11 SEO Tips To Boost Your Restaurant Visibility In Search via @sejournal, @coreydmorris

Being successful with restaurant SEO can be a challenge.

Whether it is finding the time, wearing a lot of hats, or not having the same type of budget and return on investment (ROI) measurement as other industries, you might be in a tough spot trying to figure out how to get it done.

No matter what your situation is or your starting point, there are specific strategic and tactical things you can do that will help move your brand forward and increase your online visibility and engagement through SEO.

There are 11 specific things that are important for restaurant SEO that I’ll unpack in this article to help you focus your time on what matters.

1. Define Your SEO & Content Strategies

Before jumping into a myriad of tools, platforms, and engagement channels, define your SEO strategy. This will help to greatly narrow your competition and give you a quicker path to driving quality traffic to your website.

Start by defining the geographic area you want to own (where most of your customers will come from because they either live or work nearby, or are visiting).

Next, research what keyword terms and phrases your audience uses through a trusted keyword research tool like Ahrefs, Moz Pro, Semrush, or others.

To learn more on how to do keyword research, read this keyword research guide.

There are a few distinct groupings of terms that you want to group and classify properly, and they all have different levels of competition.

High-Level Restaurant Terms

Terms like “restaurants” and “Kansas City restaurants” are some of the most generic variations a searcher might use.

In the keyword research tools (each tool will vary on locality options), you can set your geographic focus to the area you identified and use both the generic term by itself (“restaurants”) and geographic modifier (“Kansas City restaurants”), as well as other general variations related to what your restaurant is about.

Also, don’t forget about voice search terms and variations of things like “restaurants near me” that will rely on location settings and the context of the search engine to return results for the searcher that you likely want to be included.

Niche-Specific Terms

The next level relates to the specific categories your restaurant would fall into.

Examples include “Mexican restaurants,” “pizza,” “romantic restaurants,” and other unique features and types of cuisine.

If you’re struggling with what specific categories or wording you should use, take a look at Google Maps (the Google Business Profile listings), Yelp, and TripAdvisor.

Use their filtering criteria in your area to see the general categories they utilize.

Brand Terms

Don’t take it for granted that you’ll automatically rise to the top of brand searches. Know how many people are searching for your restaurant by name and compare that to the high-level and niche-specific search volume.

Ensure your site outranks the directory, reservation (if applicable), and social sites in your space for your restaurant, as the value of people coming to your site is higher and trackable.

Once you’re armed with search terms and volume data, you can narrow your focus to the specific terms that fit your restaurant at high, category-specific, and brand levels.

Covering this spectrum helps you focus on what to measure and define your content.

2. Dominate In Local Search

To dive into local search, start by claiming, standardizing data, and optimizing listings for your restaurant across all of the major and relevant local search properties.

This includes a mix of search engine directories, social media sites, and industry-specific directory sites.

Moz Local and Yext are two popular tools (there are many available, though) that can help you understand what directories and external data sources are out there, and then you can ensure they are updated.

Accurate NAP (name, address, phone) information that is consistent across all data sources is a critical foundational element of local SEO.

Beyond that, you can then work on optimizing the fields of information, like the business description and business categories, to align with your focus terms identified in your keyword research.

Put your focus on the directories that matter.

Start with Google Business Profile, then branch out to Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other restaurant-specific directories and data sources. Some of them could be obscure, niche-specific, or not seem very significant, but they add up.

Set reminders or tasks to come back to your Google Business Profile on a regular basis to update content, including photos, specials, and offers, and to monitor engagement and review activity (more on both of those topics below).

All of this will work together to grow your online visibility.

3. Engage With Customers On Social Media

Even though social media’s direct impact on SEO has long been debated, we know that social media engagement can drive users to your site.

Social media can be a powerful touchpoint of the customer journey, showcasing what customers can expect to experience at your restaurant.

A strong social presence often correlates with a strong organic search presence as content, engagement, and popularity align with the important SEO pillars of relevance and authority.

Develop a social media strategy and follow through with implementation.

Make sure to engage with followers and reply to inquiries promptly. How you communicate online sets a perception of your overall customer service and approach.

Find your audience, engage them, and get them to influence others on your behalf.

