Competition among car dealerships is high, which is why you need a well thought out and effective marketing strategy to take your automotive business to the next level. “Bird-dogging” is not allowed in the automotive industry, which means that automotive dealers need to get creative in how they reach their desired customers. One of the most effective ways to market a car dealership is through car dealership online advertising. Why is online advertising so important for car dealerships? For one, advertising your dealership online will broaden awareness and increase exposure among a niche geographically targeted audience. Car dealership online advertising will help your business show up as one of the top results in a potential customer’s search and be extremely effective at converting more leads from people who are searching for solutions. Almost everyone is on social media, so take advantage of this! Online advertising by promoting your car dealership on social media will entice new customers and help you grow your business.

Keep reading to find out the best car dealership online advertising methods and learn how to bring more traffic to your business.

Most Effective Car Dealership Online Advertising Methods: 

1. Paid Social Media 
2. Social Media Influencers
3. Search Engine Marketing (Google Ads)
4. Search Engine Optimization (On-Page/Off-Page)
5. Third-Party Listings
6. Event Marketing
7. Email Marketing
8. CRM Marketing with Lead Capture
9. Conclusion

1. Paid Social Media Advertising

Social media marketing will help your car dealership develop a brand and establish an online presence. By growing a community on social media, you will be able to help your business develop a loyal customer base. Car dealership online advertising on social media will help your business closely engage with potential customers and peak interest in your brand. There are several platforms that are useful for social media advertising, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Twitter. You can unlock the full potential of digital marketing by harnessing the power of social media!

2. Social Media Influencers

Influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing forms of advertising because of how effective it is. Influencer marketing is especially effective for specific niches such as the automotive niche, and is a highly effective car dealership online advertising tool. Influencers have a loyal fan base of people who trust their judgment. Because of this, if an influencer promotes your product, their authentic content will be trusted by their followers. Influencers help increase brand awareness with cost-efficient User Generated Content (UGC). When an influencer creates UGC and posts it, this creates a “bump”. A “bump” is a dramatic spike in brand awareness, followers, and traffic to your business because of the increased engagement brought on by the influencer. Check out this case study where influencer marketing helped an automotive client  reach 50k+ of their target audience in just a few days.

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3. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, such as pay per click (PPC) advertising, is highly effective for businesses that have the budget and ability to fund paid ads. PPC helps businesses like car dealerships achieve dramatic growth in a very short amount of time. Particularly considering the added benefit to many car dealerships that receive co-op advertising budgets from their automotive manufacturing brand, PPC advertising is useful in helping your car dealership discover your audience and accelerate business growth. It’s an excellent source of growth because it has trackable data and direct reports on return on investment. The leading platform for PPC advertising is Google Ads (paid search). Google Ads are worth the investment for your business because of their flexibility and effectiveness.  Google Ads allow you to reach a virtually unlimited target audience, and give you the ability to start, stop, pause, or adjust your bids at any time.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most successful ways to bring more traffic to your car dealership through organic search engine results. SEO is a way of trying to rank high in search engine results with multiple keywords across all search engines. You want your business to be the first result to appear when a customer searches for any keywords related to your business. For example, for a car dealership, you want your business to appear first when users search for keywords such as “best car dealership near me” or “where to buy a car near me.” When a potential customer is looking online to purchase a car, you want your business to be the top result that appears when they conduct their search. This will make it easier to bring traffic to your business and allow users to purchase the services that you offer.  SEO can be applied to many of your marketing efforts, such as your website, web pages, videos, social media posts, infographics, and more. With proper SEO applied, your business content will show up as the first result and help you get more exposure and direct traffic. 

When applying SEO to your website, you want to make sure that your website and server are optimized with technical SEO. By properly applying technical SEO, Google and other search engines will be able to find your website and index it, boosting your website in search engine results. In addition to keywords, make sure to include internal and external links. Backlinks also help improve the trustworthiness of your website. Backlinks are links from other websites that link back to your page, and a website with a high amount of backlinks will appear to be of more quality to the search engines. 

SEO that is applied to your car dealership online advertising will provide many benefits. It will help your car dealership website appear at the top of organic search engine results, which will increase traffic and bring more customers to your business.

5. Third-Party Listing

Another powerful car dealership online advertising strategy is listing the automobiles that your dealership is selling on third-party listing websites such as Google My Business and Yelp. Third-party listing websites know how to achieve goals and reach a specific target audience. Listing cars on a third-party website will expand your brand visibility with little additional effort. Additionally, using a third-party will save your business time and energy. When consumers are searching for a specific vehicle, many turn to third-party websites. By using a third-party listing website, you may be able to reach customers who aren’t aware that your dealership even exists.

6. Brand Collaborations

Brand collaboration marketing is specifically a good marketing tool for car dealership online advertising. Promotion of brand collaborations which appeal to the niche demographic audience of your automotive dealership gives you an opportunity to build relationships with a new segment of prospective customers. By exposing your dealership and automotive brand to the online followers and customers of these non-competing brands, you align your business with brands that have already made their way into the hearts and minds of customers, to appear more authentic and trustworthy. In addition, brand collaboration marketing will help increase brand awareness and bring your business to life. At an event such as a test drive event for new car models, you can take these opportunities to incentivize customer engagement by promoting the brands those customers care about. This ultimately can generate quality customer relationships and stimulate sales. It’s important to use brand collaboration marketing to provide the personal touch that traditional marketing outlets often lack.

Vivid Candi drove brand awareness for Volvo among the dealership’s target market by using brand collaboration giveaways with brands that appeal to their target audience – new and expecting mothers in and around Santa Monica, California.

7. Email Marketing

Email marketing is important for car dealership online advertising because it provides consistent results. Email marketing is a strategy to remarket to existing customers. There are several different types of email marketing campaigns, such as manual or automated newsletter, welcome messages, birthday messages, upsells and limited time offers. Email marketing works well because it’s cost efficient and increases customer loyalty. By marketing to customers that are already loyal to your business, they will continue to be engaged and be excited about your business.

