SEO for Restaurants

A Step-by-Step Restaurant SEO Guide

Are you ready to attract more diners to your restaurant through organic search? Keep reading to learn how a targeted SEO restaurant marketing strategy can help you get found by potential diners online.

In this guide you will learn:

Chapter 1
Intro to SEO →

Chapter 2
Keyword Research →

Chapter 3
On-Page SEO →

Chapter 4
Off-Page SEO →

Chapter 5
Best Practices →

Chapter 6
FAQs & Resources →

What is SEO for restaurants?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website or web page to increase its visibility in search engines like Google and Bing.

SEO is a crucial factor for any restaurant looking to attract more customers. The higher your restaurant’s website ranks on Google, the more likely potential diners are to click through and visit your establishment.

Think of it as kitchen hygiene for your website.

Just as keeping your kitchen clean ensures your food is safe and appealing, SEO ensures your website is ‘healthy’—making it easily found by search engines. This boosts your visibility, drives more traffic to your site, and ultimately helps fill your tables with happy customers.

A person searching for a restaurant on Google may use a search query like “restaurant near me” or “best restaurant in [city name]”.

They may search for specific cuisines or dining experiences such as “Italian restaurant near me”, “best vegan restaurant in [city name]”, or “romantic dinner spot in [city name]”.

Or they may even include dietary preferences or pricing information in the search query, such as “gluten-free restaurant in [city name]” or “affordable fine dining in [city name]”.

In order to benefit from SEO, you want your website to rank for these kind of searches.

Why is restaurant SEO important?

Here are some of the benefits of using SEO for your restaurant:

• Increased visibility: SEO helps to increase the visibility of your restaurant’s website on search engines, making it more likely that potential customers will find you when searching for dining options.
• Cost-effective: Compared to traditional advertising methods like print or television, SEO is a cost-effective way to attract diners actively looking for restaurants in your area.
• Targeted audience: SEO allows you to target specific keywords related to your offerings, such as “best Italian restaurant,” “vegan food near me,” or “romantic dinner spots,” ensuring you attract customers with specific dining preferences.
• Local SEO: Local SEO focuses on improving your visibility for searches within your geographic area. This is especially valuable for restaurants, as diners often search for places to eat near their current location.
• Building trust: By providing high-quality, relevant content—such as menus, photos, and reviews—on your website, SEO helps establish your restaurant as a trusted and appealing choice. This builds credibility with both search engines and potential customers.

Investing in SEO ensures your restaurant stands out, reaches the right audience, and attracts more diners to your tables.

How do search engines work?

Search engines work by crawling billions of webpages with their own web crawlers, known as search engine bots or spiders. These are then stored and saved in an index.

Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines)

The Google Search Essentials define the actions that webmasters can take to make their websites better indexable or crawlable.

Read them here: Official Google Guidelines

The guidelines are based on three central aspects:

1. Crawling – webmasters should support Google in finding websites.
2. Indexing – webmasters should help Google to classify and “recognize” the content.
3. Usability and user experience – webmasters should support the users of the websites in their use (usability and user experience).

Essentially, according to these Google guidelines,  a website should support the search engine in crawling and indexing and ensure a good user experience. 

Before you get started with SEO, there are a few prerequisites you want to check off first:

SEO Basics

At a bare minimum, you want to make sure you cover these basic standards before embarking on doing SEO:

• Website Speed – Have a fast loading site so potential customers don’t get tired of waiting for things to load.
• Mobile Friendliness – Make sure your site works on mobile as over 50% of users browse on mobile devices
• Analytics – Setup Google Analytics, Google Search Console & so you can understand what is and isn’t working.
• XML Sitemap – search engines use this to get your site’s URLs
• Robots.txt – tells search engine crawlers where they can (and where they can’t go) on your site.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of making website and server optimizations to help search engines to crawl and index your site more effectively (and therefore help to improve organic rankings).

Technical errors can hurt a website’s ability to rank. There are potentially a lot of errors, but here are some of the most common that will have the biggest impact when fixed:

• 404 errors
• Broken backlinks
• Poor URL structure
• Duplicate/thin content
• Poor internal linking
• Poor website architecture
• Missing metadata (page titles & meta descriptions)
• Missing H1 tags

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What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of identifying the words and phrases that people use when searching for specific products or services:

Once you understand the keywords your target audience is using, you can optimize your website to appear for these in search results.

Think of keyword research as a recipe for your website’s success. Just as a recipe helps a chef create the perfect dish, keyword research helps you understand what people are searching for online when they’re looking for dining options.

For example, if your restaurant specializes in Italian cuisine, keyword research might reveal that people frequently search for terms like “best Italian restaurant near me,” “authentic pasta dishes,” or “romantic Italian dinner spots.”