Ultimately, through engagement with fans and promoting content on social media that funnels visitors to your main website, you will see an increase in visits from social networks.

This will then correlate with the benefits from the rest of your SEO efforts.

4. Encourage Reviews & Testimonials

It’s nearly impossible to do a search for a restaurant and not see review and rating scores in the search results. That’s because people click on higher star ratings.

Reviews are often considered part of a social media strategy and are an engagement tactic, but have a broader impact on traffic to your site through search results pages as well.

Through the use of structured data markup, you can have your star ratings appear in search results and provide another compelling reason for a user to click on your site versus your competitor’s.

If you have online ratings that don’t reflect the quality of your restaurant, come up with a review strategy now to get as many reviews as possible to help bring up your score prior to implementing the code that will pull the ratings into the SERPs.

A higher star rating likely means a higher click-through rate to your site – and more foot traffic.

5. Create Unique Content

If you have a single location, your job is a lot easier than the multi-location local or national chain.

However, you have to stand out from the competition by ensuring you have enough unique content on your website.

Having a wealth of engaging and helpful content on your site will serve you well if it is valuable to your prospects and customers. Building a strong brand will translate to better rankings, higher brand recall, and greater brand affinity.

Keep in mind that content doesn’t all have to be written copy; you can present your menus, in-house promotions, and more through video, photography, and graphics.

The search engines are focused on context and not just the keywords on your site.

By identifying and regularly generating new content, you also can keep the pipeline full of engaging material that helps you stand out from your competition.

For example, if you have a niche restaurant, embrace that and set yourself apart from the generic chain down the street (no offense if you own, operate, or do marketing for a chain – you have a different challenge of scaling your efforts).

Share information about the founders, the culture, and most importantly – the product.

Give details about your menu, including sourcing of ingredients, how you developed recipes, and the compelling reason your chicken marsala is the best in town.

6. Consider Content Localization

Again, single-location restaurants have an easier road here. Based on decisions you’ve made about your market area, make sure you provide enough cues and context to users and the search engines as to where your restaurant is and what area it serves.

Sometimes, the search engines and out-of-town visitors don’t fully understand the unofficial names of neighborhoods and areas.

By providing content that is tied into the community and doesn’t simply assume that everyone knows where you’re located, you can help everyone out.

One example of this is a 100-location chain that started small with a single paragraph for each location written in a way tailored to the store, local history, neighborhood, and community engagement.

From there, we were able to find other areas to scale, and it worked well to differentiate stores from each other.

When it comes to nuanced and potentially confusing location names and context, addresses can be misleading. Think about how Google will handle those.

These are important factors to consider so you aren’t trying to have a location compete with too broad of a geographic area for search rankings.

7. Apply Basic On-Page SEO Best Practices

Without going into the details of all on-page and indexing optimization techniques, I want to encourage you not to skip or ignore the best practices of on-page SEO.

You need your page to be indexed to ensure you have the potential for visibility and on-page SEO to ensure the proper classification of your content.

You can spend a lot of time on a full SEO strategy, but if you’re just getting started, I recommend putting the rest aside and starting with these two areas.

To ensure your site is crawled and indexed properly now and in the future, check your robots.txt and XML sitemap. Set up Google Search Console to look for errors.

When it comes to on-page, ensure that you have unique and keyword-specific page URLs, title tags, meta description tags, headings, page copy, and image alt attributes.

This sounds like a lot, but start with your most important pages, like your home, menu, about, and contact pages, and go from there as time permits.

8. Think Mobile First

Mobile accounts for a high percentage of visits to restaurant websites. Google now crawls the mobile version of a website to understand its content.

Hopefully, you have a responsive website or one that passes the necessary mobile-friendly tests.

But that’s just the beginning when it comes to mobile.

It’s also critical to think about page load speed and providing a great mobile user experience.

9. Implement Schema “Restaurants” Markup

Another area where we can build context for the search engines and gain exposure to more users in the search results is by using structured data.

In the restaurant industry, implementing the Schema.org library for restaurants is a must.

This task requires a developer, website platform, or content management system with the right plugins or built-in options.

10. Measure Your Efforts

This could have been tip No. 1, but I’m including it here, as it is important throughout the process. With the previous nine tips, there’s something to do and implement.

