Complete On-Page Restaurant SEO Practical Guide: How to Rank High

Investing time in SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) leads to increasing organic traffic to your website, thus boosting your brand awareness and turning it into sales. It’s easy to get lost in details, but SEO for restaurants and bistros doesn’t need to be a hassle. In this article, we’ll talk about on-page restaurant SEO, which involves all the things that you can do directly on your website to boost its search engine rankings.

SEO for Restaurants Keyword Strategy

Before you start looking for the best free SEO tools to help with keyword research, first think about your business profile. It’s the same exercise you did when you decided to become a restaurant owner. Which cuisine is your specialty? Where are you located? Do you offer takeaway and delivery?

When customers search the internet for businesses, they try to find something in their area. No one will search for a Thai restaurant in a different city (unless they’re planning a trip there). They will search for “Mexican restaurants near me,” or “Italian restaurants near me,” or… you get it.

Asking these questions will help you define which customers your website is addressing. Trying to get known in an entire country will not only dilute your traffic but also won’t bring extra benefits. Your target should be SEO for local businesses.

Related: Key Benefits of SEO for Restaurant Websites

Narrow your keywords

A big part of local search SEO is narrowing the keywords that you want to rank for. Before using keyword tools, try to write down some short phrases that you, in the position of a customer, would search for online (of course, applying it to your restaurant’s specs).

There is no such thing as the best keywords for restaurants in general. You have to find keywords for restaurants that are similar to yours in terms of cuisine, location, specific, etc.

Example:
Let’s say that Pronto Restaurant in Naples is doing Italian cuisine.

If they’re not searching for a specific restaurant, most users will type in restaurant keywords like:
“Italian restaurant in Naples”
“Best restaurant in Naples”
“Italian restaurant”

In this case, the best option for Pronto Restaurant is to optimize their website for the first two keywords. The last one is a bit too generic, and the competition too high.

Choose keywords wisely

Your main goal should be to rank #1 in the SERP for specific keywords. What does SERP stand for? Search Engine Results Page, so the page that you see when you search for a keyword on Google.

Trying to rank first for every word or search phrase related to your business will only dilute your traffic and overall website authority. A search engine like Google will display what’s more useful for the user. If another website has been adequately indexed for some very specific keywords, it will show that one first.

Try to rely heavily on one primary keyword (like “Italian restaurant in Naples”) and work on ranking first for that one. That is the key to SEO for small businesses.

Best keyword tools you can use

Since you’re just getting started with on-page restaurant SEO, you’re probably looking for a free keyword tool, at least for now. Here are some of the best free SEO tools you can use:

• Google AdWords Keyword Planner
• Keyword In
• Ubersuggest
• WordStream
• Soovle

If you’re willing to pay for more detailed keyword research, these tools are some of the very best:

• Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
• Moz Keywords Explorer
• Keywords Everywhere
• SEMrush
• KWFinder

Take your time and don’t get impatient

A thing that very few people will tell you is that indexing your page or website in a search engine takes time. The downside is that no one truly knows exactly how much it takes to index it. Indexation depends on many factors and can take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Getting authority, on the other hand, is a different thing, and can take entire months.

Practical Tips & Tricks for On-Page Restaurant SEO

These SEO basic tips will help your website get indexed and rank high in search results over time.

SEO for beginners: first tools of the trade

Before getting your hands dirty, you’ll need to sign up for Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These two essential tools will help monitor your website performance and keep you up to date with keywords that users searched for to reach your pages.

Give crawlers a robots.txt to read

To crawl a website, search engines use bots that scan your site and read its contents. They do so by following the instructions found in your robots.txt file, which tells them how exactly to crawl your website.

The data crawled by these bots is then collected, and the content is indexed so that it can be served up in search results when someone is looking for that information.

Submit a sitemap

A sitemap sends information to search engines about your pages and how your content is organized. It also tells them how often bots should visit them, how frequently pages are updated, and when the last change was.

