[Updated May 16, 2023] Local SEO is an enormous source of visibility for a restaurant. Arriving in the top results on Google, Bing or Qwant guarantees a steady stream of customers through your doors! We'll explain how local SEO works for a restaurant, and end the article with 7 actionable tips to get your search engine optimization off the ground.
Are you well placed on Google, Bing, Qwant and the others? To find out, do the test: open your favorite search engine, enter your specialty and your city (or neighborhood if you're in a big city). Do you come up with the first results? If not, it's time to take an interest in local SEO for your restaurant : it doesn't have to take a lot of time, and it could be very profitable for you.
Indeed, local SEO is very profitable for restaurants. According to this Google study, 4 out of 5 consumers regularly conduct local searches, whether they're at home, in transit, on the street...
Above all, they take into account the results to take action: according to the same study, 18% of local searches lead to a purchase, compared with 7% of global searches. Being well-placed on Google is therefore a real growth lever: combined with other marketing tools, it increases your sales by attracting customers looking for a restaurant near you.
Attracting visitors to your restaurant's website through SEO is the first step. The next step is to create an attractive site that will turn these visitors into customers. To do this, you can set up a reservations page. You can also offer click & collect ordering, home delivery or additional sources of revenue (goodies, workshops, etc.) to convert that 1st place on Google into revenue in euros.
Does coming first on Google seem like an unattainable goal for your restaurant? This is even less the case with the display of increasingly localized results. With a minimum of effort, local SEO will enable you to appear on Google Search results pages and on Google Maps, all the more easily as local SEO is still often neglected by restaurants.
The goal isn't so much to come first in your city, across all restaurants, as to target the top 3 in your type of cuisine and neighborhood. It's much easier - and more profitable! Arriving first on expressions like "Bobun place du capitole" ensures a flow of customers already interested in your concept (provided you actually sell bobuns - otherwise, there's no point! ). All that's left to do is tell Google what you do, and for that, there's a ready-made (and free) toolbox: Google My Business.
It's Google My Business that allows Google to identify a business and list it in its business sector and neighborhood. The results are then displayed directly on the results pages, in what is known as the knowledge graphas shown below:
Another benefit of SEO: position your restaurant in 1st place for queries relating to the type of cuisine you offer. For example, Muang Thai, a Thai restaurant in Toulouse, is highly visible if you type "restaurant thaï Toulouse" into Google:
To achieve these results, you'll need a website, a minimum of optimization, and the right keywords.
Behind the term "local SEO", there's a trend that everyone has noticed: Google modifies the results of certain searches according to the location of the searcher.
You won't see the same results, depending on whether you type "Vietnamese restaurant" in Toulouse or Strasbourg.
This allows even the smallest restaurants to aim for the top positions on Google in their city.
For example, depending on your type of kitchen, your location and your offer, you can apply the tips below to arrive first on :
Restaurants that appear in a good position in the knowledge graph have several things in common: they have fed their Google My Business account with accurate information, and they have good ratings on Google reviews. This is your priority for boosting your restaurant's SEO, but it's not the only lever. Here are our 7 tips for boosting your local SEO:
Activate your Google My Business account and feed it with up-to-date information (address, types of specialities, contact details, opening hours, photos of dishes and dining room, menu...).
Take control of your pages on severalonline review sites (TripAdvisor, LaFourchette, Yelp...) and feed them with up-to-date information.
Get positive customer reviews on all these sites, especially Google. Respond to both positive and negative reviews. This tip is particularly important, as 5-star ratings are displayed in the knowledge graph!
Want to get lots of positive reviews fast? That's what the Hey Pongo Booster is all about! This wheel of fortune enables you to collect a huge number of reviews, in a very short time.
[.is--yellow-highlight]Côté Sushi (Enghien) got 120 reviews in 20 days with the Booster![.is--yellow-highlight] Do like him :
Keep your social networks social networks with interesting content.
Try to gather keywords for which you'd like to rank first. For example:
Create a showcase website for your restaurant, with a page dedicated to each of the keywords defined in step 5. A Wordpress or Wix site is generally sufficient for an independent restaurant, and doesn't take long to set up for someone with a little knowledge.
Optimize your website for local SEO. Include your address, a Google Maps insert and opening hours at the foot of each page. Display customer reviews on your site. Use URLs and images that respect Google's recommendations. On this page, you can find all the basic tips for optimizing a site for local SEO.
Once installed at the top of Google results, the effects are guaranteed! A restaurant that's well referenced and well rated by customers is guaranteed to have a steady flow of customers, winter and summer alike.
