Search engines allow us to share information effortlessly across continents in seconds, find communities that fit us, and discover new things. That last part is what we’re going to focus on today; more accurately, we’re here to talk about Google Business Profile best practices so your restaurant can get discovered.
Why Optimizing Your Google Business Profile Matters
Optimizing your Google Business Profile is incredibly important in the modern day and age for one reason — Google is by far the most commonly used search engine. Because of this, their tools for businesses are absolutely vital if you want to bring in new guests.
Google offers a large suite of tools that businesses can use to get things running smoothly. The most important ones for us today are their Google Business Profile and Google Maps. Google Maps restaurants are easier to discover, show up earlier on search results, and make it simpler for guests to learn about your restaurant.
The Impact on Local Search Visibility and SEO
Speaking of visibility, developing your Google Business Profile and getting your online presence optimized for SEO should be your first order of business. A Google Business Profile allows you to provide a physical location on Maps, leading to two things. First and foremost, you’ll show up as an official business on Google, meaning searches like “restaurants near me” have the potential to show your restaurant.
Beyond that, though, SEO allows you to capture the attention of potential new customers by highlighting the things that you do well. While I highly recommend hiring a professional SEO specialist to optimize your online presence, with a bit of work, you can absolutely do it yourself. You’ll need to get familiar with Google’s most current SEO guidelines, but it’s worth it in the long run.
Enhancing Trust and Credibility with a Complete Profile
Beyond the obvious perk of visibility, a complete Google Business Profile helps verify you as a real business. While there are plenty of businesses who (according to Google) don’t exist online, they’re fewer each day — and that’s because we live in a digital world. Businesses without any verified online presence are harder to trust.
We want your restaurant to be well-known and trusted by locals, though, so a Google Business Profile is the best place to start. Be sure to have (good) up-to-date photos of the building, food, drinks, and space, and keep your hours updated. Now’s actually a great time to break that down, so let’s dive right into building your Google Business Profile.
Setting Up Your Restaurant’s Google Business Profile
Setting up a Google Business profile is actually quite simple. Here we’ll walk through the steps of setting it up.
Claiming Your Business on Google
Creating your business on Google is actually quite simple. You’ll need to navigate through Google Maps to your Business Profile and select add your business. From there, follow the on-screen prompts to complete your profile — and be sure to double-check that everything is correct.
Once you’ve created a Google Business profile, you’ll be able to add a location and address, hours, menu(s), and photos. Take your time here, as this will be the first thing that potential new guests see, and we want a good first impression — but first, we need to verify your account.
Verifying Your Profile for Increased Visibility
After you’ve created a Google Business profile, your work isn’t done. You’ll need to verify your account via phone, email, video, or text. Often, this process will take several days (up to a full week), but once it’s done, you’ll have full control over your Google Business profile and will be able to update it at will.
More importantly, though, your account will be prioritized more heavily in relevant searches. Additionally, you’ll have guaranteed control of your account. Google allows the public to suggest edits for businesses that haven’t verified their account. This means that enough suggestions can have (unverified) business’ hours, open status, and location modified on Google with enough time.
Key Elements to Optimize on Your Google Business Profile
With that out of the way, let’s talk about a few important points that you’ll want to pay attention to when building your Google Business profile.
Choosing the Right Business Category
Google categorizes businesses into one of a number of various categories. Obviously, we want to ensure that your business is categorized as a restaurant. Beyond that, you’ll want to apply tags that are relevant to the type of food or drinks that you serve. If you’re a pizza restaurant, make sure to throw that in as a keyword and tag it; if you’re a cafe, same thing.
If you really want to go all-in here, take the time to research keywords that are relevant to your business. They may be as simple as “pizza by the slice” or they could be more specific, what matters is that you highlight the things that people search for.
Writing an Effective Business Description
Your business description should quickly and accurately describe who you are and what you do. Try to avoid longwinded explanations and stick to short, easy-to-process language; after all, people who search businesses on Google aren’t trying to read a novel — they’re trying to find a restaurant because they’re hungry.
Highlight your ambiance (quiet, bustling, busy, secluded, etc.), cuisine, and any deals like happy hour, and leave it at that — the place to brag is in your photos.
Adding High-Quality Photos and Videos
Speaking of photos, it’s crucial that you use high-quality photos. This means no blurry images taken on your phone, no out-of-focus shots of food, and no overly color-corrected shots of your lobby or storefront. Instead, it’s best to invest in professional photos of important menu items, your lobby, and storefront.
Updating Contact Information and Website Link
Your contact information and website link should always be up-to-date. If guests search your business, only to be redirected to a dead link or nonexistent phone number, they will move on and find another restaurant. Instead, keep your information updated and you’ll find that it’s easier for guests to accidentally stumble upon you.
Including Business Hours and Holiday Hours
Business hours — especially holiday and event hours — are one of the most important parts of your Google Business profile. Guests will regularly search you to see when you open or close, and if they show up expecting you to be open (after all, your Google Business profile says you’re open) and you’re not, they’ll be disappointed.
In short, be sure to update your hours as soon as they change, update your holiday hours before the holiday, and post any changes due to events or weather as soon as you can.
How to Use Google Posts to Promote Your Restaurant
Google introduced the ability to post about your business with images, videos, or text. These posts display under the “updates/overview” tabs on your Google Business profile, allowing those who search your business to stay up-to-date.
Types of Posts to Consider
Posts should be used to highlight new and important information. Whether that’s a special event like a closed-doors dinner, a new special, or changes to your menu, it’s best to highlight any major changes under posts. Keep in mind that these posts will automatically archive themselves after six months, so don’t use posts to update your hours or make changes that need to remain up for longer than that.
Managing Customer Reviews on Google
With the process of building your Google Business profile out of the way, it’s time to talk about another aspect of your profile — customer reviews. Now, these can be both good and bad, so there is a bit of nuance here, but there’s one thing that matters more than most; you have to respond to them. While there’s no hard-and-fast rule that says you have to, it’s a major part of Google My Business best practices.
Guests like to see that a business interacts with customers and, importantly, they need to see that you acknowledge issues and do your best to solve them. Because of this, most business owners try to respond within a few business days. Beyond simply answering, though, it’s important to do so gently and efficiently. Reiterate concerns or compliments, respond knowing that you’re representing your business, and don’t argue or squabble in responses.
Leveraging Google Q&A to Engage Potential Customers
Google allows the public to ask questions of verified businesses where the owner(s) can respond. This is a great way to highlight what you do well and have to offer, but more importantly, it’s a great way to show information that the rest of your profile can’t easily communicate. Do you have a big collection of board games? Ask a question and answer it with photos and a few examples. Is your business known for its cocktails? Answer a question about cocktails with a cool photo and examples of old best-sellers.
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