But before you embark on any aspect of optimization, make sure those efforts are measurable.

When investing in your strategy, you want to know what aspects are working, which ones aren’t, and where your efforts were (and are) best producing a return on investment.

Track visibility, engagement, and conversion metrics as deep as you can connect them to your business.

Beyond that, you’ll need to identify the right progress metrics tied to goals to know you’re moving in the right direction.

11. Don’t Ignore AI

This is less of a specific recommendation or tactic and more of a wide-reaching one. AI provides a lot of opportunities to scale content, create efficiencies, and do more with less.

Whether you’re leveraging AI tools natively, using SaaS products to help you research, optimize, and measure efforts, or relying on things like AI Overviews in Google to engage with users in search, it is hard to ignore.

Know that while AI is helpful to further scale efforts and be where searchers are finding content, you don’t want to abandon your brand or generate content that is clearly generic and not human-generated.

Don’t ignore AI, but use it with care to avoid losing out on the unique value important for search and searchers for your restaurant.

Restaurant SEO Matters For Visibility And Traffic

There are unique challenges for restaurant SEO. However, if you can dedicate the time and effort to a strategy and follow through on tactics and measurement, it can be highly rewarding and profitable as well.

While you might not be able to directly attribute SEO performance to ROI for restaurant SEO, you can find correlations between a stronger brand presence and visibility and volume in your location(s).

I encourage you to nail down your strategy and dedicate focus to the tactics to see it through.

More Resources:

Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A

SEO Keyword Research: 18 Of The Biggest Mistakes You Must Avoid via @sejournal, @sejournal

You can’t talk about SEO without mentioning keyword research.

Most SEO marketing campaigns start with keyword research. (Or at least they should).

If you haven’t upped your keyword research game, you could be holding your campaigns back and costing you (and your clients) cash.

Let’s look at 18 keyword research mistakes you might be making – and what to do instead.

1. Ignoring Search Intent

Too many people focus on search volume and forget about the why.

Why are people using a specific keyword?

What does that term tell you about what that person is looking for?

Most importantly, what is the point of ranking No. 1 for a term that doesn’t actually lead to any sales?

Rather than focusing on how many people use a search query, focus on search intent or the reason why someone is searching.

User intent breaks down into two things:

• Figuring out what users who come to your pages want to consume.
• Making your content the best option for those users.

So, let’s say you sell new Nike shoes.

There’s not much point in targeting [how to clean Nike shoes] because those people likely aren’t ready to buy; they are looking to take care of the shoes they already have.

Screenshot from search for [how to clean Nike shoes], Google, December 2024.

Rather, you’d want to focus on [buy Nike shoes near me] because that searcher is clearly ready to buy.

Granted, you could use [how to clean Nike shoes] to build trust and catch those buyers later, but that needs to be done intentionally.

2. Allowing Clients To Choose Keywords

One of the biggest keyword research mistakes of all is failing to do keyword research at all.

We’ve all had that client who wants to “help” by telling you what keywords they want to target. Unfortunately, those terms are often too broad, don’t match search intent, or are too competitive to even bother with.

That client list should be a starting point, not an endpoint.

A lot of business owners (and even SEO marketers) think they know what searchers are looking for, but keywords should be based on data, not vanity or gut instinct.

3. Forgetting To Look At The SERPs

There are plenty of powerful keyword research tools that make keyword research so much easier.

You can dig deep into data, look at historical trends, even see what your competition is ranking for.

It’s solid, useful data.

However, there can be too much of a good thing.

Many marketers spend so much time diving deep into research tools that they forget to look at the one place that really matters – the SERPs.

Don’t let tools take over the entire keyword research process. Take the time to see what type of content is ranking for your top terms and use that to inspire your campaigns.

4. Aiming For One Keyword Per Piece Of Content

Some SEO marketers only target one keyword per piece of content.

Google is getting better at understanding context, which means optimizing for just one keyword per post is a thing of the past.

Rather than targeting a single keyword, look for related terms that support the main term.

For example, a post about keyword research should also target related terms like keyword research tools.

Just keep in mind this shouldn’t be forced – only use related terms that make sense for your content.