Email marketing is cost efficient and doesn’t require a lot of time and effort. A digital marketing agency can help automate custom email campaigns and send specific emails to customers based on their needs and interests. A digital marketing agency can help maintain customer loyalty by using this effective marketing technique.

8. CRM Marketing with Lead Capture

Customer relationship management (CRM) marketing are the strategies that marketers use in order to manage relationships with their customers. A CRM tool will allow your business to store customer and prospect contact information, identify sales opportunities, and automatically set in-person appointments and sales follow-ups. CRM tools also allow you to cater to the needs of specific customers and build better relationships. You will be able to market more effectively and generate more leads by better understanding your audience and customer base.

Next Steps: Implementing Your Car Dealership Online Advertising Strategy

Online advertising is extremely beneficial for brick and mortar car dealerships. With these tips and tricks, you can implement an effective car dealership online advertising strategy to help boost your business. Online advertising will help broaden your exposure, increase traffic, and generate leads and new customers. Get help with all of your online advertising needs with a full-service marketing agency. An all-in-one marketing team will ensure that all of your marketing needs will be met with talent that specializes in each area of marketing. 

Vivid Candi is a full-service marketing agency located in Malibu, CA. We offer a wide variety of services such as PPC, SEO, digital advertising, social media marketing, custom website design, and more. With our holistic approach, we  diversify efforts across channels to help your business reach its full potential.
Schedule a free consultation with Vivid Candi today by calling 310-456-1784 or filling out this quick form today!

The post Car Dealership Online Advertising 101 first appeared on Vivid Candi.

During her presentation, Anita Hoffman covered a variety of women empowerment topics in Spanish including how women can utilize 4 agreements analysis to feel confident in a male-dominated STEM field.

She went on to also explain “HEVAA” – a holistic acronym that she came up with as a foundation and methodology. “HEVAA” includes a 5-pillar thesis that helps women in tech self-assess and feel equally capable as men in tech, despite the gender stereotypes presented by certain societal circumstances.

H = Humanity. This represents how you want to show up and make a difference in the world.

E = Education. Equip yourself to learn and develop skills on a global level to prepare for opportunities, especially in a world where remote working is becoming normal for the STEM field.

V = Vision. How to envision yourself down the line so you can take the steps toward achieving your highest value.

A = Achievement. How to celebrate small wins and milestones despite society’s lack of recognition for the success achieved by women.

A = Accelerate. Be an agent of change, to advance yourself, your team and your organization. Expand your perspective to view endless opportunities globally and locally that align with your vision and purpose.

Anita Hoffman and Vivid Candi believe in the celebration of women in technology and recognize women as a strong force in steering modern digital marketing and technology on a global level.

The post Vivid Candi’s Chief Operation Officer – Anita Hoffman Spoke at Mexico Women in ICT Network in honor of International Women in Engineering Day first appeared on Vivid Candi.

Top Services Full-Service Marketing Agencies Offer:

1. Account Audit & Marketing Strategy
2. Performance Monitoring & Data Analytics
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
4. Web Design & Development
5. Pay Per Click (PPC), Paid Media
6. Social Media Marketing (Paid & Organic)
7. Email Marketing
8. Influencer Marketing
9. Conclusions

Account Audit & Marketing Strategy

No winds are favorable if a ship doesn’t have a destination. This especially rings true if you want to execute marketing campaigns across multiple channels. Clear marketing strategies can help you plan for flawless execution, distribute budget and plan out existing resources to achieve maximum return on investment.

A full-service marketing agency usually performs an account audit and analyzes existing data across various marketing channels as the first step to identifying areas for improvement. This step can uncover information about your ideal customer demographics, age, locations and what has worked well for your business before.

A good marketing strategy will clearly define the desired objectives and how to achieve them based on your unique business. A lead generation strategy for a B2B company is different from promoting a financial planning service company or an E-Commerce jewelry brand. With in-depth account audit and strategic planning, agencies can kickoff your campaigns with end goals in mind.

Sometimes agencies can go an extra step to show you behind-the-scenes data from your direct competitors. Working with an agency can help you utilize marketing tools that an in-house team or freelancers may not have the access to.

Performance Monitoring & Data Analytics

Monitoring performance and making changes based on marketing data is crucial to the ongoing success of any marketing campaign. A full-service marketing agency can help you understand the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of your campaigns and make insightful suggestions based on existing and new data.

Marketing campaigns are not just “set it and forget it”. It requires skilled specialists who are trained to understand if a campaign is underperforming or knocking it out of the park with amazing results.

A great benefit of working with a full-service marketing agency that is experienced with integrated marketing is that your business can lift brand awareness and increase sales across the board. You can also reap the benefits of the compound increase in results. There is a golden 7 rule in advertising: A prospect needs to be exposed to an advertising message 7 times for them to take an action. This rule also applies to digital marketing. It’s always better to reach your customers multiple times from the devices and software that they use on a daily basis.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A well-equipped full-service marketing agency usually offers Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to rank business websites on top positions on the Search-Engine-Results-Page such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. Optimizing your website’s search engine ranking ability is a great way to help you show up in the search results when potential customers look for solutions and products online.

SEO can be applied to all the content on your website including images, videos, infographics and more. SEO is also separated into technical SEO and content SEO. A full-service marketing agency has the resources to not only optimize a website’s “gears”, but also produce high-quality and unique content for the website’s “look”.

A technical SEO specialist is also an expert at building internal, external and back-links for websites so that search engines such as Google and Bing can understand how much “authority” your website has regarding a certain topic.

All in all, SEO is extremely beneficial to a business’ long-term online presence and is a vital part of recommendations from a full-service marketing agency.

Full-Stack Web Design & Development

Web design is essential for any business in the modern world. A website is a business’ digital storefront.  A business website needs to encapsulate your brand’s identity, services, and products with visually pleasing UX/UI design, and have the ability to convert website traffic into action-taking customers at a high percentage. Creating a custom website for your business instead of doing it yourself, using templates or hiring freelancers will not only make the website-creation process easier for you, but it will also produce better results by making a great impression when customers visit your site.

