Restaurants rely heavily on local search traffic to attract customers from the nearby area, so it's crucial to optimize Google Business Profile for restaurants to achieve maximum visibility in local search results.
While it's simple enough to create and verify a Google Business Profile listing filled out with all the basic information, it's important not to just leave it at that — restaurants and their local SEO teams should continuously optimize their GBPs to keep them fresh, relevant, and accurate, boosting their chances of appearing highly in local searches on Google and Google Maps.
8 Tips for Optimizing a Restaurant's Google Business Profile:
- Include Locally Relevant Keywords in the Business Description
- Add All Relevant Categories
- Select Relevant Attributes
- Add High-Quality Photos and Videos
- Enable Online Reservations and Orders
- Encourage and Respond to Customer Reviews
- Keep Business Information Up to Date
- Monitor Performance and Adjust Your Restaurant's Local SEO Strategy
Include Locally Relevant Keywords in the Business Description
A restaurant's Google Business Profile description is the perfect opportunity to include a few locally relevant keywords in the listing that could potentially help it show up in more relevant searches.
For example, let's say you're optimizing Google Business Profile for a Thai restaurant that's been awarded for having one of the best Pad Thai dishes in Seattle. You could try to naturally mention this in the description somewhere and include the keyword "best Pad Thai in Seattle," so when people perform that search they might be more likely to see your listing near the top of the results.
Add All Relevant Categories
The categories you select for a restaurant on Google Business Profile are of the utmost importance. They tell Google what searches to rank your restaurant in and help customers find it when they're looking for a specific type of food or dining experience.
Make sure to always choose a single category that best describes the restaurant for the primary category, then select all other relevant categories to add as secondary categories.
For example, if you're optimizing a pizza restaurant's GBP, select "pizza restaurant" as the primary category, then add secondary categories like "pizza delivery," "pizza takeaway," and "italian restaurant," depending on what exactly the restaurant offers besides sit-down dining and pizza.
If a category doesn't 100% accurately reflect what the restaurant offers, don't add it — this could negatively affect its local SEO efforts in the long run by confusing both Google and customers.
For instance, if you're optimizing Google Business Profile for an American-style barbecue restaurant, don't add "Korean barbecue restaurant" as a category.
Select Relevant Attributes
Google Business Profile Attributes are additional offerings you can highlight on a restaurant's GBP listing, separate from the categories. They cover things related to the dining experience, such as "dine-in," "takeaway," and "patio dining," as well as more general amenities and features, like "Wi-Fi," "wheelchair accessible seating," and "kid-friendly."
Choosing as many applicable attributes as possible will help a restaurant show up in more specific local searches, such as when someone searches for "hamburgers near me with patio dining" or "kid-friendly Italian restaurant."
Add High-Quality Photos and Videos
Restaurants are one of the business types for which people pay extra attention to the photos and videos on Google Business Profile — potential customers want to see what the food and establishment looks like before deciding to go spend their hard-earned money there!
So, add plenty of high-quality photos and videos of your restaurant's menu items, staff, and both the inside and outside of the business to your GBP listing. And, make sure to add more photos when new things happen, such as when you add a new menu item, make renovations, or throw a special event!
Enable Online Reservations and Orders
Google Business Profile offers a few special features for restaurants, including online reservations and ordering directly through GBP.
By enabling online bookings and accepting orders through your restaurant's Google Business Profile, you can convert more local search leads to customers using a single free platform.
Encourage and Respond to Customer Reviews
Positive online reviews, especially Google Business Profile reviews, are paramount to a restaurant's success.
In addition to looking at photos and videos, most customers read through online reviews for different restaurants before deciding which one to visit or order from.
Not only that, but reviews are a direct local ranking factor for Google Search and Google Maps, meaning that profiles with a higher number of reviews and better average reviews scores are more likely to rank near the top.
So, in order to stand a chance at outranking competing restaurants and potentially even earning a top-3 spot on Google (a spot in Google's highly coveted 3-Pack), restaurants must encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on Google.
Additionally, business owners or their listing managers should respond to all GBP reviews, both positive and negative, to demonstrate a commitment to excellent customer service and gather feedback that could help improve the restaurant's offerings, ultimately leading to better reviews and rankings in the long run.
Keep Business Information Up to Date
One of the biggest Google Business Profile mistakes that businesses make is not updating business information when things change.
Google rewards businesses with the most accurate, consistent information by ranking them highly, so you should always update the business info, including address, contact details, and hours, as soon as anything changes.
This includes adding/updating holiday hours whenever applicable, which helps people find your restaurant in search results when it's actually open.
Monitor Performance and Adjust Your Restaurant's Local SEO Strategy
In order for your restaurant's Google Business Profile optimization strategy to succeed, it's important to track your GBP's performance, monitoring both engagement and local search rankings.
By regularly tracking performance and gathering insights on customer interactions and rankings for specific keywords, you can make adjustments to your listing and your overall local SEO strategy to improve your restaurant's online visibility even further.
Track Restaurant Rankings with Local Falcon
Conclusion
Just as you can't set a pot on a stove and forget about it, you can't create a Google Business Profile for your restaurant and leave it alone — continuously optimizing Google Business Profile for restaurants is essential for attracting hungry local customers.
By following these tips and continuously monitoring and updating your Google Business Profile, you can stay ahead of the competition and ensure that your restaurant is easily discoverable in local searches!