5 Free Tools to Boost Your Restaurant Online Marketing Plan
May 5, 2010
In honor of Cinco de Mayo, here are five easy, no-cost things you can do today to jump start your restaurant website marketing plan. Follow these steps, and by Memorial Day you’ll be well on your way to improving your business’ online presence:
- Update or Claim Local Listings – Enter your business name and zip code here, to see if your business listings have been claimed and updated on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yelp, and Business.com. In less than 15 seconds, a report similar to the one below but specific to the business you have entered, will be available for you to view and act upon.
- Check for new marketing opportunities via keyword research – There are many good keyword research tools out there for professional marketers, but if you want a no-cost alternative it’s hard to beat Google’s own tool. Simply enter your website address or a keyword phrase, such as “Denver restaurant” and Google will show a list of related search phrases. Don’t rely heavily on the specific number of searches that are returned, instead use the results to rank relative demand for keyword phrases. Are people looking for restaurants that offer gluten-free alternatives in your area? Maybe a good place for Mother’s Day or Graduation celebration? Keyword research is a great way to uncover emerging trends to be included in your restaurant marketing plan. Make sure to include a new page on your website for any new markets you uncover!
- Do a bit of competitive research - How and what are your competitors doing online? Check out Compete.com and enter in up to three website addresses to compare unique visitors, top search phrases and top referrers for each site entered. This is a great way to discover new sites from which to get links to your own website and new search phrases to use in marketing your website.
- What’s being said about your restaurant online? – Here’s a two-for-one freebie! Monitor what the search engines are finding about your brand by setting up Google alerts for your restaurant’s name and the name of your chef. You’ll receive emails, for the time frame you select (immediately, daily or weekly), listing all mentions found on the web by Google. Do the same with social media mentions at SocialMention.com, where you can enter your brand name and see, in real time, what is being said about your business on social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs. You’ll not only see each mention listed, this site also calculates the strength of your brand, the ratio of positive to negative mentions and lots more. Subscribe to the RSS feed for your brand search to remain updated on mentions across the social networking universe.
- Download TwoTables’ whitepaper, Big Picture Internet Marketing , where we detail how to formulate an all-encompassing internet marketing plan for restaurants. Although compiled last year, the message, resources and tactics are still effective in 2010. You can also keep up to date on all things internet and restaurant related by subscribing to the TwoTables blog, following TwoTables on Twitter and liking TwoTables on Facebook.
That’s it! Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo celebrations, everyone.
Yelp & Facebook – What New Partnership Means For Restaurants
April 23, 2010
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Yelp will become an even bigger player in the restaurant marketing mix after this week’s announcement that the user-generated review site has partnered with Facebook to integrate content between the two communities.
The collaboration aims to make the experience on Yelp more personalized for their members and make friends’ opinions on local businesses visible on Facebook.
Here’s an overview of the features announced on Wednesday:
- Yelp will pull personalized information from Facebook to automatically create a profile for new Yelp users.
- A new user will land on Yelp and be able to see which Facebook friends have reviewed a business and easily read their reviews.
- Users will be able to view a feed of what their friends are doing on Yelp (adding pictures, writing reviews, and liking businesses).
- Yelpers will be able to see which friends have “liked” a particular business
Yelp offers the following information about liking businesses on either of the sites:
- Any user logged into either Yelp or Facebook will be able to like a business on Yelp by pressing a Like button. This is similar to the functionality Facebook has that allows you to like the content your friends post on Facebook.
- Liking a business on Yelp will also mean you like it on Facebook, however users can opt out of sharing.
- Liking a business in Yelp means it will also show up on the user’s Facebook profile, much like the way pages fanned on Facebook are currently displayed. This link will point back to Yelp’s business page.
What should the savvy restaurant marketer do to make the most of these features? Join, engage, connect. Your goal as the face of the business in social networks should be to facilitate interaction with your brand. Business owners can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines while conversations regarding their establishments take place online. Whether or not you have raving fans or disgruntled patrons posting their thoughts on Yelp, their comments are going to have a much wider audience now that their opinions will be ported automatically to their friends on Facebook. This requires that there be an official voice of the restaurant conversing with customers in these venues.
If it hasn’t already been done, create an official presence on Facebook and Yelp. This entails claiming or adding the business listing in Yelp and creating a business page in Facebook. Once the profiles have been created, view activity on each of these pages on a daily basis. Yes, this takes time out of an already busy day, however it’s not as much as you might fear. Five to ten minutes each day should be adequate to monitor and respond to comments entered in Yelp and Facebook for an average independent restaurant. Even franchised businesses shouldn’t have to spend much more than that on social networking on the average workday.
It’s important to acknowledge both good and bad reviews – graciously accept compliments and quickly address any complaints that may appear. TwoTables strongly recommends responding publicly rather than sending private messages within the social sites. This serves two purposes: other users can see how you respond to make a negative situation better and you have shown that you are an active member of the Yelp & Facebook communities. Over time, this investment pays off in building trust and loyalty with your online customers.
I know that Yelp is a volatile subject in the restaurant industry and would love to hear how you feel about the new partnership with Facebook. How do you think this will affect your business? How will you adapt to this new paradigm? Let us know by leaving a comment!
If the ever-changing landscape of web marketing leaves you dazed and confused, please take a minute to contact us either by phone, email or via our quick and easy contact form. We’ll provide you with a free analysis of your restaurant’s online presence and specific tactics you can employ for improvement.
Getting the Big Picture, TwoTables Style
February 5, 2010
“Though the Web site may be the most important part of the marketing campaign, for true effectiveness it has to be part of a larger, big-picture marketing effort,” said Malcolm O’Keefe, CEO of the Blue River Interactive Group.
Amen! It was refreshing to see the TwoTables’ mantra published in the current issue of The Restaurant Standard, published by the California Restaurant Association. The article underscored several recurrent themes we have addressed in this blog, including:
- Regularly review the restaurant’s website to ensure that it is presenting a fresh, up-to-date image
- Keep SEO at the forefront of the website’s goals when contemplating a design/redesign project
- Integrate social media into the website
- Adopt a simple, easy-to-use content management system (such as WordPress) so that any member of the staff, no matter how technically-savvy, can make updates to the site
- Keep the website simple and effective – avoid annoying “click to enter” landing pages, flash-only pages, intrusive music and poor photography
In addition to these points, I would add the following to the list to ensure a thorough Internet presence:
- Claim and update the restaurant’s local search profiles. (Find out in less than a minute if this has been done for your establishment here.) Make sure the full street address and phone number appear on every page of the website.
- Search for <restaurant’s city><restaurants> in Google. Where does the website currently rank in the search results? Do the title and description entice searchers to click through to the website? This step takes just a minute to complete and offers valuable insight into the restaurant’s search engine presence.
- Claim and update the restaurant’s listing on directories such as Yelp, UrbanSpoon, TripAdvisor and any local review sites.
- Monitor the restaurant’s online reputation at the above-mentioned sites and respond to reviews (both good and bad) when appropriate.
- Use social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and a company blog, to create a community surrounding the business. SAME Cafe in Denver does a great job of utilizing their blog and Facebook to include their customers. They also realize the benefit of a redesign; currently TwoTables is developing a fresh, new look for their website.
- Review the website’s statistical data regularly. Don’t have access to this information? Ask your website hosting company to provide it. If they can’t, Google Analytics is a free tool that offers in-depth information about your website visitors.
Keep up-to-date on internet marketing issues as they relate to the food service industry! Subscribe to our blog feed, get blog posts via email, follow TwoTables on Twitter and Facebook.