5. Targeting High-Volume Keywords Only

What metrics do you look at when considering what keywords to target?

If high-volume keywords are your go-to for finding the right keywords, you could be missing out on better options.

Why?

Because high volume often ignores user intent, which we’ve already talked about.

Plus, high-volume terms are highly competitive. It’s hard to stand out when you go after the same key terms as everyone else.

This is widely recognized as a way not to do SEO:

Ways NOT to do SEO:
❌ turn Rankmath/Yoast “green”
❌ focus only on “easy” keywords
❌ focus only on high volume keywords
❌ plagiarize/copy someone else
❌ never plan your topic clusters
❌ write on multiple content silos at once
❌ never update content

— Nina Clapperton (She Knows SEO) (@NinaClapperton) September 23, 2024

Don’t forget to look for mid-volume keywords that match search intent – they are easier to rank for and cheaper to bid on.

6. Avoiding Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords often have a lower search volume, which turns some marketers away. That’s a mistake you can’t afford to make.

Sometimes, low search volume is a good thing. Lower volume key terms are often further in the sales funnel, meaning the user is much closer to making a purchase.

Using various contextual keywords can also ensure you cover a topic more broadly and are more likely to provide visitors with the content they need to convert.

7. Not Talking To Your Customers

Sometimes, the terms we use to talk about our product or service aren’t the same terms our customers use to talk about our product or the problems they face.

In addition to using keyword research tools, it’s critical to talk (and listen) to what your customers say.

Pay attention to how they describe their challenges, the solutions they find, or what types of products they want.

Look at reviews and social media posts, and listen to customer service calls to find the words and phrases customers use to talk about the challenges they face and the solutions they’ve tried.

For example, you might call your tool a “website visitor tracking tool,” but if your customers don’t know what that means, you won’t gain any traction.

8. Going Back To Insert Keywords

Some SEO marketers seem to think creating content for users means ignoring SEO until the end.

After all, can’t you just go back and add the keywords Google wants once the content is done?

If someone says they do technical SEO after keyword analysis and on-page SEO, it’s a clear signal that they are not SEO.

And look, they take care of matching user intent after writing the content. pic.twitter.com/fMIuUYIR2S

— Mike Blazer (@MikeBlazerX) October 28, 2024

Don’t try to go back and “SEO” a post after the writing is complete.

Instead, keyword research should be done before a topic is even picked, and terms should be added naturally where they make sense.

9. Not Knowing What Channels Your Customers Are Searching

When we talk about SEO, most of the time, we’re talking about Google – and that’s a problem.

Google isn’t the only search engine out there.

I’m not talking about Bing and Yandex – I’m talking about other channels that people use as search engines, like YouTube, Facebook, X (Twitter), and even TikTok.

Each platform has a different algorithm and different preferences that you need to be paying attention to.

Just because a word ranks well on Google doesn’t mean it will do well on YouTube or X (Twitter).

Pay attention to which channel your users are searching, not just what words they use.

10. Pushing Exact Match Keywords

Stop trying to cram awkward phrases into your content and ads.

Google is way less picky about using exact match keywords.

They understand your terms just fine with an “in” or even several words in between parts of a keyword.

With the addition of natural language processing, Google is getting better and better at understanding context.

Take a look at this search for [SEO agency chicago]. You can see Google returns results with related keywords, not just those that match exactly.

Screenshot from search for [SEO agency chicago], Google, December 2o24.

11. Not Paying Attention To Keyword Localization

Keyword localization, or the differences in terms based on location, can tank your SEO efforts.

Don’t assume that people in different countries (or even different parts of the same country) use the exact same terms when searching for a product.

For example, soda and pop refer to carbonated beverages but are used in different parts of the country.

This is another reason why paying attention to the actual SERPs is so important.

12. Skipping Topical Research

Earlier, I mentioned you shouldn’t focus on just one main key term.

Rather, you need to include a range of related key terms related to the core topic.

The reason this works is that it establishes topical authority, or authority over a broad idea, rather than a single term.

Topical research is the act of finding what related topics the main keyword targets.

For example, if you wanted to rank for SEO, you wouldn’t write a 4,000-word post about just SEO – you’d want to find out what other related topics people are searching such as SEO tools, SEO mistakes, and SEO strategies.

