google My Business Profile is – as it can majorly increase your restaurant’s search visibility. To illustrate how crucial this step is, let’s take a look at some eye-opening figures: Google My Business Profiles that are fully optimised get 5 times more traffic than those that are not. With this in mind, it is imperative you have all the key information on your profile, such as the address, contact details, opening hours and online ordering links.
You may be wondering what impact this can have. Simply put, customers are 2.7 times more likely to trust a business if their Business Profile is on Google Search and their location in Google Maps is filled in properly. In addition, 70% of customers are more incentivised to visit and 50% are more inclined to buy from establishments with a completed Business Profile.
It is also vital to continuously share updates, respond to reviews left by people and upload new photos in order to boost user engagement and keep your customers up to date on what’s happening with your business. Since Google results are optimised to help people find establishments that are in close proximity to them, you should double check all the information on your Google My Business Profile is available and correct – to make Google work for you.
4. Publish updates on social media
Regardless of whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or even YouTube, it is imperative that you remain active on social media and share updates with your customers. This will not only increase your restaurant’s search visibility, but also attract an increasing number of people to find out more about your eatery. When posting new content, make sure it is diverse and incorporates location-specific words to target the local community. To reach out to a wider audience, be sure to use top trending hashtags.
5. Reply to customer reviews
When customers who have visited your restaurant take the time to leave a review, it is in your best interest to respond to them. It is recommended that you block out 20 to 30 minutes of your day to do this. When coming across negative reviews, it is crucial that you don’t snap back but be open to take constructive criticism that your restaurant can use to provide a better dining experience.
You should also aim to take advantage of UGC (user-generated content) by offering customers who publish photos or reviews a special promotion or discount. This will get your establishment noticed through the power of word of mouth publicity.
6. Focus on keyword research
One of the best ways to increase your restaurant’s search visibility is to conduct keyword research so that it becomes more prominent on search engines like Google. Tools like SEMrush and Google Keywords provide great insight into the keywords that people are searching for. When you have pinpointed the keywords that best suit your restaurant, start using them in your content regularly.
Let’s use an example to make it easier. If your restaurant is located on the glistening white-sand shores of Bondi Beach and serves mouth-watering juicy burgers, you should mention this on your website and in any content that you publish. Essentially, this will bring people looking for a good burger, or those who live or visit that area of Sydney, to find your restaurant on their search engine search results.
7. Compulsory reservation policy
Making reservations mandatory allows you to keep track of the number of customers coming through your doors. It also enables you to contact them to leave a review or talk about their dining experience at your eatery. When these reviews are uploaded online, it can increase your restaurant’s search visibility as more diners may want to try your food after seeing what other patrons are saying online.
8. Build strategic partnerships
To get people talking about your establishment, you will want to get key members of the community promoting your restaurant. Reach out to local journalists and food critics as they hold a lot of sway with the locals and can direct a stream of new customers to your eatery if they recommend your restaurant in their review.
Influencers are another group you should target as they have a big fan following. Invite them to try and review your food, and fans will be quick to follow in their footsteps. Furthermore, you could drum up a lot of excitement by doing a special promotion with an influencer.
9. See what the data has to say
To get a comprehensive assessment of your restaurant, check your web and social analytics regularly. Use that data to ascertain which dishes on your menu are the most popular, and determine the promotions and discounts that your customers love. With this knowledge in hand, you can take the necessary steps to increase your restaurant’s search visibility even more – so that your customer base gets even bigger.
Time to get noticed
With so many avenues available for you to increase your restaurant’s visibility on the Internet, it’s time to start implementing them today as your business will not only see an increase in diners, but profits as well! As an added bonus, you can also see these 10 marketing tips on how to start sending your sales soaring.
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