Almost 80% of people visit a restaurant’s website before ordering or visiting, and a poor site experience often loses their business. So, to attract new diners to your restaurant, your digital presence—website, local citations, social media, and more—should be strongly optimized for potential customers and search engines. Here’s everything you need to know about creating and following a winning restaurant SEO strategy.
What Is SEO for Restaurants?
An SEO strategy for restaurants is a comprehensive plan to get your eatery’s website and business listings to appear higher in search results (on Google and other search engines) using on-page, off-page, and local SEO techniques so that more people see your online presence when they’re researching places to eat. By ranking for specific keywords related to your type of cuisine, location, or other unique selling points, you can attract customers who are actively searching online for a restaurant just like yours.
Why Is SEO Important for Restaurants?
SEO is important for restaurants because it helps you earn more phone calls, requests for driving directions, website clicks, online orders, and in-person diners. By following our SEO recommendations of consistent listings across hundreds of local search directories and optimizing for local search ranking signals (like Google Maps), our client, Hurrdat Sports Bar saw over 3,100 driving directions requests and 661 phone calls.
An optimized online presence can also give you an edge over other businesses in a highly competitive food service industry—since more than a quarter of all restaurants do not have a website and even fewer have an online menu. After recommending they use an online menu (rather than a PDF) and build out locally optimized service pages to help improve their local SEO, Hurrdat Sports Bar saw over 6,500 website visits.
Many customers rely on local search results to help them make their decision on where to eat. If your restaurant’s website or Google Business Profile don’t appear on the first page of search results or in the Google Map Pack, you’ll likely lose business to competitors who do appear in those top positions. And because so many people look at a restaurant’s website before they visit, its user-friendliness, navigability, and design can have a huge impact on customers’ decisions to dine. Customers want to preview the menu, read reviews, and have a general understanding of the type of atmosphere a restaurant offers. If that information is not readily available, they will likely choose another place to eat.
Restaurant SEO Strategies
A solid SEO plan for restaurants will include a variety of long-term organic SEO tactics, which take some time to see results. Cherry-picking SEO tips and using DIY methods will lead to gaps and missed opportunities, so you’ll want to create and follow a well-rounded SEO strategy to give your restaurant as many chances as possible to perform well online. Start with a content marketing audience analysis, which will inform all future decisions, and follow these eight basic and advanced SEO strategies for restaurants—and apply them to website content, local citations, link-building, social media, and more.
Research Restaurant Keywords
Keyword research reveals what phrases most people are typing into Google or other search engines to find restaurants online. Use free SEO tools like Mangools’ KWFinder or Google Keyword Planner to see which keywords your competitors are ranking for so you can target similar ones in your content. Focus on non-branded, local keywords—general terms people use to look for a product or service in your area without knowing your specific business name. Here are a few common non-branded, local keyword examples for restaurants:
- Restaurants near me
- Best restaurants in [CITY]
- Places to eat in [NEIGHBORHOOD]
- Family-friendly restaurants in [CITY]
- Italian food near me
- Best Mexican food in [CITY]
As your brand gains popularity, branded search terms may rise in volume and become more important to target. Examples of branded search terms for restaurants could be:
- [Restaurant Name] catering
- [Restaurant Name] reservations
- [Restaurant Name] brunch
- [Restaurant Name] menu
These keywords will help you optimize your website, blog, local citations, review prompts, and any other online content that’s a local ranking factor.
Name Your Restaurant Carefully
While existing restaurants don’t have this luxury, if you’re starting a new business from scratch or rebranding, now is the perfect time to use a more strategic brand name. As Aaron Mackel, Hurrdat Marketing’s Digital Strategy Director, explains:
“Your business name can actually play a large part in your ability to rank in local results. Having a keyword in your business name is one of the strongest optimization tactics out there to rank in local pack and Google Maps results. An example of this is if you’re a sports bar, having ‘sports bar’ as part of your official business name is actually really beneficial.”
Of course, balance between SEO and your brand identity is important. Overly generic or keyword-stuffed names can make your restaurant less unique or memorable to people for all the wrong reasons. For example, a place called “Thai Restaurant Near You” is optimized for local search but lacks personality and might be the punchline of a joke.