The sitemap sends information like the importance of a specific URL in comparison to others on your website. For example, when it comes to priority, a page where you have the restaurant menu will be more important than a page where you list job openings.

It’s not mandatory to submit a sitemap to search engines. If your robots.txt file is in order, that alone will give search engines the information they need about your pages. However, it could help to crawl your website better, especially if it’s new and doesn’t have external links to it just yet.

Fix crawl errors

The Google Search Console tool has a pretty neat feature called “Crawl errors” which lists issues at page-level or site-wide. The latter is more urgent, as any problems that affect your entire website can cause severe damage.

But what you’ll mostly need to watch out for are URL errors – all those 404 (“Page not found”) errors that can signal a search engine like Google to stop indexing those pages.

Make sure that, instead of deleting a URL, you redirect it to another page. Otherwise, in time, these 404s will bite out of your PageRank, thus hurting your entire website. Besides, it’s not user-friendly, is it?

Optimize performance to boost SEO

A page or website that takes ages to load is no friend of search engines!

Slow loading time does not only affect user experience but can also lead to poor crawling and indexing. This means that it will affect your PageRank, instead of taking you to the 1st position.

Some things that you and your webmaster can do to increase your website performance:

• Use image optimization techniques such as compressing your images with tools like TinyPNG or Optimizilla, using the right dimensions, and the proper format (usually JPG or PNG).
• Use font-icons or PNG sprites for your icons. Displaying each one as an individual file means extra loading time on your page.
• Minify your HTML, CSS & Javascript. Google made a list of useful tools that help getting rid of redundant bits and pieces in your code, thus improving your loading time.
• Leverage browser caching. Ask your webmaster to have a caching policy in place – you can set for how long you want specific information on your page to be cached. Browsers cache images, CSS & Javascript files to cut down on loading time for returning visitors.
• Always check your page speed. Make sure to continually verify that your speed performance is in top shape for both mobile and desktop. Google’s PageSpeed Insights can determine an overall score of your website’s performance and suggest possible improvements. We’d recommend making sure your score is above 90.

Protect your customers with SSL

SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” and it’s a certificate you can get for your website to protect your and your customers’ data. The SSL certificate is what gives your website URL the “s” in “https://”.

While you don’t have to get one, we strongly recommend that you do. First of all, Google penalizes non-https websites, which will hurt your search rankings. Secondly, your customers won’t feel safe browsing through your website if you don’t have an SSL certificate. Not to mention placing an order where they would have to input their credit card information.

Read more: Why Buy an SSL Certificate for Your Restaurant’s Website and How

Use schema markup to boost SEO

Schema markup is a bit of code that you put on your restaurant website to help search engines provide users with more accurate and informative results. If you’ve ever googled a restaurant and seen different smaller links under the main one, like in the example below, you know what Schema Markup can do.

For instance, in the case of restaurants, you can choose to display a quick link to your menu or your reservations page. Browse the entire selection of Schema properties for restaurants here. If you want to see whether you’re taking full advantage of Schema markup, use the Schema checker Structured Data Testing Tool from Google.

Read more: How to Correctly Implement the Restaurant Schema Markup

Focus on internal and external links

Both internal and external linking can boost your SEO. Internal linking creates relationships between your pages, which helps Google crawl your content. It also divides link value starting with your homepage, which usually has the most significant value because of all the backlinks it has. If you have two pages with related content, link to each other to show they are related.

External links can improve your SEO when they are from high-authority, highly-relevant websites. If the site is trustworthy, it will enhance your credibility as well. Similarly, links of poor quality will damage your website. On your restaurant website, you’ll probably use external links mostly on your blog.

Create a blog for extra SEO

Do you already have a blog for your restaurant? Good. If you don’t, it’s time to start one. It will help your restaurant appear in search results for more keywords, which might end up getting you more customers. Let’s say you want to write an article on “How to Grow a Restaurant from the Ground Up.” You might be featured on the first page of Google for the keyword “how to grow a restaurant.”