For example, we redesigned the website for a resort – Lake Arrowhead, with beautiful UI/UX that has a special emphasis on the mobile experience.  The revamped website increased page sessions by 59%.

Full-service marketing agencies also provide Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) services to improve an existing website and help it convert better.

Pay Per Click (PPC), Paid Media for Instant Results

Pay Per Click marketing (PPC) is one of the best ways to bring instant results for businesses that have the budget to do so. Paid advertising includes paid search, paid social media, programmatic ads, display ads, native ads and more. With advanced targeting options, advertisers can help you put your business in front of your ideal customers with PPC.

PPC marketing involves researching keywords and audience interests, setting up PPC accounts, testing campaigns, optimizing landing pages, and analyzing results for continuous improvement.  PPC marketing is an excellent source for businesses to achieve massive short-term growth. With trackable data and direct reports on return on investment, PPC specialists can help you accelerate your business growth and elevate your brand awareness.

Studies show that video ads continue to outperform image or text-based ads. According to Databox, 52% of marketers say that video drives more engagement than images.

A full-service marketing agency can help you produce high-quality video content, launch campaigns, and build out your conversion channels with retargeting ads. Research from PPC can also be applied to other digital assets such as website design, social media, and SEO. 

For instance, our agency helped a real estate client discover a new market for a cheaper product line through PPC efforts.  Want to know how we did it? See the entire study here.  

Social Media Marketing (Paid & Organic)

Social media marketing is all about bringing your brand’s image to life and being authentic for the internet community! Having a social media strategy helps brands closely engage with potential customers and grow a community of loyal fans. There are a few different channels for social media marketing, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Snapchat among many others, all running with different algorithms.

A full-service marketing agency can help you sync content across all platforms, creating a cohesive brand voice and analyzing insight data to see what your audience likes to see the most. This helps you save money on creating content that can potentially go viral.

Paired with effective paid social advertising, your social media accounts can become a sales-generating machine.

Want to see how we increased social media conversions by 300%+ for a restaurant business? See our case studies here.

Email Marketing for Consistent Results

Email marketing is a marketing strategy used by many businesses to re-market to existing customers utilizing first-party data.  With tools and software, email marketing can be automated newsletters, welcome messages, birthday messages, upsells, and limited-time offers. Email marketing automation can help segment customers who have different interests and send them personalized, tailored content to boost customer loyalty. It is also cost-efficient since it’s so much cheaper to market to existing customers. Email marketing is a great way to keep your customers engaged and excited about your business all year round! 

Email marketing is also known to increase conversion for eCommerce and online ordering, considering the fact that 69.57% of consumers abandon their shopping carts. This positive result is clearly demonstrated in one of our case studies for a restaurant client. In this case study, we grew the client’s email list by 12k in 10 months and set up 12 automated email series.  Two of the automated emails recovered 260 abandoned orders in 2 months.

Influencer Marketing for User-Generated-Content (UGC)

Brands in the fashion, beauty, automotive, and lifestyle industries can benefit from influencer marketing.  Influencers help brands increase brand awareness with cost-efficient User-Generated-Content (UGC).  It is one of the most effective content marketing strategies as users on social media prefer authentic content that they can trust.

When working with Instagram influencers with 100k to 1 million or more followers, your brand will experience a “bump”.  A “bump” is when a well-known influencer creates a drastic increase in your brand awareness, followers, website traffic, and sales by recommending your brand on their social media platforms to their fans who trust their recommendations. 

Influencer marketing is a key to success for many lifestyle and beauty brands because they produce organic popularity. One of our automotive clients reached 50k+ of their target audience in just a few days with an influencer post.

Work with a Full-Service Digital Marketing Agency

Working with an all-in-one marketing team that has a collaborative environment can help your brand deliver award-winning integrated marketing campaigns. Outsourcing your marketing to an agency team that works efficiently together can maximize results for your business. With comprehensive strategies and solutions to grow your brand in 360 degrees, an agency can help you streamline and automate marketing without your in-house team scrambling to catch up with modern digital marketing technologies on every platform. Your agency can easily diversify your marketing effort to help you reach your full potential. 

Vivid Candi is a full-service marketing agency located in Malibu, CA. We offer a wide variety of services such as PPC, SEO, digital advertising, social media marketing, web design, and more.  We are a cohesive team that divides the work between different specialists to ensure that we produce the highest quality work with noticeable results. 

Schedule a free consultation with our experts today!

Call (310) 456-1784

The post Full-Service Marketing Agency Services first appeared on Vivid Candi.

A full-service marketing agency can handle from high-level marketing strategy to step-by-step execution. It’s proven that utilizing a full-service marketing agency can help businesses get better results, reduce the guesswork for in-house marketing staff and receive expert insights into industry trends.

Want to know the highlights of the benefits of a full-service marketing agency? Check out this infographic below!

A Full-Service Marketing Agency Offers Top Services Including:

• Account Audit & Marketing Strategy
• Performance Monitoring & Data Analytics
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Web Design & Development
• Pay Per Click (PPC)
• Social Media Marketing (Paid & Organic)
• Email Marketing
• Influencer Marketing

Want to know how we can help you grow your business digitally? Contact us today!

The post Why A Full-Service Marketing Agency Can Benefit Your Business first appeared on Vivid Candi.

By applying effective restaurant SEO marketing, you will help your business appear first in the search results, ahead of your competitors. When potential customers search for certain keywords related to your restaurant, they will find you at the top of the search engine results. This shows that your restaurant is the best option for what they are looking for.

For example, when customers search for “best seafood restaurant with bar near me” if your restaurant happens to meet their criteria, you want to be one of the first search results. This can be done with restaurant SEO.

Restaurant SEO involves many aspects including optimizing your restaurant’s website copies, URL, social media SEO, and other digital platforms where you can build a presence. To ensure that you are targeting the correct search traffic, it’s necessary to research keywords that are directly linked to your niche. 