Manage Your Restaurant’s Local Citations
According to Mackel:
“The most important thing for restaurants is to build their local visibility through Google Business Profile in local pack results and Google Maps.”
Before you can make any changes to your Google listing, you first need to claim your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). By owning and optimizing local business listings like Google Business Profile, you’re widening the pool of people who can discover your restaurant online. It’s important to use your previous keyword research when building out your business description. Why? Mackel answers:
“Keywords in your Google Business Profile page title and landing page headers are considered influential ranking factors for your local business listing.”
When setting up your location citations, confirm you’re using consistent NAP (name, address, and phone number) data as what’s on your website, social media profiles, and other platforms. Choose the right categories for your restaurant. And to get the most out of your Google Business Profile, you should also fill out attributes available to restaurants, like:
- Accessibility (e.g., wheelchair ramps, accessible restrooms, accessible parking, assistive listening devices, braille menu, low-noise dining)
- Dining Options (e.g., dine-in, outdoor seating, takeout, delivery, reservations)
- Health & Safety (e.g., staff required to disinfect surfaces between use)
- Highlights (e.g., Black-owned, LGBTQ-friendly)
Also, be sure your online menu is linked and you’re featuring high-quality photos and videos of your food, staff, and location through Google posts and products to make conversions more likely.
Other general local directories you should consider creating a listing for are:
Your local chamber of commerce often has a directory for businesses in your area, including restaurants, that’s helpful to be on since it’s geared towards your target audience and demonstrates your connectedness to local businesses and supporting your local community. Plus, all local citations help you earn backlinks to your site. Here are restaurant-specific business directories we recommend you be on, too:
Earn More Reviews for Your Restaurant
Almost everyone reads reviews before choosing a new restaurant, so it’s no surprise that Mackel says:
“Reviews should be the top priority for restaurants. Both quality and quantity of reviews matter for local visibility. And obviously, it will encourage real people to make a trip to your restaurant if they see the social proof they need.”
Your restaurant should be focusing on getting more reviews with positive sentiment and ratings above three stars. Even the language and keywords used in your customer reviews can play a role in your local ranking performance. When Mackel was asked how restaurants can earn better reviews from customers, he suggested:
“The most effective review strategy involves directly asking for the review while customers are in the restaurant.”
Train your employees on how to encourage customers to leave reviews, and have clear signage at the table or pay counter that directs them to your review pages. If you ask in person, it’s still important to make it easy for people to follow up outside the restaurant by including a QR code on their receipt or sending a personalized email after the visit to ask for feedback. Just remember that it’s against Google’s review policy to offer incentives in exchange for reviews, including money, discounts, free goods, or charitable donations.
Also, a couple negative reviews won’t end your restaurant. So long as the positive reviews outweigh the negative, your restaurant will be in a good position. In fact, many people think perfect five-star ratings are too good to be true. If you know how to respond to negative reviews (and positive), it can help you build trust with customers and prove to future patrons that you can handle their concerns if a less-than-perfect situation comes up during their dining experience.
Pay Attention to Technical SEO on Your Restaurant’s Website
Technical SEO makes it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and rank your website’s content, and it also makes user experience much better. To perform well online and not frustrate potential customers, your site should prioritize Google’s core web vitals, especially page speed. If pages take too long to load, people will likely lose interest and navigate away from your site (increasing your bounce rate, a negative signal to Google). One way to improve your page speed is by uploading your images as WebP files, as they load the fastest without compromising quality. Another priority should be a responsive, mobile-friendly design because 89% of dining research is completed on a mobile device before a customer visits a restaurant, and nearly 60% of food orders are made via mobile phone. Here are more ways you can help Google crawl and index your restaurant’s site:
- Canonicalize pages to avoid duplicate content issues
- Secure your website with HTTPS
- Use a robots.txt file and XML sitemap
- Follow a clean, descriptive URL structure
- Include proper use of headers, navigation, and sitemaps for a logical website structure
Write Optimized Copy for Your Webpages
Use Google E-E-A-T signals to guide the content strategy for everything on your restaurant’s website. An easy win that displays your business’ experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness is an About page, which should cover your restaurant’s story and mission.
