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.

This is a crucial first step in marketing and will help you stay on top of the marketing trends as they change. 

Have you ever thought of your marketing objectives? What are the goals that you have each quarter, monthly, and daily? And then the road map to get you there. Having a marketing agency that specializes in restaurant marketing can help you with this as well. In this blog, I will walk you through how to have marketing objectives in place for your restaurant.

Here are some examples of possible restaurant marketing goals: 

Increase your brand identity:

Allow others to recognize your brand by making yourself known in your area. Boost the number of people who come back. Get a few regulars to come in the door. Increase the average check: the stronger your customer relationships, the more money they’ll spend.

Lead generation:

Lead generation is the process of attracting potential customers’ interest to increase future revenue. Many companies consider it to be an important aspect of their sales process. The first rule of marketing is to know who you’re selling to and who needs or wants what you have.

Brand awareness. Get the word out about your business and its products to individuals who might be interested.

Make yourself known in your community and allow people to recognize your brand.

When someone suggests, “Let’s eat pizza tonight,” you want people to quickly recognize your business as one of the best options out there. That’s what brand recognition is all about.

Because we live in a time when technology is constantly evolving, brand awareness is very important for every business. This is because individuals constantly have a computer in their hands, whether it’s a smartphone, a tablet, or a full-fledged laptop or desktop computer, allowing them to communicate with others in a matter of seconds.

This could work in your favor or against your business. It all comes down to how you use it and how you adapt to these various technological advancements. Being proactive in brand marketing via social media will increase the brand experience for current customers while also converting potential customers into loyal brand followers, and new customers coming to your restaurant.

Here are some tips on how to generate brand awareness:

Use third-party review sites to your advantage.

Ratings and reviews have never been more significant in today’s digital platform, where anyone can be an online critic. Restaurant owners should use online reviews as strategic marketing tools because the majority of the people trust others’ experiences.

Build a social media marketing plan

Restaurant owners may use social media to set the tone and flow of their business, make new connections, and maintain a devoted customer base. But it’s more than just publishing a couple of times a week on Facebook or Instagram; it necessitates a creative, strategic plan that connects and encourages customers.

Spend time developing a social media marketing strategy that aligns with your company’s objectives such as.

Ø  Your Ideal target market And how to reach them

Ø Which  Social media platforms to use

Ø  The tone and voice of your business

Brand consideration: Getting prospects to think of you.

 If you have a strategic marketing plan you can get prospects thinking about you as the choice for where they eat. The more they see your brand your colors, the food, hear about your restaurant the more they will be thinking about you ongoing.

Create a name for yourself in the community. Make sure locals know you!

Whether it’s a postcard or a brochure this method has been a proven method in bringing in new clients to your area.  You might want to include this in your restaurant marketing goals. Using special deals and coupons to attract new clients is a very efficient strategy. You can also optimize search engines by registering your restaurant’s website with local directories and keeping local listings up to date so that consumers can find you when they need to.

Sales: Persuading customers to go to your restaurant and buy from you

Turn your current customers into brand ambassadors.

Existing clients might be your most powerful promoters. Treat them well, and they’ll tell their friends about how great your restaurant is. When customers come to your restaurant, try to remember who they are, what they ordered previously, what reviews they left, and how you assisted them. You can collect this information from your customer database.

You can also use social media as an ambassador is find local ambassador influencers for your content and brand awareness.

Try to offer new foods to them and ways they can promote your restaurant and food into the community. They will feel needed and cherished as a result of such efforts.  Regular consumers generate greater sales for restaurants than new customers. As a result, customer retention becomes critical. Your regular customers will promote you through word of mouth and by bringing friends and family to your restaurant, which will help you improve sales. Getting your consumers to return will always be your greatest triumph! 

Give them a reason to return whether that be a discount when they bring friends and family or a coupon on their next order.

Upselling to increase sales

Regardless of how well your restaurant is doing, there’s a good chance you’d like to raise your sales. Upselling at restaurants is one of the simplest methods to do this. It’s the process of persuading clients to upgrade their existing purchases or purchase more things. Upselling is the most popular tactic used by restaurants to increase earnings. You can also give away complimentary samples of the new items you’ve added to your menu to boost restaurant sales. Customers will notice these dishes as a result of this activity, and they will be more likely to request more.  

By asking your consumers if they need anything else or would like to add on or any extra food to take home with them. A simple question like this can compound over time and add more sales to your restaurant business.

These are marketing strategies that you can utilize to reach marketing objectives for a restaurant. Using these marketing tools and methods can help you save a lot of time and effort in improving your business. It’s a lot easier to determine the proper path for your restaurant and the right message to send to your clients if you’re completely clear on your marketing objectives.

If you need help with your marketing objectives for your restaurant as well as a plan book a call with vivid candi. You will receive a free custom call for your restaurant business to help you out with marketing objectives and strategies to reach your goals. 

The post Establishing Marketing Objective For Restaurants first appeared on Vivid Candi.

Vivid Candi is a full service digital agency in Malibu, California just 20 minutes from Los Angeles with over 11 years of experience specializing in marketing the restaurant industry. We’ve helped restaurants create projects of all types including websites, menu creation, food / location photography, email blast creation / implementation, print ad design, flyer design, search engine optimization, social media marketing, app development & beyond.

We are a boutique agency made up of a team of 10 marketing & design professionals. With a team of this size, you can be sure you’ll get the attention you deserve and the manpower to make it happen. Many of our team members have even worked at restaurants in their earlier days and know the industry inside & out. We’re all very passionate about this industry and love nothing more than to market it.

Make the change today and contact us about your restaurant marketing needs. Contact us at 310.456.1784 to start or visit our main site.

Restaurant Marketing & Design Services:

• Graphic design
• Web design
• Marketing
• Photography
• Social media marketing
• E-blast design
• Menu design
• Postcard / Flyer design
• Logo development
• Open Table website integration
• Mobile website development
• Print ad design
• Printing
• Table top flyer design
• Videography
• Video editing

Vivid Candi has much more experience than your ordinary marketing agency specializing in just restaurant design & marketing. Here’s some case studies on what we’ve done for restaurant clients.

The post Restaurant Marketing & Design Agency first appeared on Vivid Candi.