By using these keywords to optimize your website, you can improve your rankings in search results, making it easier for potential customers to find your restaurant. This helps attract diners who are actively looking for the exact dining experience you offer.

Why is keyword research important?

Keyword research is important for restaurants because it helps to:

• understand what people are searching for when they are looking for dining options, and to optimize their website accordingly.
• identify the specific needs and pain points of their target audience, which can inform the content they create and services they offer, ultimately leading to more conversion and better customer experience.
• identify the competition in the local area and understand what they are doing, so they can create a more effective SEO strategy.

What keywords are best to target?

Understand that there’s no “best” keywords, just those that are highly searched by your audience. With this in mind, it’s up to you to craft a strategy that will help you rank pages and drive traffic.

The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority, and volume. You want to find highly searched keywords that you can reasonably compete for based on:

• The level of competition you’re up against.
• Your ability to produce content that exceeds in quality what’s currently ranking.

How to do keyword research for your restaurant

To start keyword research: put yourself in your customers shoes.

What words, phrases and terms might they use in order to find solutions to these problems? These are the keywords you want to find and target.

Here is a simple process to follow:

Step 1) Make a list of broad topics

Create a list of general topics related to your business. These might correspond to product categories, services or anything you believe your target audience would be interested in.

For example, broad topics like:

• Fine Dining
• Vegan and Vegetarian Options
• Family-Friendly Restaurants
• Food Delivery and Takeout Services
• Event Catering

Step 2) Expand topics into a list of phrases

Now you want to take those topics and expand them into a list of related phrases to target.

Imagine yourself as a buyer looking for your product or service and ask yourself: what would I type into Google?

Whilst keyword research tools are useful here, you can do this for free by Googling your keyword.

For example, Google “best Italian restaurants near me” and you’ll get a list of related questions people ask (which you can answer with blog content).

As well as related searches which may uncover other keywords to target:

Step 3) Analyze your keywords

Once you have a list of potential keywords, you need to gauge which terms are worth targeting.

You’ll need to use a keyword research tool here to pay attention to the following keyword metrics:

• Search volume
• Trends
• Search value over time
• Difficulty
• CPC
• SERP features

But most importantly, you want to consider relevancy and search intent:

Relevant keywords:

For relevancy, you want to ask yourself:

• Are these keywords relevant to my business?
• Do I have a chance of ranking for these terms based on the competition?
• Is ranking for these keywords going to have a positive ROI?

If you can answer YES to the above questions, chances are you have picked a relevant keyword

Search intent:

Search intent is the goal and purpose of a search query in Google. When someone searches for something, they are typically looking for more information before performing an action.

Search intent falls in four buckets:

• Informational – Searchers looking for information, they’ll use words like: how, what, why, when etc.
• Navigational – Searchers trying to find a specific site, they’ll use words relating to the service/product/brand
• Transactional – Searchers looking to purchase, they’ll use words like: buy, cost, pricing, cheap etc.
• Commercial investigation – Searchers researching prior to making a purchase, they’ll use words like: best, review, comparison etc

Not only is it important to select good keywords, but also to pick keywords you have a chance of ranking for.

For example, if you want to rank for the keyword: “Best Wine Pairings for Steak” but your page doesn’t provide any wine pairing recommendations, you are not meeting a searcher’s intent and may struggle to rank for it.

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What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO describes specific elements of the pages on your website that you control, such as:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Header tags
• Internal linking
• Images
• Content

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is essential for restaurants because it ensures that their website is easily found and understood by search engines. This increased visibility can drive more traffic to the website, ultimately bringing in more diners to the restaurant.

For example, if a restaurant offers a service like “outdoor dining” and that service is not mentioned or prominently highlighted on the website, it will be less likely to appear in search results when someone searches for “outdoor dining near me” or related terms. Conversely, if the website is optimized with “outdoor dining” as a focus keyword, it is more likely to rank higher in search results, attracting diners searching for that specific experience.

Additionally, on-page optimization improves the overall user experience of a website, which can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates. A well-organized, easy-to-navigate website with clear calls to action—such as “Reserve a Table” or “Order Online”—is more likely to convert visitors into customers.

By focusing on on-page SEO, restaurants can enhance their online presence, attract more targeted customers, and increase bookings and orders.

On-Page SEO Checklist

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What is off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO refers to specific actions done outside of your website, such as getting backlinks from other websites or social media.

What is link building?

Link building is the practice of building one-way hyperlinks (also known as “backlinks”) to a website with the goal of improving SEO. Common link building strategies include content marketing, building useful tools, email outreach, broken link building and guest posts.