Let’s take a look at two aspects of SEO-on-page SEO and off-page SEO. One of the first steps in implementing these keywords is on-page SEO. On-page SEO consists of including your niche keywords in meta tags, titles, and descriptions. This will ensure that your restaurant appears higher on search results than your competitors.

Off-page SEO is also known as link building. SEO specialists build out a tier of backlinks from reputable sites which link to your website. Search engines boost websites that have a lot of other websites linking back to them. High-quality backlinks help Google and other search engines recognize your website’s credibility. 

And don’t forget Google Maps! 

Google Maps offer many functions for local businesses to showcase themselves. Restaurants can add beautiful photos and videos of their dishes, and even get tons of reviews to show off their popularity. An optimized Google Maps can be super beneficial for a local business like yours! It also has a special boost from Google as Google loves to put Google Maps and Google My Business information above most other types of content.

This offers a high return on investment because every time a customer actively seeks “food near them”, they will see your restaurant as one of the first results!

Here are six Restaurant SEO tips that will boost your website’s search engine rankings.

1. Identify keywords

To begin, make a list of the keywords that you want to appear in an online search for your business. People tend to conduct their searches using phrases, so having a mix of single words and phrases (called long-tail keywords) is a good idea. Keywords should include both generic terms such as “restaurants in Utah” or “quick food restaurants in Louisiana” and specialized terms such as “alfresco wine bar” or “vegan pasta”. 

Consideration of your customer segments can help you identify more niche keywords. For example, if your restaurant is pet-friendly, you might include that as one of your keywords.

2. Get listed on online directories

Don’t forget to list your restaurant on sites like Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places for Business, and other restaurant listing sites. Make sure you have all of the necessary information, including your address, business hours, contact information, and website. Your data should be consistent across all sites. Any modifications to the information should be updated as soon as possible. Submitting your information to more directories can help you improve your chances of appearing in localized searches.

Backlinks can also be used to increase traffic to your website. A backlink is a link from one website to another website. These links are super beneficial to your website’s SEO rating and domain authority since Google places a higher value on websites with a large number of high-quality, authoritative backlinks.

3. Have lots of pictures

There is no doubt that we live in a visual age. Even Google acknowledges that having visual content is an important website ranking factor! A good idea is to take pictures of everything: the outside of your building, the inside of your restaurant, the food (of course the cuisine!), unique events, and anything else that has visual appeal. Include these on your website and throughout all of your social media sites. Make sure these image files include optimal alt tags and descriptions so Google can show them high up in the search results.

It’s important to not forget social media SEO. Optimizing your social media with keywords will be highly beneficial in improving your internet visibility. Visual information, such as photographs or videos, will pique the interest of potential customers. People who interact with your restaurant on social media may not become a customer right away, but you can guarantee that their social engagement can help spread the word of your restaurant to their entire network of friends and family. When posting on social media, a good strategy is to include relevant hashtags and links that refer to your website. This can help with your link building.

Some ideas are to post photos that highlight the food and the restaurant’s interiors and exteriors. These photos can encapsulate the overall vibe of the restaurant and help customers know what to expect.  

Another idea is collaborating with food bloggers who are the best at creating user generated content (UGC) for your restaurant. You can ask famous food bloggers to include a link to your restaurant website on their blog or social media bio link, this is another way to increase exposure to your restaurant!

To summarize, social media networks such as Facebook and Instagram and search engines such as Google Search or Google Maps are the most popular ways that customers find which restaurants to go to. This is why restaurant SEO is such an important marketing aspect. A good SEO expert knows how to approach each channel differently to get the best results. A mindset to adapt will help you communicate with your audience more organically and get the most out of your digital marketing efforts.

4. Generate regular content

Blogs allow you to add your keywords to the website copies. Well-written blogs help you address a variety of topics catered to various customer interests. You can write about both internal events within your restaurant and more general issues such as nutrition or sustainable farming. The first step is to determine which keywords you want to use and weave them into your blog naturally (No one likes keyword stuffing).

When you optimize your web pages, including your blog entries, you can make your website more known to individuals searching for your product or service. Blogging can help Google position your website as a relevant answer to your customers’ questions. Blog entries that employ a range of on-page SEO techniques can help your site rank higher in search engines and appeal to more readers.

5. Add your restaurant to review sites

Google values reviews and favors establishments with positive feedback. There are so many benefits when you put yourself out there on major review sites to encourage your customers to leave reviews publicly. A large number of favorable reviews establishes your credibility and trustworthiness, allowing you to rank better in Google search results.

Being a restaurant on Yelp can help you reach people from all around the world, but more importantly, reach locals looking for good meals. Yelp is available to businesses for free and is essentially free SEO for your restaurant since Yelp counts as a backlink too.

For restaurant businesses, reviews are very important in attracting new customers. When someone is looking for a place to eat, they will be more likely to book a reservation or simply stroll in if they read many great things your customers have written about you. 

6. Make your online ordering option a priority

Your website should 100% have a distinct page for online orders. You can include the terms “online ordering,” “pickup,” and “takeout” to clearly indicate the purpose of this page. It’s even better to include the phrase “online-ordering” in the URL. People running wide searches like “takeout restaurants in Florida” can find you more readily this way. 

Every visitor to your website is a prospective customer. The more people visit your restaurant’s website, the more revenue potential you will have. Restaurant SEO has long-term benefits to your restaurant’s online presence overall!

Some examples of engaging SEO friendly content include:

Blog: A weekly or monthly blog detailing the current happenings at your restaurant, such as events, new menu items, or information on your signature dish. If your material is relevant to your current or future consumers, it will result in an increase in viewers, which will lead to a better SEO ranking and increased restaurant foot traffic.

Customer Reviews: Request reviews from customers or host tasting sessions for influencers, then post the results on your website and social media accounts. It will not only provide frequent content for your website, but it will also make your clients feel special and a part of your success. It’s an excellent sales technique for attracting more customers.

