5 Ways To Improve Your Restaurant’s SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to your website from search engines. Having a great SEO strategy will help list your website higher in searches that relate to your business etc ‘Mediterranean restaurant’ or ‘ Sydney Restaurant’. It targets unpaid traffic, rather than direct traffic or paid traffic and is a great (& free!) Marketing tool.

Here are 5 tips to get you started on improving your SEO;

1. Publish Relevant, Authoritative Content
   Quality, authoritative content is the number one driver of your Search Engine rankings – and there is no substitute for great content. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance.

2. Use Relevant Keywords in your online copy

Keywords that are relevant to your industry are one of the main drivers for ranking your website higher inside a search engine. Identify and target a specific keyword phrase for each authoritative content page on your website. Think about how your reader might search for your restaurant, and then think about what the main keyword phrase would be for that specific page. Etc If you are an Italian Restaurant and you want them to land on your menu a potential keyword phrase could be “Italian Restaurant Sydney”. You then need to think about where you are placing these keywords, there are three areas of importance that you can look to include these in all or part of;

• The Page URL

  1. The Page Title

  2. Headings & Sub-Headings

Be user-friendly and natural in your placement though. Readability and usability still trump search engine optimisation. While you want to try to include your keywords in 1 or all 3 of the above, your content is still the most important area for you to use these keywords. Repeat your keyword phrase several times throughout your page – ensure it is in your opening paragraph – and sprinkle it throughout the body copy. 

TIP: Ways to narrow down your keyword phrases would be to install Google Analytics onto your website. Your Google Business listing will provide you with the top 3 keywords that people are currently finding your website through, Google Analytics will refine that and advise phrases that you may not have previously thought of. 

3. Link Relevant Sources & be link-worthy
Link relevant sources (etc brands & suppliers) to help broaden your reach. If you’re part of a brand collaboration, negotiate to have your website listed and linked on their website and vice-versa. This improves your authority and credibility by adding relevant links within your text, in turn ranking you hire on search engines. Ensure you are using the full name of the destination etc brand name or restaurant name as it has more authority than a simple “click here” or “find out more” button.

4. Metadata
There are three locations on your website where metadata is important to ensure the success of your website – (ranked from most to least important); 

• Title Metadata: Is the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is very important that these titles are relevant, clear keywords that are searchable terms related to your site. 

  1. Description Metadata: The text description of your page that a browser can reference in a search. A concise description of what each page includes, with the goal of capturing the audience and enticing them to click. Typically two full sentences is enough to be relevant. 

  2. Keyword Metadata: While not as important as the other two, it is still good practice to use keyword phrases in your keyword metadata. You can find your keywords through your google analytics account, with the goal being to use about 3-7 phrases consisting of 1-4 words etc Fine Dining Sydney.

5. Alt Tags
Not commonly used or known about, but becoming increasingly more relevant for accessibility purposes. Always describe your image and video using Alt Tags, or alternative text descriptions. They allow search engines to locate your page, and are beneficial for those who use text-only browsers or screen readers.