SEO Services for Restaurant Chains

• Develop a keyword strategy

People searching for food, restaurants or pubs online don’t all have the same intent. Some might be ready to order immediately, some are simply looking for information, and others might be trying to make a reservation. Your keyword strategy should reflect this, and be more than just a loose connection of words that describe your restaurant.

A good keyword strategy will include keywords for customers who have no idea what they want and are open to suggestions; customers who have an idea of what they want but are still looking for the perfect restaurant; and customers looking for you specifically.

Competing in the I don’t know what I want market is exceptionally tough. Ranking well in searches like ‘restaurants in Birmingham,’ or ‘places to eat in central London’ is pretty much impossible, and as such, the broad-intent search category usually only makes up a small part of the overall keyword strategy. (Refer to point 1 above to see how we compete for good broad-intent searches)

Next, we have the I know what I want, but I’m not sure who to get it from customer. They might know what they want to eat, either a specific meal or ethnic cuisine, but haven’t decided where to go, or order from. Typical keywords for this type of search could include ‘steakhouse near me,’ or ‘indian food torquay.’ These specific keywords are easier to compete for, and are an opportunity for your restaurant to differentiate itself. Your SEO consultant can help your choose the most relevant keywords that go beyond your menu items and bar offerings.

Finally, we have the I know exactly what I want and who I want it from! customer. They will actively search for the restaurant of their choice by using brand-specific keywords.

• Boost your webpage authority with backlinks

As your business becomes more successful, you will hopefully see an increase in the number of backlinks to your site. This is valuable for SEO, as search engines ‘value’ the number of links to your site or pages on it. The more backlinks you have, the more trustworthy your website appears to search engines, the more authority it has. 

You can take advantage of this by actively reaching out to industry partners, suppliers, publishers, content creators; or anyone else you can think of that runs a reputable site. If they add a link to your site in a blog post or page, it boosts your page ranking.

Building long-term page authority with backlinks is a time-tested winning strategy in SEO. Unfortunately, doing this yourself is time-consuming and usually involves hours of talking to and negotiating with people. Convert Digital includes DA40+ link building and cross-linking as standard deliverables in our gold and bespoke monthly options. Many of our bronze and silver clients choose to add it to their packages as an optional extra.

• Gain prominence through positive reviews & review management

If a customer searches for ‘mexican food‘, Google will provide them with the results that are  most relevant, closest to them, and most prominent. Most relevant means it looks for businesses with the best description matches, closest is self-explanatory; but what does most prominent mean?

From a search engine point of view, it means importance. Your prominence is determined by factors such as your number of backlinks & citations, and importantly, positive reviews. Google uses reviews from multiple sites —including your Google My Business (GMB) profile— to determine your average review rating, then uses this rating as a factor of prominence. In other words, you can increase your page ranking by getting more positive reviews. Many restaurants encourage their patrons to leave a review when they’re sure that their guests had a good time. Responding to reviews, positive or negative, is another SEO best practice.

Convert Digital offers review management as part of our Silver and Gold packages.

• Get your websites cited in relevant local directories

Directory citations (or entries) play an important part in how all search engines find and rank businesses. Unlike blog posts or reviews, which are subjective and can be of any length, directory entries are short, keyword-dense snippets of factual information about your business.

A typical directory entry would include important information about your business, such as an address, opening hours, a backlink to your website, and contact information. They might also include a 1 sentence description, with maybe further descriptions and keyword entries if you select a specific business.

Search engines want to provide their users with reliable results. They want to accurately tell their users where you are, when you’re open, and what you do. Directories are a great place to get this information, but it’s important that the information is correct and up-to-date. Conflicting information across different directories can have a negative effect on your rankings.

Convert Digital helped MEATliquor develop a successful strategy for dealing with directories. They now rank prominently for broad search terms in one of the biggest online business directories, and we helped them rank for some of their additional selling points, including cocktails and live music.