Photos and Videos: Share photos of your food, the events you’re attending, or videos of what’s going on in the kitchen. Pictures and videos tend to capture more attention from the audience and are easier to engage with. As a result, it’s an excellent strategy to drive more traffic to your website and restaurant while also enhancing your restaurant’s SEO position.

Vivid Candi provides restaurants with SEO services and tactics that help them stand out and get recognized, resulting in more visitors to their website.

Why restaurants should work with an agency that offers SEO specialized in restaurants.

The restaurant business is a demanding brick & mortar industry that includes a lot of moving parts due to its non-digital nature. You must have a menu that will appeal to a wide range of customers while keeping up with the current health trends, and advertise your business well to stand out from the competition. 

Restaurant SEO is important for success simply because local advertisement is not enough now that most people look online for information instead. Hiring an SEO agency that specializes in restaurants can add many benefits to your digital marketing strategies. Here at Vivid Candi, we specialize in helping restaurants with a variety of marketing services including restaurant SEO, and have created tons of digital success for our brick & mortar restaurant clients.

Don’t know how to do restaurant SEO yourself? Then work with our pros! We offer a free consultation to help create your own restaurant SEO strategy.

CALL: (310) 456 -1784

The post 6 Restaurant SEO Tips to Boost Your Website Ranking first appeared on Vivid Candi.

Want more customers to discover your restaurant on search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yelp? You need restaurant SEO services (Search Engine Optimization) to help you!

According to this Forbes article, there are one billion restaurant searches on Google every month, while “food near me” is considered to be among the fastest-growing search terms.

Without a doubt, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a vital part of restaurant digital marketing. SEO helps restaurants rank their websites in top positions in the search engine results, making it easy for customers to discover dining options online.

Naturally, most restaurant owners are not SEO specialists, so they look for help from digital marketing agencies that provide restaurant SEO services.

In the United States, experienced SEO agencies can cost up to $150 to $250 per hour and most agencies would require $2,000 to $10,000 per month for their SEO services. With such as big commitment to step into the digital world, restaurant owners are still confused about what SEO services are and why they need them.

Our agency, Vivid Candi has 20+ years of experience in digital marketing for restaurants. In this article, we will help you understand what SEO services entail and how your restaurant business can benefit from them.

5 Common Restaurant SEO Services:

1. Keyword research & strategy planning
2. Content creation (SEO blogs, infographics, social media SEO)
3. On-page SEO
4. Quality link-building
5. Technical SEO

1. Research restaurant SEO keywords that are easy to rank and have high traffic volume.

If your restaurant works with a professional SEO agency (Like Us!) to grow your website traffic, the first thing is to do keyword research.

With popular keyword research tools such as Google Search Consoles, Semrush and Ubersuggest, SEO specialists can see what keywords your restaurant’s website already ranks for and which keywords ranking they can improve. There are millions and billions of keywords on the search engines, so doing proper research is a crucial step to finding the keywords that are priorities.

After finding your restaurant’s priority SEO keywords, an SEO specialist can create a content strategy based on the keyword’s traffic, intent and ranking difficulty levels.

If you are considering using SEO to grow your restaurant’s website traffic, keep in mind that SEO is a long-term strategy that can take 3-6 months to produce results. Knowing which keywords to put your effort into can make a huge difference down the line.

2. Create high-quality content that can rank on first-page search results and increase your backlinks and shares.

We live in a world where everyone is overloaded with information.

A simple Google search “Japanese food near me” has a whopping 3 million results!

With such fierce competition, search engines’ machine learning is getting smarter at cherry-picking the best content to rank in high positions.

According to Hubspot, Google has 200 ranking factors that determine a website’s position in search results. It doesn’t mean that your restaurant’s SEO needs to meet all 200 of them, but it’s clear that Google’s complex machine-learning prefers SEO content that is informational, relevant to the search terms and easy to read.

Of course, there’s more to SEO than just amazing content. Experienced restaurant SEO specialists understand how to create content that speaks to niche customers while considering all the ranking factors for Google robots. Restaurant SEO, due to its brick & mortar B2C business model, look completely different from E-Commerce SEO or lead gen SEO.

3. Implement on-page SEO and correct errors.

On-page SEO is a method to optimize individual web pages higher in the search engine results. A restaurant SEO specialist will ensure that all of your website pages have your local niche keywords in the copies, alt-tags, meta titles and descriptions.

When customers look for a new place to eat, your restaurant can show up high on the search results and appear “more popular” than the other restaurants ranking below you.

Let’s use the same example of “Japanese food near me”.

You want to order from your go-to sushi takeout place that’s 5 minutes away but when you search “Japanese food near me”, its website is nowhere to be found. Now, you type in its name directly in Google and the website magically shows up.

This is mostly because the sushi takeout website does not have keywords in the website that can help Google understand what kind of business it is.

Typical restaurant on-site SEO services include:

• Publishing authoritative, relevant keyword-centric content (Like this blog that you are reading).
• Regularly updating your articles to reflect any new changes such as a new menu.
• Adding relevant keywords in Metadata.
• Creating internal links and content that is linkable.
• Adding alternative tags, titles, captions and descriptions in photos and videos so they can show up on Google images and Google videos.

Do your next restaurant’s photoshoot with our professional restaurant commercial video/photography service (including food stylists).

4. Build quality backlinks and referrals.

Link building is also known as off-page SEO. On-page and off-page SEO often work hand-in-hand to help websites rank higher in search results and increase traffic.

The more links point to your website, the more authoritative Google considers your website to be. For example, if many restaurant review sites point to your restaurant website, Google & Bing will think that your restaurant is popular, pumping you to the top positions on the search results page.

The quality of backlinks is also important. Having a backlink from Forbes and Yelp pointing to your restaurant is different than that from an unknown blog. There are many shady overseas SEO companies that buy backlinks that link to spam websites. Google will punish a website that has too many low-quality backlinks and erase your presence from search results for any suspicion of buying backlinks.

