SEO for Restaurant Websites: Where’s the Love?
June 4, 2009
If you research internet marketing for restaurants you’ll likely be inundated with information about social media, email marketing, local search, and mobile marketing. We believe in the effectiveness of all of those techniques and utilize them fully when marketing our clients. However, we are a bit surprised more restaurant websites don’t take advantage of the benefits of solid, fundamental search engine optimization techniques.
SEO should be a part of the “big picture” promotion plans we refer to consistently. To put it bluntly, many restaurants are not doing everything they can to gain an edge on their competition.
Before Mindi and I recently attended the National Restaurant Association in Chicago, we sat down in front of our laptops to do a little research to decide where to dine during our visit. The first term we typed into Google was Chicago restaurant. To our dismay, only six individual restaurant websites appeared in the top 20 results, and the top three of those sites occupied the 6th, 8th, and 10th spots. Search for restaurant terms for many other major cities and you’re likely to find similar results.
Yes, the local results at the top of the page were sitting there for our perusal, and your website should most definitely be in that list. But those local results lack one important feature for folks who are a bit reluctant to wade through site after site to find what they want – and that missing element is a meta description. The handy thing about “regular” organic search results is you can read down the page and get a brief idea of what each restaurant is about without feeling like you’re doing research for your Master’s thesis.
The point is, people have different preferences, habits, and goals when researching online. That’s why the big picture is so important. When your site shows up in Search Engine results for yourcity restaurant – AND your meta description is enticing, well-written, and informative – you’re appealing to a faction of internet users who would not otherwise find you at all.
Most Restaurant Websites Need Some Work
June 1, 2009
Dennis Lombardi builds restaurants for a living. WD Partners are experts at designing and constructing restaurants to increase their consumer appeal and in-house efficiency. Last week, he wrote a blog post lamenting the current state of industry websites. His perspective is particularly interesting given the obvious analogy between physical and digital “storefronts”.
His point is simple: restaurateurs should be as concerned with the state of their websites as they are with the condition of their actual property. Amen, Mr. Lombardi. The fact is, your site will be the first impression many of your potential diners will experience. If it appears to be amateurish, is difficult to navigate, or doesn’t adequately inform and entice with good, solid copy – it could easily end up being their only impression.
At TwoTables, we can put you in touch with talented graphic and technical website designers who will work with us to increase your website’s effectiveness and usability. It’s important to have an experienced marketer’s input during the design process so you don’t end up with a “pretty” site the Search Engines can’t even recognize.
**Today’s Brilliant Flash of the Obvious: The best website in the world won’t do you much good if no one can find it or if your online reputation warns people away before they even have a chance to get there. As we’ve said many times before (and will no doubt say many times again), it’s very important to integrate all aspects of design and marketing to successfully compete online.