The restaurant customer journey involves multiple touchpoints across many digital channels. Current and potential customers can discover your business via social media or search engines, engage with offers, place orders online, stay connected through email reminders, leave reviews, and refer friends.
All of these touchpoints make up a local restaurant SEO strategy. Here we'll share tips for building out an online presence through your website and other channels to help market to local customers and visitors.
Building out an online presence for your restaurant
A restaurant's online presence may look a bit different depending on the type of restaurant, customer base, location, size, and more. But, a restaurant with a strong digital marketing strategy typically has a website, online ordering options and a digital menu, social media accounts, an email subscription list, a Google Business Profile, and review site profiles. And all of these online destinations should be updated with local search in mind.
How do restaurants do local SEO?
Incorporate keywords on your online channels
Including local keywords in your Google Business profile, website, and menu can help customers searching for restaurants in your area find you. So alongside keywords like cuisine and restaurant type, you can add your city and neighborhood as well. To find the best target keywords for your website and online menu, you can use free keyword research tools such as the Google Keyword Planner or Moz Keyword Explorer.
Include broad phrases like "pizza restaurant in Chicago" on your website and menu and try to include as many synonyms as you can. Search for a menu item or restaurant type on Google, then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see "People also searched for" for keyword ideas. For example, if the item is called "Chicago-style pizza," include related phrases like "deep-dish pizza" in the item description.
Leverage Google Business profiles and tools
Customers who search for restaurants or cuisines near their location see Google results ranked by distance, but also relevance and prominence. Relevance refers to how well your business profile matches the search terms, and prominence is how much Google knows about your business from links, articles, and directories on the web.
If your restaurant's Google Business profile isn't complete, or your business is lacking any web presence at all, new customers won't be able to find you. Ensure your Google Business Profile has the info needed to help the search engine gauge your relevance and prominence, such as restaurant name and website, business hours, cuisine type, photos, and menu.
Another good tip is to embed Google Maps on your website, like Saxonville Mills Cafe does here. Your site's "Contact Us" or "Location" page is where customers are likely to go looking for where you're located.
Does local SEO work for restaurants?
When you focus your marketing efforts on the people who are looking for businesses in your area, you're more likely to attract regulars. After all, they are likely living or working nearby and actively seeking out restaurants like yours. Why shouldn't you be the new favorite spot for their weekly brunch?
Local restaurant SEO also gets your business in front of visitors looking for the best experiences in your neighborhood. Featuring high on the search engine results page (SERP) and having an attractive online presence could be the push that gets them through the door.
DoorDash's Restaurant and Alcohol Online Ordering Trends Report found that 35% of US consumers use restaurant websites or apps to find new restaurants, and nearly 1 in 5 (19%) use restaurant social media accounts — meaning that a strong online presence can be the difference between attracting or missing out on a new loyal customer.
Can you hire someone to help with restaurant SEO?
It's a good idea to have a dedicated staff member for local restaurant marketing and SEO strategy if possible, whether it's someone already on your team, a freelancer, or a specialized agency.
Most of the strategies laid out in this article can be achieved with some initial startup time and periodic updates as needed (for example, if your hours or menu change, or as you launch new promotions), but you may want to hire someone to help with the SEO plan for your restaurant if you want to continuously and expertly target keywords and optimize your site as you grow.
6 local SEO content marketing strategies for restaurants
Ready to get your business on the virtual map? Here are some ways to help your restaurant stand out online and show up more prominently in search results.
1. Prioritize restaurant social media marketing
In his session "Predictable and Profitable Marketing" at the National Restaurant Association Show, Alejandro Aguilar, a restaurateur, author, and marketer, discussed how an online presence contributes to a marketing "flywheel" that keeps customers engaged. "People are not on social media to buy, they are there to be entertained," Aguilar explained — and that's an important reminder.
Think of the customer journey from social media scrolling to making a purchase as: 1. Entertain 2. Inform 3. Offer. First, capture attention with a funny or interesting video about your business. Then you can add more detail in the caption and use promotions or limited time specials to convert them to customers.
2. Generate and manage online reviews
The best way to encourage customer reviews is to offer an exemplary dining experience, whether that's on premise or off premise. In your restaurant, you can have staff encourage happy customers to leave a review or even include encouragements via signage or on receipts. Using QR codes that link directly to where you'd like the review (like your Google Business Profile) can make the process easier.