5. Technical SEO services for restaurants to provide better web experiences

Technical SEO includes making improvements to your website’s user experience. With a clear site map structure, Google can index your website more effectively and help serve your content to relevant searchers.

Search engines have website crawlers called “spiders”. Spiders can double-check for duplicate content, content and confined backlinks on your website.

Having a website that’s mobile-friendly and lightning-fast is a big factor in Google’s ranking. Professional website agencies that build custom WordPress websites usually install site speed optimization software to decrease website page load speed.

If a restaurant offers online ordering, a custom-built website has more freedom to add functions that can benefit increase your sales.

It’s sometimes tempting to save money and build a website through DIY Wix, Squarespace or cheap freelancers, but the downside will also limit your restaurant’s growth.

Restaurant SEO services are different from traditional SEO due to the brick & mortar business model.

Restaurant SEO services are different from SEO for e-commerce and lead gen businesses. Converting online traffic to foot traffic is a challenge and requires more than just optimizing a website. Knowledgable restaurant SEO specialists will also optimize Google My Business listing and Yelp profiles to maximize the benefits from functions offered by search engines such as Google.

Want to work with our agency to grow your restaurant’s foot traffic digitally?

Work with our Google Partner Digital Agency!

CALL (310) 456 -1784

Trusted By 100+ Restaurants

The post 5 Restaurant SEO Services You Need Now first appeared on Vivid Candi.

TikTok, a social media platform utilizing short, engaging content to connect directly with users is an excellent tool for small business owners working with limited budgets but massive creative potential. 

With one billion users averaging around over nineteen hours individually per month on the app, the software is more than just for silly dances, it is an innovative way for small business owners to promote products, gain customers and build brand recognition and loyalty.

Here are 10 best practices for marketing your small business on TikTok.

1. Update your business TikTok bio 

The bio is a way to highlight what your business does best. Use a call-to-action in your bio, linking your business’s page to direct potential customers to learn more about your brand.

2. Use a TikTok business account

Creating a business account will help you utilize TikTok’s user analytics to understand what type of content your followers like to see. For more exposure, you can also invest in paid TikTok advertising. 

3. Post 1-2 times per day on TikTok

Consistency is the key to getting results. Posting daily is integral to growing your small business TikTok page faster and gaining more followers. Consistent posting gets your videos more views and increases your chances at creating viral content. 

Work with a social media agency to grow your business!

4. Show your business’ behind the scene through TikTok

Showing your hard work behind the scenes will give users a view of your authenticity which builds trust among your followers. People want to see your dedication to customer satisfaction, and when you show it, you gain new customers.

5. Use relevant hashtags and call-to-action in the caption

Do you want to create viral content? Using hashtags is essential to getting noticed by your target audience who are searching for your content. Besides posting consistently on TikTok, it is important to research trending hashtags within your particular niche, and don’t forget to add a Call-To-Action and link your business website in the captions! 

By providing a call-to-action in your TikTok captions, you are helping people find your website and become potential customers.

6. Join Tiktok duet and collaborate with others

Dueting with a trending video builds relatability. TikTok favors creators who collaborate with others to build a community. Dueting alongside a popular user expands your potential audience by proxy. Don’t forget to show off your business during the duet to give your audience insight into why your brand resonates with the particular trending video.

7. Post videos with viral TikTok sounds

TikTok favors videos that use trending sounds. Adding a trending sound as a background in your video is the perfect way to create engaging content that can reach more viewers. Nearly 90% of users believe that sound is an essential component to great TikTok videos, so don’t post silent videos. Use sound to express yourself. 

Each TikTok sound also has its own page to showcase all the videos that include the sound. Your video might end up as a viral post on the sound’s page, increasing your exposure.

8. Hop on TikTok Trends Regularly

Recreating TikTok trends is a great way to relate to your audience and be seen as relatable. Modifying popular trends is a creative way to put your own signature on trending content. By jumping in TikTok trend, your brand is shown as a business that “has fun”.

9. Analyze the best time to post and what content engages your audience

Do you want to post when most of your target audience is online and maximize your exposure? On TikTok, certain times of a day have higher levels of engagement. By utilizing TikTok Analytics, you can research the best times to post for your target audience, and create a calendar to remind yourself to post your content at the best time.

TikTok Analytics also shows you what type of content receives the most likes and engagement on your page. You can use this data to continue to create viral content.

10. Once you find out the optimal content, niche, and best time to post, narrow down your content

It’s best not to confuse your audience with scattered content, so find the niche that’s best for you and be consistent when you post. Finding your brand’s spot will keep you focused as you create high-quality content that lands.

Conclusions

Small business owners thrive on TikTok where they don’t have to compete with the big brands dominating Facebook & Instagram. The platform lets small business owners market their businesses by being authentically themselves and connect with loyal real-world customers they wouldn’t have access to offline.

We’re living in a digital era with massive potential for small business owners to market their businesses. Platforms like TikTok can help businesses connect deeply with customers, developing long-term loyalty. Small businesses begin with authenticity, with people who are passionate enough to make their visions reality. That kind of authenticity is exactly what social media followers are searching for.  

Schedule a Free Consultation to Grow Your Social Media

Vivid Candi is a full-service digital marketing agency experienced in growing mid-sized and enterprise businesses through social media. Want to work with us to create a top notch social media strategy for your business? Book a free consultation today, or call our marketing agency at (310) 456-1784.

The post 10 TikTok Tips to Market Your Small Business first appeared on Vivid Candi.

We all want to grow our Instagram organically with real, engaging followers

Fake influencers buy followers in order to make themselves look more “influential” so they can collaborate with businesses. This usually means that influencers receive free products and sometimes a fee for posting about a brand.

Working with influencers who have a large following is a great social media marketing strategy but without proper “screening”, influencers who buy large numbers of fake followers lead to little to no engagement on their posts, producing no return on investment for the brands who collaborate with them.

