How To: Digital Online SEO Marketing For Restaurant

I was just watching “Check Please,” a Restaurant review show on channel 9 (KQED – PBS) in the San Francisco Bay Area. I saw this review on a cool Italian restaurant in Sausalito, Marin Co, in the S.F. Bay Area and was ready to plan my next date night with my wife there. BUT, of course I couldn’t resist looking at their website a little closer. I was flabbergasted (is that still a word?) at what I saw. NO SEO at all. I mean ZERO! How Google knew to list them as a ‘Sausalito restaurant’ at all (on page 3), is amazing. Cudo’s to Google. Shame on this restaurant owner.

How and why do Restaurants fail at digital marketing?

The problem is restaurant company management, or lack of. A typical restaurant owner is the person to open and close the place. Many times, they are the cook, the HR department, the bookkeeper, the marketeer and the out front person to greet patriants. On top of this, many restaurant owners are the food buyers, boose buyers and employee coaches. So it’s not too amazing that they wouldn’t realize that their local restaurant is on page 3 on Google, or is getting bad reviews on Yelp.

Fast forward 18 months and the new “cool” restaurant is struggling

The last thing that restaurant owners seem to do is, pay attention to their online marketing. Huge mistake! Why? Imagine this…I’m in San Francisco and I ask a local, “what are some things to see around here?” OK, I’m a dumb tourist. The friendly San Franciscoian suggest that we should go over to Sausalito, browse the retail shopping and check out the nice Sausalito restaurants. We do and when we get hungry, we whip out our phones and start searching. We forgot the name of the restaurant that we just saw on KQED channel 9, so we chose a restaurant found on page one of our search on Google mobile.

Another restaurant sale lost again, again and again, every minute a person is searching for a restaurant in your area and doesn’t find you is another lost.

What should a restaurant owner do to improve their digital web marketing? It’s pretty easy really.

1. Insure you get some basic SEO work done on your website (title tags, etc).
2. People like menus, show them one.
3. People like photos of the restaurant, show them some. Photos of food are really hard to do right. Skip it if your budget is low. People want to know about the experience. Show them happy people having a good time.
4. List your website on the 13 something + free listing websites.
5. Start and maintain a G+ account and a Google place account.
6. VERY important- make sure your website is mobile friendly (Responsive). Over 60% of people searching for restaurants, are doing so on a mobile device.

The bottom line is, if you own a restaurant and want to keep your tables full, higher a top notch SEO and digital marketing company to promote your restaurant and watch your back. If you think you have time or your 20 something year old receptionist/greeter is going to do it for you, you may want to think again. Call a top notch seo company and digital company today.

Specializing in digital marketing and SEO for Restaurants – The SEOpro.pro Call 510-276-9902