Unfortunately, not all customers are going to have a totally positive experience. What matters is how you respond. Always apologize for the inconvenience while politely acknowledging the customer's experience and addressing their specific concerns. If you can, offer a discount or free item on a future order. It's important to be professional but friendly, and when in doubt, keep it short and to the point. And don't forget to use spell check!
3. Forge local partnerships and promotional opportunities
"You want to reward the customer for coming back, in a way that is not always just paying the customer to come back," Aguilar said. He warns against getting too caught up in the transactional and logistical aspects of the business versus building relationships with customers: "Food creates a bond… Use your product, not money, as the incentive."
You can look to other local restaurants if you need inspiration for what draws the people in your community. Is there a line out the door at $1 oyster night? Or maybe it's live music at the cocktail bar down the street that keeps the regulars coming back. Understanding if your demographic is attracted to specials, events, or entertainment can help you tailor your incentives to fit your neighborhood as well as your own brand.
It's worth brainstorming some cross-promotional opportunities as well. Maybe a nearby bakery could help round out your menu with some killer desserts, or your sandwiches would be a great fit for a pop-up stand at the local brewery. Don't forget about signing up for your area's business alliance, donating to local fundraising events, or participating in regional food festivals.
4. Conduct outreach to local media and restaurant blogs
As mentioned above, your position in a search engine results page (SERP) depends on other information about your restaurant that can be found online. Increase your prominence by getting placement in online articles in local magazines.
Contact writers or editors at the local culture magazine or blog that features restaurants, events, and other goings-on in the area. Don't forget to check websites for nearby TV affiliates as well! You might end up with a feature on the local morning show.
Pitching a story to a reporter about your business requires a good angle, or reason why the story is relevant right now. A great time to reach out is to get coverage of your upcoming pop-up at the brewery, a special prix fixe Valentine's dinner, or an event you're hosting to celebrate National Bacon Lover's Day. Send a professional-looking designed marketing email or a simple text email with the "what, when, and where" for easy scanning. If you have high-quality promo photos or an event poster, add those in as well.
Remember that media outlets will likely link to your restaurant website, so make sure it's ready! Before doing any outreach, your website should have your restaurant's up-to-date address, hours, menu, online ordering platform, and ideally a way for diners to sign up for your email list.
5. Design your online menu for SEO
Optimizing any text on your website is a key part of your restaurant SEO strategy, and that includes your menu. This can be as simple as including relevant keywords (e.g. "Thai restaurant in Mill Valley") in the text of your menu.
It's also critical to make sure your menu text is in the body of your website — as in, the menu should be typed out on its own webpage, not as a PDF. While search engines are getting better at crawling text that is embedded in PDFs or other image types, normal body text is a much surer bet. Here's an example from Mythical Pizza in Berkeley Springs, WV.
6. Experiment with food influencer marketing
Influencer marketing can be a powerful tool in establishing an online presence. 17% of US consumers use social media influencers to find new restaurants to try.
Use geotags on Instagram and TikTok (the two most popular restaurant discovery social media platforms) to see who is posting about businesses like yours in your region and invite them in or offer to collaborate.
When it comes to choosing the right influencers for your brand, don't be fooled by vanity metrics. Aguilar used an example in his session where an influencer in the US had almost 190K likes on a single post, but more than 80% of the "likers" were from outside of the US, and therefore not in-market for his restaurant. Try to find local food and drink influencers with a strong following in your market. For more influencer marketing tips, check out our Food Influencer Marketing Guide for Restaurants.
Tracking and analyzing the impact of local restaurant SEO
When analyzing the success of your local restaurant SEO strategy, it's important to make data-driven decisions, not emotional ones. You may have loved a certain campaign or social post, but if it's not delivering, it could be time to move on.
How do you know if your efforts have been a success? You'll start seeing more traffic, and hopefully orders, coming in from online sources. You can track these using a tool like Google Analytics, which measures where your website visitors are coming from, and how many people visit your site daily, or monthly. Take a look at which web pages attract the most visitors, and which marketing channels are working the best.
Ideally, you’ll be able to justify your customer acquisition cost, or how much you spent on SEO and marketing efforts, with sales.
Determine the most important restaurant metrics that showcase the impact on traffic or sales for your business and set up a regular tracking report or meeting to review with your team.
Next steps after growing an audience from local SEO
Once you've grown your audience with a good local restaurant SEO strategy… you're still not done!
Building an online presence for your business requires regular monitoring and upkeep. Ensure website information stays accurate, customer reviews are addressed, and social media accounts are engaging.
Check out our guide Creating a Restaurant Marketing Plan to improve your online presence and attract new customers in your area.