Luckily, popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok invest a tremendous amount of effort in cracking down on bots and fake accounts, but there are still many fake influencers who buy followers, likes and even comments, making it tricky for brands to differentiate the fake influencers from the authentic influencers.

Below, we will show you the 4 tips that can help you spot fake influencers instantly. Let’s check them out…

How to Spot Fake Influencers

Tip 1. Their comments look like spam.

Fake followers don’t engage with any posts because, well, they are fake! Influencers who buy fake followers often end up having to buy fake comments. If the comments on an influencer’s posts look like generic spam, there is a high possibility that the influencer buys fake followers. Catching fake followers through comments is easier when there are multiple generic comments not specific to the particular post. If you see an influencer page with a lot of comments such as “Great pictures!”, “Nice”, “Good photo!”, run away fast!

Tip 2. They have a large following but few likes on individual posts.

If an influencer buys fake followers, they may have large followings but receive very few likes on individual posts. If an influencer gets no regular engagement, that’s a good sign that their followers are fake.

Tip 3. They don’t follow or engage with any accounts

Influencers who don’t follow back pr engage with any accounts can be a bad sign unless they are national or global celebrities. Even celebrities like Kylie Jenner who has 330 million Instagram followers reply to their fans on Instagram. If your business works with influencers, authenticity is key! You want to make sure that they genuinely like your products or services and can’t wait to introduce your business to their followers.

Tip 4. Their posts receive inconsistent likes

If one post gets a high number of likes, but the next couple don’t, that’s a good sign you might be working with a fake influencer who buys likes on posts. It’s perfectly normal for some posts to receive more likes than others but it’s a red flag if the difference is too big. If your business works with an influencer with inconsistent post likes, your post will most likely not receive any engagement.

So how do we screen influencers?

Websites like HypeAuditor and FakeCheck are great tools to check for an influencer’s engagement rate. A high engagement rate usually means that the followers are real people who are genuinely interested in the influencer’s posts. These tools are also helpful for marketing agencies to verify an influencer’s engagement insight before deciding to move forward on a collaboration.  

Conclusion

It’s important to spot fake influencers if your business wants to develop an influencer marketing strategy.

Being authentic and frequently posting high-quality content is the best way for businesses to build an organic following. Working with influencers with real followers help brands create authentic, engaging content and help them receive the most success in the long term.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Vivid Candi is an expert in growing an organic following on social media. Many of our clients have grown their Instagram followers and received an immense amount of engagement. 

Book a free consultation today, or call us at (310) 456-1784.

The post Organic vs. Fake Influencers on Instagram & How to Distinguish Them first appeared on Vivid Candi.

You may wonder, why do I want to rank my business website higher on Google…

Well, there are 3.5 billion people searching on Google in the USA every year. Google’s data shows that 70% of those people click on the website that ranks first on Google before checking out the page that ranks in second place. A page that ranks #1 on Google receives 18% of the traffic for the keyword it ranks for, the page that ranks #2 only receives 10% of the keyword traffic.

What’s mind-blowing is, 94% of searchers click on the page that ranks organically, a huge contrast to the roughly 6% who click on Google paid ads.

If you want your target audience to click your website for what they’re searching for then you want to be doing SEO marketing. When a user wants or needs something they type into Google what that is they’re looking for or they search on their phone, and if you pop up that gives them a chance to click you to purchase and receive or reach out to you with what they are wanting and needing. SEO can make sure that your target audience finds your website in the search, by coming up to the top of the search.

Being on the front page and top positions of Google and Bing can give your business massive exposure! In fact, there are many million-dollar companies built with just SEO strategies alone!

For example, the website below ranks first place on Google when someone searches for “Running shoes”.

This website received approximately 55 thousand new and returning visitors every month… imagine 1% of them convert to paying customers, that’s 550 sales per month just by ranking first place on Google. If their average order value is $100, this website would make 55 thousand dollars of sales per month by FREE traffic.

And the best thing? SEO effort is residual, meaning that it’s an investment that will establish your online presence long-term, helping you get more website visitors every month for FREE!

Once you apply SEO marketing you can reap the rewards long-term by maintaining your rankings on the first page of Google.

You also have the ability to choose what keywords you want to rank for. What we do at our company, Vivid Candi, is to make sure the keywords for SEO are what the user is actually searching for. So the keywords that have a high search volume mean more searches, and more traffic to your website, and therefore can convert to more purchases and increase your company’s sales.

People also trust Google so you come up and Google search. By applying SEO It builds a trust factor to your audience that helps attract them to purchase with you.

SEO isn’t just on Google or Google Maps. All the search engines you can rank for keywords such as Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, and more. This allows more users on a larger network no matter what platform they are searching for.

SEO as a marketing strategy for your business is extremely important and effective. The search engines are not going anywhere. Even when people use voice commands on their phones, those that come up first in the search engines will show. 

If your business is there, you’ll be able to get more traffic to your website. And that traffic is very specific since they search for the keyword that you are ranking for. It then allows you to reap the reward so you don’t have to spend ongoing money with Google ads if you maintain your rankings and SEO. 

The more traffic searching for what you provide, the more chances of converting prospects into paying customers.

If you want to grow your business and sales by SEO, you should work with experts with the most in-depth knowledge so they can give you an effective marketing strategy! Work with our full-service digital marketing agency and let’s chat about your tailored SEO strategy!

The post Why SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Matters for your Business first appeared on Vivid Candi.

Social media is also a great place to promote your restaurant’s special events and connect with customers. With millions of users on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, if your restaurant’s marketing strategy doesn’t include social media, you’re missing millions of opportunities to build your customer base. 

Having a social media marketing strategy for your restaurant gives customers an authentic way to discover you, and the authenticity of that discovery builds into customer loyalty. A successful restaurant social media strategy makes you stand out from your competitors, and customers who find you via social platforms won’t stop raving about their real-world dining experiences. 

If you’re a restaurant owner looking for a comprehensive restaurant marketing plan, you might wonder how to create a social media marketing strategy for your restaurant. In this blog, we’ll highlight five tips for building your restaurant’s success online.