Learning on-page restaurant SEO for blog articles isn’t easy, but it’s also not impossible. Here are the basics of SEO in terms of notions you should be familiar with before you start writing your first post:

• Title tag: This is an HTML tag that you can find on every webpage, in the head section. It gives search engines a clue as to what the topic of the page or article is. It’s also what users see in the SERP as the clickable blue headline. Title tags don’t directly impact organic rankings. However, not having one or having one that has nothing to do with the page’s subject matter can hurt your SEO.
• Meta-description: You can find the meta-description in the SERP, under the page title. They give a summary of the page content, both for the search engines and for the users. You have to make it catchy and attractive so that users will click on your page.

• Headline: Your headline is the title of your blog post. It’s also known as H1, and it’s what users see when they open your article, at the very top of the page. This has no direct effect on SEO, so you should make it as appealing as possible for your readers.
• Header tags (H1-H6): These HTML elements signal headings and subheadings in your text. They make the text easier to read by organizing it, and they also provide search engines with relevant keywords. So, to rank higher on Google, insert your most relevant keywords into headers.

• Alt-text: This element has to do with image optimization. What is image optimization, you ask? First of all, it’s compressing the image and choosing the right dimension and format to help the page load faster. Second of all, it’s image SEO. The most important part of Google image SEO is alt-text. This is short for alternative text, and it describes an image for screen readers and search engine crawlers. It helps your image get indexed, and it is displayed when the image doesn’t load.

SEO Marketing Beyond Google

What is YouTube SEO and how can you use it?

As the name suggests, YouTube SEO is optimizing your video content for YouTube. This is different from optimizing for search engines because customers will use different types of queries on YouTube.

Do you want to take your restaurant to the next level? Create video content with behind the scenes looks at how individual dishes are prepared or recipes that your customers can get inspired from, YouTube SEO is mandatory.

YouTube keyword research differs from Google keyword research, which means there are different tools that you can use to find keywords for food videos on YouTube:

• TubeBuddy
• Morning Fame
• vidIQ

Is Bing search engine optimization worth it?

Definitely yes. Even if Bing doesn’t have as many users as Google, local search optimization on both search engines can get you even more customers. Plus, it doesn’t take a lot of your time, and it’s free.

So, how does SEO on Google differ from SEO on other search engines? It doesn’t, in essence, in that you will have to go through more or less the same steps.

To optimize your content for Bing, start by doing these three things:

• Claim your business just like you did on Google.
• Submit your site for indexation.
• Use relevant keywords and descriptive copy.

Find the Perfect SEO and User Experience Balance

We know that having a website for a restaurant that meets all user experience criteria is tricky. Google recommends having quality and useful information on your website, focusing on relevant content instead of SEO-driven efforts.

Everyone in the industry agrees that SEO is a must if you want potential customers to discover your website. However, it shouldn't be the only focus when putting together the best restaurant website for your business. Needless to say, restaurants without websites are missing out on a large chunk of potential customers.

Instead of just focusing on SEO, try to include user experience in the mix as well. Here are some restaurant website requirements for positive user experience:

• Beautiful yet clean restaurant website design
• One-page template with easy-to-find information
• Easy-to-find online ordering and table booking widgets
• Google Maps integration
• Mouth-watering images on your homepage and in your menu
• Mobile responsiveness – mobile usage when browsing online has already surpassed desktop users

GloriaFood offers all these features and more in a neatly wrapped package for you. If you don’t believe us, you can check out our restaurant website sample, Pronto.

For just $9/month, we can create a restaurant website for your business that is already user- and SEO-optimized.

Final Words

On-page SEO for restaurants doesn’t have to be a hassle. In fact, it can be quite exciting once you get the hang of it. Follow the tips in this on-page restaurant SEO guide, and you will see your website ranking high on Google and other search engines. If you have questions about anything related to doing on-page SEO, don’t hesitate to get in touch.