Why is link building important?

Link building is important for restaurants because it helps to increase the visibility of a website on search engines. Google, for example, use links to a website as a way to determine the authority and trustworthiness of a website.

The more high-quality links that point to a website, the more likely it is to be considered an authority in its field and be given higher rankings in the SERPs (search engine results page).

This increased visibility can drive more traffic to a website, which can lead to more diners for the restaurant.

Link building is an essential strategy for restaurants to establish themselves as reputable and trustworthy dining destinations. High-quality links from reputable websites in the food, hospitality, or travel industries—such as local food blogs, restaurant directories, or travel guides—signal to both search engines and potential customers that the restaurant is respected and valued in its field.

Link building can also drive referral traffic to your website. For example, diners might discover your restaurant through a link on a local “Best Places to Eat” list, a review on a food blog, or a mention in a travel website. This not only increases brand awareness but also introduces your restaurant to new audiences who might not have otherwise found you.

In summary, link building is crucial for restaurants because it enhances online visibility, builds trust and reputation, and drives referral traffic to your website, ultimately helping to attract more diners and grow your business.

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Restaurant SEO Best Practices (+ 4 Tips)

4 Actionable Restaurant SEO Tips

Here are some things your restaurant can do to begin the process of developing a good marketing strategy.

1. Add relevant keywords
2. Optimize for local searches
3. Start blogging
4. Earn links

1. Add relevant keywords to your website

People looking for restaurants also search for specific dining options or experiences, such as “vegetarian-friendly restaurants,” “rooftop dining,” or “family-friendly brunch spots.” These long-tail searches may have lower overall search volume, but the traffic they generate is highly targeted and more likely to convert into actual diners.

For instance, instead of focusing solely on optimizing your website for broad terms like “restaurant” or “dining,” you can include keywords like “romantic dinner spot in [your city],” “seafood restaurant near [landmark],” or “best pizza delivery in [your neighborhood].” These specific phrases help you attract customers who already know what they’re looking for and are ready to make a decision.

2. Optimize your site for local searches

If your SEO plan doesn’t use local SEO to target specific areas, you’ll likely miss out on some great leads. Adding the name of your town and nearby towns to your website copy is the easiest way to get better results.

But don’t forget about things on your site besides writing copy. You should also add places to the titles and URLs of your pages.

Also, make sure that your business is listed on Google Maps and local directory sites. This will help your business show up more in local searches.

3. Start writing useful content

The main goal of restaurant SEO is to get more customers by making your website more visible in Google.

One way to do this is to write a blog focused on food and dining tips. If you create engaging content with topics like “how to pair wines with your meals” or “the secrets behind perfectly cooked steak,” you’ll attract interested readers and potential diners. As your blog’s traffic grows, your search rankings will improve, making your restaurant more visible to people searching for great dining experiences in your area. This positions your restaurant as a trusted authority in the local food scene and can drive more customers through your doors.

4. Earn quality links

How high your site ranks in search results for keywords and phrases related to your business depends on how many and how good the links are to it. This means that you need to get good links if you want to keep your rankings.

You can do this by making good content and reaching out to bloggers and leaders in your field to ask them to share it. This will not only help you move up in search results, but it will also make your restaurant look like a leader in the field.

Backlinks are a very important part of SEO for restaurants. They are like a vote of confidence for the content your dining destination puts out. Because of this, links are one of the most important ways that search engines like Google decide how to rank pages.

How does restaurant SEO work?

SEO for restaurants means making sure that your website is optimized for both search engines and users. This makes your website more visible in relevant and organic search results.

Optimizations include:

• on-page SEO
• link building
• technical SEO review
• content audit
• local citation audit

Why do restaurants need marketing?

Marketing helps set your restaurant apart from the competition.

Your diners are your customers, and a strong marketing plan not only helps you identify your target audience but also communicates why they should choose your restaurant over others.

A great restaurant marketing strategy attracts new customers, keeps loyal patrons coming back, and increases awareness of your unique offerings. The ultimate goal is to encourage potential diners to make a reservation, order online, or visit your establishment in person.

How long does restaurant SEO take?

Typically, restaurant SEO takes at least six months to deliver results.

In some cases, restaurants may start to see results like increased traffic, phone calls, and appointments, in faster time frame than this.

Although typically 6 months is a good benchmark as SEO is a long-term strategy vs. a short-term strategy like PPC.

How much does SEO for a restaurant cost?

Prices for a restaurant’s website SEO depend on multiple factors, but the average cost for restaurant SEO is $1500 – $5000 per month.

If you’re looking to partner with a consultant or restaurant SEO expert, the average rate is $100 – $300 per hour.