Your menu page should clearly label each dish and note if items are vegetarian, gluten-free, or have any other dietary considerations. It should follow a logical structure, with headers separating different occasions, like lunch, dinner, brunch, or happy hour. You should also make sure that your menu is in plain text rather than a PDF so that Google bots have more content to crawl and can understand your offerings better.
For your location pages, make sure NAP data is clearly displayed so people can easily contact you and locate your restaurant. Adding a Google Maps embed of your restaurant’s location is an extra step that can greatly help visitors take action, as well as including instructions on how to make reservations—either by contacting you directly or integrating with a service like OpenTable. One last important element to have on your restaurant’s location page is a CTA to order online, which 60% of Americans do every week, but only half of all restaurants recently invested in an online ordering and delivery system.
Once you have your website fully optimized, you might be ready to start a blog for your business, though this content marketing strategy requires time, resources, clear goals, and consistency that many restaurants—especially those just opening—lack. So, you may be better served investing that effort into more advanced local SEO strategies instead of a blog.
Don’t Forget the Metadata
For all webpages and blog posts you want to be found in organic search results, you need to optimize your metadata so that search engines can correctly understand what your pages are about and categorize which queries they should appear in. Here are the three main elements to metadata, which must include keywords, the appropriate pixel count, and your brand name:
Be Active on Your Restaurant’s Social Media
Although social media is not a direct ranking factor for Google, social media marketing supports SEO efforts, both local and traditional. Keeping an eye on popular social media trends and engaging authentically with your target customers by liking comments, posting regularly, and responding to indirect social mentions can all help you increase social media engagement. And if you link your website or local citations to your social media accounts, you can drive more traffic to those places.
The best social media platforms for restaurants will depend on your audience and marketing goals, but a few popular options that are often effective in this industry are:
- Facebook: Build a strong community with regulars by responding to reviews, feedback, and comments.
- Instagram: Share food photos, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and timely promotions.
- TikTok: Increase brand visibility with trending audio and videos, particularly if you have a younger audience.
- X (formerly Twitter): Execute a customer service strategy by promptly addressing customers’ questions, compliments, or complaints, or provide urgent updates about promotions or closures.
How to Analyze a Restaurant SEO Strategy
After you’ve optimized your restaurant’s website and local citations and waited at least 90 days to see results, it’s time to evaluate the success of your restaurant SEO strategy. In addition to tracking signals like positive and negative reviews of your Google Business Profile and conversions from online food orders and reservations, here are some of the main website metrics to look at:
- Backlinks
- Bounce Rate
- Click-Through Rate
- Conversion Rate
- Engagement
- Impressions
- Keyword Rankings/SERP Positions
Here are a few tools you can use to gather these performance metrics:
- Google Search Console (Free)
- Google Analytics (Free)
- Local SEO Monitoring Tools (Paid) like Moz Local, Yext, or Whitespark
After analyzing the data, try A/B testing to determine which version (of a webpage, social media post, or email) performs better if you feel the need to readjust your restaurant’s online strategy. By analyzing these results, you can take what you’ve learned to inform your future SEO strategy.
Cost of SEO for Restaurants
Even though SEO is considered the free strategy compared to paid search campaigns, restaurants can still expect a cost to SEO and local SEO, especially if you don’t plan to learn search engine optimization best practices and do everything yourself.
Despite the price, there are several advantages to hiring an agency—mainly that they’ll have in-house experts that know how to correctly implement effective SEO strategies for restaurants. Here’s generally what you can expect for pricing when hiring an SEO agency or freelancer to help with your restaurant’s SEO plan.
Freelancer SEO Expert:
- General SEO: $20 to $150 per hour, $100 to $750 per month, or $500 to $3,000 per project
- Local SEO: $1,500 to $2,500 per month
SEO Agency:
- General SEO: $75 to $250 per hour, $500 to $2,000 per month, or $2,000 to $5,000 per project
- Local SEO: $2,500 to $5,000 per month
Looking to improve your restaurant SEO? Hurrdat Marketing‘s team of SEO experts offers many SEO services and local SEO services. Contact us today to learn more!