#1. Create engaging short videos on TikTok.

TikTok is the perfect platform for marketing authentic, short-form content to a younger audience. According to a survey by Forrester. 63% of Generation Z uses TikTok on a daily basis, making up over thirty-seven million users. TikTok is expected to grow its users to 1.5 billion users by the end of 2022. 

Small restaurant businesses have seen huge success creating brand awareness on TikTok by putting out authentic, engaging content to connect with users. Authenticity is crucial on this platform especially. A great way to authentically highlight your brand is to put out marketing content on your restaurant’s behind-the-scenes side. Your restaurant business is unique, and you only have to turn the camera around to let users engage with what makes your place different. Once users connect with your brand, they want to see more, and they want to move their engagement to the real world.

Due to TikTok’s unique algorithm, videos can get a lot of views without your account having a large following, unlike Instagram which requires a large number of followers to get results for your content. For example, this video we created for Tacos Gavilan’s brand new TikTok account gathered over 50,000 views in just five days.

#2. Highlight menu and environment on Instagram. 

Instagram is still the most popular social media platform for sharing photos and highlights. And the platform is designed to provide multiple ways for posting content, whether short-form in Instagram’s reels, similar to TikTok, gorgeous posts that stay on your account feed, or stories for 24-hour announcements bringing users into the present moment–what’s happening in the restaurant kitchen right now. 

Restaurant social media marketing is so much about showing the ambiance, and Instagram is the perfect platform to convey it. One of our clients, The Sunset Restaurant in Malibu, is a great example of the kind of content that generates new business. We post photos and videos of their gorgeous oceanview-outdoor dining as well as the unique interior, both featuring influencers enjoying the menu, so users get a full sense of the experience, building an authentic connection to the brand daily through users’ Instagram feeds.

Using this strategy, The Sunset Restaurant saw an increase in local customers and even attracted international customers from the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Italy, Brazil, and other countries. Customers said they found the restaurant on Instagram and were drawn by the beautiful posts combining scenery with food. With a carefully curated Instagram feed, users from anywhere in the world can access a day at the Sunset Restaurant. And when they visit Malibu, they can’t wait to stop in. 

Our social media marketing strategy for The Sunset Restaurant successfully grew their wedding leads by four times. The restaurant currently has over 10.5k followers and continues to grow. 

#3. Curate unique content on a Facebook business page. 

A Facebook business page is a budget-friendly way to spread awareness for your restaurant. Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, with over 2.9 billion users. As it’s evolved, Facebook has developed a variety of functions to help businesses engage with their customers online. One of the best options to engage loyal restaurant customers is to create a private Facebook group. In a private group, restaurants can promote insider incentives to connect with customers personally, building a sense of community that cultivates engagement. 

For our client Tacos Gavilan, our agency created a private Facebook Group to build a private community for users to connect about the restaurant, a group that grew organically to one thousand local members within its first two months. 

We used the group to spotlight promotions, insider giveaway contests, and share fun challenges that got customers excited to participate and connect.

By asking questions directly to the private Facebook group our agency was able to increase engagement. Many of the posts receive a high number of comments. We responded to each comment individually, which integrated Tacos Gavilan’s loyal fan base into the larger customer community and made them feel their value, increasing brand loyalty.

The private Facebook group gave loyal Tacos Gavilan customers a community to connect with, creating a shared experience for everyone who loves the chain restaurant. We got incredible feedback including where customers want to see the next Tacos Gavilan location and what their favorite menu items are.

If you want to build a loyal fan base and increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) for your restaurant’s marketing strategy, the private Facebook group is an excellent community solution.

#4. Collaborate with Influencers.

Influencer marketing is an incredible way to increase a restaurant’s popularity, raise awareness, and tap into the right niche. Collaborating with influencers can help a restaurant create authentic, on-brand content to draw users who relate personally to the particular influencer’s lifestyle. 

Influencers scale at different tiers: Nano, Micro, Macro, and Celebrity. Restaurants see the most return on investment when collaborating with micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are usually a lower-budget option for posting high-quality content. Micro-influencers (10k-100k followers) are more trusted by their followers than macro-influencers (over 100K followers) because followers view micro-influencers as “friends” who provide credible recommendations. Micro-influencers have high engagement rates due to their authenticity. 

And many micro-influencers exchange high-quality content for compensated meals or discounts, which means positive returns on investments for restaurants with smaller marketing budgets. 

The best way to work with influencers with measurable Return on Investment (ROI) is to work with an experienced agency that knows how to find the right micro-influencers to connect with and create high user engagement using quality content. 

#5. Use high-quality content. 

No matter what platforms and tools you utilize for your restaurant’s marketing strategy, high-quality content is the top priority for making your restaurant stand out against competitors.  

Ever wonder why fast food sandwiches look bigger, juicier, and more delicious in the promotion photos than in real life? It’s because these “styled” food images affect customers’ subconscious brains, causing them to think of the sandwich as more delicious and desirable.

Your restaurant’s marketing content should utilize the same neuro-marketing by utilizing colors, styling, professional lighting, and photo editing to curate the best food images that make your hungry customers want to try every dish on your menu.

Need photography & videography services with food stylists? Contact Our Agency Vivid Candi today. 

Schedule a Free Consultation

Vivid Candi is a full-service creative marketing agency specializing in restaurant marketing. Our team is filled with passionate digital marketing specialists who want to see your restaurant business grow to its full potential. Vivid Candi has worked with 100+ restaurant clients, raising brand awareness to expand their customer bases quickly and quantifiably. Our agency is confident in providing marketing strategies across platforms that will connect your restaurant with a growing base of new, unique customers.

Ready to be one of the most popular restaurants in town?  Book a free consultation today, or give us a call to see your restaurant grow to full potential today! CALL NOW (310) 456-1784.

The post 5 Social Media Marketing Tips for Restaurants first appeared on Vivid Candi.