Localized SEO For Restaurants: 7 Tips For Great Results

Search engine optimization or SEO is a vital part of any online component to a business in the modern era. Establishing your ranking and your overall relationship with the search engines you are listed on is a vital part to keeping the company going in the competitive online market.

Localized SEO is really useful for small businesses of all types, especially restaurants, which, unless they have achieved a huge reputation, will usually rely heavily on local demand. The difficulty of getting localized SEO right can be the difference between success and failure for some restaurants. It’s a combination of content and presentation and it has a uniquely important bearing on how much traffic your site, and subsequently your restaurant, can expect to garner. So, without any further delays, here are 7 tips for achieving great localized SEO for your restaurant.

1. Images

Use of images is a great place to start with improving your website in terms of SEO. Images draw users in so when you use them effectively it garners you more clicks, more activity and fewer click-aways, something which search engines frown upon, and which can damage your ranking. Including geo-tags on photos is also a great way to place the photos of your restaurant and the food to get the localized part of it down.

So much about the restaurant business is about the visuals, so having great images on your website is important. Take a look at the example above from Pieology‘s homepage. All of the elements are visually appealing which can make the visitors attracted to the restaurant. It grabs attention which means that your bounce rates will stay low. People will scroll down when they see something like this.

2. Consistency

Consistency is one of the biggest issues for a lot of sites, particularly those relating to small companies. A lot of restaurants, for example, are unlikely to have a full-time site manager, who updates the content and adjusts the website as trends shift. “Consistent site cultivation is a really important part of SEO. Letting content go stale, even on a small site, will cause your rank to drop and your search engine to treat your site as less of a priority”, says James Jacoby, a marketing manager at Australian Help.

3. Google Places and Local Google +

Google is obviously one of the places you want to start in terms of search engine-based work. One of the most interesting things which Google offers you as a company is localized features. Google Places and Google My Business are both tools which you can use to interact with localized users who are searching for a restaurant to attend. It also allows them to interact with you as you respond to reviews, positive or negative.

4. SEO Copywriting

One of the key things that offers your site a good ranking etc. is the written content on your website. Localized SEO is largely determined by the writing that appears on it. One of the factors at play is keyword writing. Keyword are a tricky business: they are hard to identify and the response to them is complex. Plus, if you overuse them you risk getting punished by the search engine for keyword abuse.

5. Social Media

For restaurants particularly, social media can be important. It’s incredibly important that availability is promoted and running a successful social media set of profiles will help you connect more directly with customers and can improve your localized SEO.

This image from Sweetgreen is a great example of what you can do with good social media strategy. “They have done two things at the same time – grabbed your attention with a great picture of their food which means that you will want to visit their restaurant and they have also shared a link where they can attract more attention to their food” comments Elizabeth Woods, a social media marketer at Academized.

6. Conversions

If you’re running successful localized SEO, the signifier of that fact isn’t that your getting a lot of clicks. Sure, you might find that getting lots of clicks is a good thing (it almost certainly is). However, the true test of SEO success is results, meaning restaurant attendance and, ultimately, sales.

7. Keep Monitoring

Setting things in place is great. But localized SEO is a spectrum, it’s not black and white. So you can’t rely on it being done once, you have to keep checking your stats, results and improving on your performance throughout for the best overall case for your restaurant.

Conclusion

Localized SEO is crucial for all sites, but for sites that link to local businesses, especially restaurants and the like, it has to be done with a specific outlook. It can’t be taken too lightly and, by using some of these tips, you should be well on the way to success.

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Nora Mork is a business journalist at Ukwritings. She regularly speaks at public events, and researches and writes article for B2B websites.