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How To Increase Restaurant Website SEO
The success of a website is often measured by the amount of traffic to the website, and then the percentage of traffic that takes a desired action. For a restaurant website, that desired action may be online ordering, visiting a physical location, ordering catering, or all of the above. To accurately measure website success, customers must find your website.
This process often happens through search engine optimization (SEO). It’s critical to have SEO best practices implemented on your website so you can capture and convert potential consumers to loyal customers. Boosting your SEO is a behind-the-scenes job, consisting of many small changes that can help make a huge difference in your web appearance.
The Importance of SEO
SEO is a major component in determining what websites appear at the top of an internet search. The best practices associated with SEO help drive your website to the top of an internet search, allowing your business to easily be found. Easy ways to boost your SEO include:
- Adding and responding to website reviews
- Updating menus consistently and having them in text format
- Keeping accurate hours of service, address, and phone number
- Allowing for online ordering on your website
- Posting relevant and helpful blog content
The more personalized and unique content you add the more traffic your website will receive. Over time search engines recognize the value you are offering your customers and will highlight your website as trustworthy. Your website provider can also help boost your SEO by building a website that adheres to Google’s and other search engines website criteria. Fisherman’s professional tier offers greater SEO value than our lower tiers and covers all your SEO needs.
SEO Best Practices: How They Help
Incorporating SEO best practices will help prioritize your website when a customer tries to find you online. Don’t be fooled though, adding content for word count’s sake won’t help you. You need to make sure the information you offer is helpful to customers and easy to find. Top SEO best practices to focus on include:
Customer Reviews: Online reviews carry a lot of weight in organic, local searches. Not only does it help search engines decide who to rank more highly, but the star system and feedback will educate new users on what they can expect from your services.
- Reviews make up roughly 10% of the criteria for how Google displays search results.
- Reviews provide your business with fresh user-generated content, which helps indicate to Google (and other search engines) that your site is active
Updated Menu: Adding a menu and online ordering platform is super convenient for customers so that they can see what items/products are being offered and order directly from the website. Showcasing your menu will illustrate to your customers what they can expect from your dishes.
- Professional food photography helps make your dishes look delicious. The more reliable the photos, the more trustworthy your website will be
- Having menu descriptions be their own content vs. included in an image will help search engines understand your menu
SEO Pitfalls: How They Hurt
A lack of SEO best practices can hurt your website and make it more difficult for users to find. New website owners are often confused as to why their website isn’t appearing in a search after their website goes live. Many times, this is due to the fact that they have yet to add enough original content for search engines to recognize and index their website.
Without a personal touch, customers will often feel that the website isn’t welcoming or informative. If your website starts out with some bad SEO, don’t worry! It can improve and recover as your website and online business evolves and becomes more well known. To learn more about SEO best practices check out the blogs below:
- How to Take Great Food Photos for your Restaurant
- Blogs to Help Boost Your Website Traffic
- How to Get Google on Your Side
- How to Manage Your Reviews
Setting Yourself Up for SEO Success
Ready to increase your website’s SEO? The Fisherman support team is here to help! We work with you to create the best website possible for your business. Getting started is free and you will be able to preview your website in minutes. If it’s a good fit, we work to get your website live and gaining traffic in no time. If new or existing costumes ever want to add new and unique content to a website, all you have to do is reach out to support@gofisherman.com.
