Why SEO for restaurants matters more than ever
It can be useful to think of your online presence in the same way you think of your front windows.
It’s not really integral to the taste of the food or the warmth of the welcome but plays a vital role in drawing people in or putting them off.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is often presented as some mysterious dark art. It isn’t.
It’s about making sure that a computer (a search engine, or AI) can understand your website and direct humans to it.
There are layers and layers of detail to learn, which is exactly why you can get properly good at this. Just because I’m not a chef doesn’t mean I can’t cook, or that I can’t get better at it.
We’ve put our heads together and come up with a list of things that are important and we think everyone can do:
1. Be consistent
Make sure that your website, Google business profile, Apple Maps, social media accounts, Restaurants Brighton profile are all accurate and identical when it comes to your: Name, address, and phone number. These elements are also called NAP and must be 100% accurate across all profiles.
2. Maintain your Google business profile
Upload new images regularly, respond to questions, make sure the information is accurate. Here are 7 top tips from optimisation experts SEMrush.
3. Encourage reviews
Don’t be shy to ask people to write you reviews.
Google business reviews, Tripadvisor reviews, Restaurants Brighton reviews, all the reviews.
All of these demonstrate to the search engines and AI that your business is buzzing and visited.
Remember, these machines might be able to string words together and sound clever, but they can’t eat the food or drink the drink.
It’s not always the nicest job, but replying to reviews, good and bad, is a quick way to show you’re a real business.
4. Use your words
We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words and photos of your food and your venue really matter. And so do the words. A stylish website with beautiful images and few words will only tell part of the story. Describe what you do, describe your dishes, introduce yourself, answer questions that you think your customers may be asking. When your next customer is talking to ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude about where to eat, make sure you’ve helped it learn about you so your useful written content comes up in the search results.
5. Use social media
Instagram and Tik Tok are super important to help people find your venue and your website. Post to them. You don’t have to overthink it. Take a photo and write a quick post. Use AI to help you write a caption if you want to, but also remember that being human will always be more unique and interesting!
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of done.
Make sure every post on Instagram and TikTok has a location or GEO tag.
Use your Alt Text for Social: Use descriptive keywords in the “Alt Text” settings of your social posts so they appear in Google Image and Video search results. Simply describe the image as if you are describing it to someone.
Slightly more technical but very important:
6. Ditch the pdf menu
We know it can be convenient to upload the file that you can also print but it is not very search engine readable and even less useful in these AI times. Make sure your menus are easy to find by humans and computers alike: keep them on the same page, and make sure they are built in html. Just like all your other pages.
7. Look at your stats
Install something like Plausible.io on your website.
Plausible is a paid-for alternative to Google Analytics, and because it doesn’t collect any private information from your visitors, you don’t need to hide it behind a cookie banner.
That means you get an accurate idea of how many people are visiting your website and where they’re coming from, which is genuinely useful. We use Plausible ourselves. Of course, we check our traffic every day, that’s our job. Looking at yours once a week would give you a feel for when people are coming and where from, which helps you work out where to put your effort.
So, there you have it. Seven things that will help your business be more visible online.
Any questions? Please get in touch with me.
Ivanka Majic has spent years working across marketing and digital strategy for independent hospitality businesses in Brighton and Hove, and has watched first hand how small, consistent changes to a website and social presence change whether a venue gets found. This guide draws on that experience.