7 Local SEO Best Practices for Restaurants

Many restaurant businesses need to build a solid local SEO strategy since the industry is extremely competitive in local search. Every year, more restaurants are opening, and new concept types are emerging. Therefore, restaurants should maintain a strong local SEO presence, especially if they attempt to accomplish it on a larger scale.

Despite the numerous complexities involved with developing a restaurant brand, there are several things one can do for successful local search marketing. Many restaurants get customers from queries in Google Search or Google Maps, so it’s critical to have a clear local SEO strategy.

Below are some of the best approaches to succeed in the ever-changing local search market and the best way to manage local listings and SEO at scale for enterprise restaurant brands.

1. Manage local listings for enterprise restaurant brands.

It is critical to have local listings. If one does not create a listing for their restaurant on key directories, like Google, Bing, Yelp, or Apple, the location would not appear to searchers. Moreover, listing the location on smaller directories like TripAdvisor, Zomato, Facebook, YellowPages, and OpenTable is equally significant.

A restaurant should have a listing on all relevant directories to provide Google with a ranking signal. Doing so builds citations, an effective technique to develop backlinks to the restaurant’s location page.

2. Use platforms to manage listings.

One can use a centralised platform to manage the growing number of listings with numerous attributes across all websites. Each directory accepts data differently, and making changes quickly and efficiently is important.

A centralised platform will help restaurants adapt to changes, especially during the pandemic. Most large business restaurants need a location management platform to organise all the complexities. Such platforms help businesses update information in one place and send it to numerous listing sites simultaneously.

With the help of these platforms, franchisees can access their business and make modifications without depending on corporate to do so. The franchisee owners-operators are also most familiar with their locations and any changes relevant to the location since they have control over their hours of operation or other services of their location.

Restaurants must have accurate data to reach more customers. Incorrect statuses, wrong hours, or missing links will result in missed revenue opportunities and bad reviews.

3. Manage reviews.

Customer feedback is one of the most important factors contributing to a location’s rankings. The replies to customer reviews are also taken into account by Google. Additionally, 59% of 18- to 23-year-olds say that a brand’s online reputation influences their purchasing decisions at restaurants.

Restaurants usually receive many reviews, allowing business owners to gain a lot of insights. It will take a lot of effort from both companies and franchises to manage potentially over 100,000 reviews each year. Therefore, they will need a tool that helps them manage and respond to customer feedback, much like having a platform to manage listings.

Using a platform to manage reviews will help restaurant owners see the number of reviews they generate, their scores, and other insights to improve their services in various locations further.

4. Create engaging listings content.

What makes a listing more attractive is engaging content within it. There are two ways to put engaging content on a listing:  photos and posts. Adding these will help restaurants stand out from the crowd.

Many business restaurant brands utilise the same stock images on their listings. However, having unique photos across all listings will make a business profile more engaging. Adding pictures of the restaurant’s interior, exterior, or anything that distinguishes that place, like landmarks, will significantly help potential customers.

Businesses may also utilise Google Posts to connect with clients in new, interesting ways. Creating Posts throughout each location is another way to engage directly with customers and influence rankings.

5. Making unique individual pages.

Individual pages are essential for restaurants with multiple locations because each has its own set of characteristics and services. The problem for companies is having a lot of duplicate content across thousands of pages.

Failing to differentiate each location’s page might negatively influence SEO and provide no useful information. This is interpreted by Google as the brand not providing valuable material, and no one wants to be associated with that.

6. Create locally unique content.

When it comes to local SEO, making unique content is required for businesses to get ahead of their competitors. Making hyperlocal content is a great way to get started.

Businesses might consider hyperlocal content in two ways. The first relates to the location locally, highlighting the restaurant’s surrounding areas, like important highways, stadiums, arenas, museums, universities, or other prominent landmarks.

The second aspect is about what sets each restaurant apart from the rest. It could be any special offers or events at the location, such as sporting events, weekly kids-eat-free nights, or evenings with live music or even karaoke.

Another idea is to highlight the location’s employees and their bios. The whole objective is to give as much distinct content about the place to stand out locally. Another approach to providing unique material about a location is to use specific photos rather than a uniform image across all sites.

7. Include city pages.

Another approach for better local rankings is to have city sites set up for each location. Many searches now include a city modifier, such as “restaurant in London”. Having these city sites will undoubtedly give a boost to a restaurant’s rankings.

It is also best to create one-of-a-kind content for that particular city. Site owners may take the same approach with hyperlocal news stories for cities by highlighting certain highways, neighbourhoods, arenas, museums, and other prominent landmarks that make them unique. One can even include unique photos for each city.

Position1SEO Can Boost Your Local Restaurant’s Search Visibility

Having a dedicated listing and pages strategy for enterprises is critical to boosting visibility in search. Here at Position1SEO, we can help your business reach a wider target audience and convert them to paying customers!

We are a UK-based SEO agency that specialises in local SEO strategies for any business. We offer affordable packages to help you rank higher in Google search results, get better conversions, and reach higher profits without breaking the bank. As experts in the field, we know what it takes to succeed online and have helped countless businesses achieve their goals.

No project is too small or too big for us! You may call us today for a free in-depth SEO audit and a phone consultation.