Taking the time to do topical research will help you find related keywords that will help you rank higher in the end.

13. Shunning Your SERP Competitors

Hopefully, you know who your market competitors are – but do you know who your SERP competitors are?

The brands ranking above you for content might not be the same competitors you vie with for actual customers.

For example, if you sell a specific air conditioner part, you might be competing with other manufacturers and stores for customers – but a handyman blog for core key terms.

Competitive research can also highlight other keywords you haven’t considered, so it’s important to make sure you check in regularly on all your competitors.

14. Passing Over Keyword Difficulty

Most keyword research tools provide info on keyword difficulty or how competitive a certain term is in the SERPs. I see a lot of marketers ignore this stat to focus on search volume.

After all, if 50,000 people are searching for a term, a few will end up on our site, right?

Not if you can’t snag one of the top three spots in SERPs because the keyword is too difficult to rank for.

Sometimes, a lower volume and lower difficulty term will be easier to rank for – and more lucrative in the end.

But keyword difficulty doesn’t consider a lot of factors.

A highly competitive keyword might not be hard for you to rank for if you have high traffic and rank well for similar terms.

15. Neglecting Conversions

Let’s say you are optimizing an ecommerce shoe site. What term is going to drive the most traffic – tennis shoes or boots?

That’s a trick question because the answer might very well be neither.

Too many clients (and some marketers) aim for broad key terms that are important in their industry but fail to realize that they’d actually make more sales targeting key terms that are more likely to convert.

For example, an ecommerce store might get tons of traffic targeting a key term like [boots], but maybe half a percent will convert.

On the other hand, [waterproof women’s snow boots] might not draw in a ton of traffic – but 3% to 5% might convert.

16. Overlooking Voice Search Optimization

Voice search isn’t just a trend – it’s changing how people search and the keywords they use. Many marketers make the mistake of sticking to traditional keyword formats while ignoring conversational queries.

Think about it: Nobody says “best restaurants Chicago” to Siri or Alexa. Instead, they ask, “What are the best restaurants near me in Chicago?”

Voice searches tend to be:

• Longer and more conversational.
• Question-based (who, what, where, why, how).
• Location-specific.
• More natural in language.

Voice search optimization isn’t about completely changing your SEO strategy – it’s about expanding it to include how people actually talk.

17. Not Adapting To Evolving Search Algorithms

Google’s AI systems understand context and user intent better than ever. This means:

• Keywords need to be more contextual and topic-based.
• Content should answer related questions users might have.
• SERP features like Featured Snippets, People Also Ask, and Knowledge Panels need to be considered in your strategy.

For example, if you’re targeting “how to make coffee,” look at how Google displays recipe cards, video carousels, and related questions.

Your keyword strategy needs to account for these SERP features to maximize visibility.

18. Ignoring Video Content Keywords

With YouTube being the second-largest search engine globally, overlooking video-specific keyword research is a massive missed opportunity.

Video keyword research is different because:

• People search differently for video content.
• Competition metrics vary from traditional search.
• Intent can be dramatically different.

For instance, “iPhone unboxing” might be a moderate-value keyword for a blog post but could be golden for video content.

Sometimes, a three-minute video will do what a 2,000-word article can’t.

Connecting The Dots: Keywords In The AI Era

With Google’s AI advancements, keyword research now needs to consider:

• Topic Clusters: Instead of individual keywords, focus on comprehensive topic coverage.
• SERP Features: Different query types trigger different SERP features (local packs, knowledge panels, video carousels).
• User Journey Mapping: Understanding how keywords fit into different stages of the user journey.
• AI-Generated Suggestions: Leveraging tools that use AI to identify semantic relationships between topics.

Thinking beyond traditional keyword metrics, the key is to consider how your content can best serve user needs across all search contexts and formats.

Remember: Modern keyword research isn’t just about finding words to target – it’s about understanding the entire search ecosystem and how your content can provide the best possible answer in whatever format users prefer.

Are you adapting your keyword research strategy to keep up with these changes? If not, you might be leaving opportunities on the table for your competitors to grab.

The key is to understand your audience and set up a strategy that works for your business.

More resources:

Featured Image: N Universe/Shutterstock