What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of improving both the quantity and quality of traffic delivered by major search engines such as Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. The goal is to drive qualified traffic to a website.
Think of each unique search entered into a search engine as an expression of user intent.
SEO helps search engines match user intent with the correct website.
When a user enters “Sushi or Tempura Folsom”, search engine result pages (SERPs) will ideally list all sushi restaurants in Folsom first, and sushi restaurants in Midtown further down the list.
Think of SEO as a scorecard for the restaurant’s website.
SEO done right brings more potential customers to the restaurant/bar’s website.
Types of SEO
From the 10,000 ft level, there are generally 2 types of SEO – white hat (legitimate steps supported by search engines) and black hat (illegitimate spammy techniques that will sooner or later get the restaurant website in trouble). At Sacramento Restaurant Marketing we only use white hat techniques approved by search engines. Better to be the tortoise that wins the race over time than the rabbit that jumps to an early lead but trips and falls.
Among the approved techniques of SEO are 4 key categories
1. On Page SEO
On Page SEO is optimizing the content of each webpage on a restaurant/bar’s website. This includes
- Optimizing the HTML that creates a webpage by using appropriate page title, meta tags, and header tags
- Including open graph and X card meta tags
- Image optimization and including appropriate non-spammy alt tags (needed for ADA compliance as well)
- Optimizing internal and external links
- Content Optimization
- Adding high-quality, relevant content
- Optimizing keyword placement and density
- Content length, accurate spelling and correct grammar
- Avoiding duplicate content and identifying the canonical URL for unique content
- Adding and updating content on a regular basis
2. Off Page SEO
Off Page SEO is the process of getting links from other people’s websites to the restaurant/bar’s website. It is often referred to as “link building”. This includes:
- Guest blogging – Contributing high quality to a third party blog
- Directories – Adding links to the restaurant’s website in appropriate directories
- Stats Citation – Compiling a list of interesting and relevant industry stats, and sharing that with third party websites in the hopes they add a link to the stats page on their website
- Broken-link Building – this is a four step process of
- finding broken-links on other peoples websites
- tracking down the content originally included in that broken link
- developing high quality replacement content
- Sharing that content with the site that has a broken link as a fix to the broken link
- Authoritative Source – being cited by journalists
3. Technical SEO
Technical SEO is optimizing the non-visual aspects of a website. Sort of like the engine under the hood of a car.
- HTTPS – All search engines and browsers want HTTPS URLs these days. Doing without it is not an option.
- Website Speed – Search Engines would prefer to show websites that load fast over websites that are slow.
- Mobile Friendly – Search engines can detect a user is searching from a mobile device. For those searches, search engines will show mobile-friendly websites before desktop dependent websites.
- Sitemaps and robots.txt – These help search engines inspect the restaurant website efficiently and correctly. Helping the search engines helps the restaurant. Note, this is completely invisible to the end consumer of the website.
- Schema Markup – This is another step that is invisible to the end user. As with sitemaps and robots.txt, it helps the search engines index the restaurant/bar’s content with maximum accuracy.
4. Local SEO
Local SEO is optimizing the website for location based searches. This includes
- Business Profile on Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp, and TripAdvisor
- Completing every profile to the greatest extent possible across all platforms
- Consistent use of Name, Address, Phone number, Website, email and operating hours across all platforms
- Adding the website to local directories
Keyword Research
Each search term entered into a search engine is an expression of intent. Consumers use search engines when they are trying to accomplish a goal. The goals can be broken into four general categories:
- Navigation
- Information
- Commercial
- Transactional
Navigation
These are terms users enter to go to a specific page they already know they want to use.
Examples include “Facebook login”, “Youtube”, “[Restaurant Name]”, or “Law Office of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe”.
Information
These are terms users enter when looking for information. They typically start with a question such as “What…”, “How to….”, or “Where is…”.
Not all information keywords start with a question, for example “Current time in New York” or “Mac N Cheese Recipe”.
Commercial
These are terms entered when doing product/service research.
Examples include “Honda Accord vs Toyota Camry”, “iPhone 16 Pro reviews”, and “best running shoes”, or “Best BBQ”.
Transactional
These are terms used when consumers are ready to make a purchase.
Examples include “Sushi near me”, “[Restaurant Name] Hours”, “[Restaurant Name] Coupon Code”.
How to use this information
All restaurants and bars should at a minimum take the steps necessary to score high for both Transactional terms and Navigation terms that include the business name.
Restaurants and bars can enhance the visibility of their website by regularly adding content focused on keywords that are local and fall into either the Transactional or Information categories.
Measuring and Tracking SEO
The results of SEO optimization can be tracked using an Analytics tool. Google Analytics is by far the most popular and free. Alternative tools can be found by searching for “Website analytic tools”.
Optimizing SEO produces some results in the short term, but the real payoffs come months down the line.
Search engines are not rebuilding the scorecard for every website every day. They have algorithms to prioritize visiting more popular websites over less popular sites. They have algorithms to optimize for larger cities more often than smaller cities.
You’ll know the SEO efforts have paid off when:
- The analytics tool shows steadily increasing website traffic
- The restaurant / bar appears on Google Maps and Apple Maps
- The restaurant / bar name appears appears in the top few results for “[Restaurant Name]” and “[Restaurant Name] Hours” searches
- The restaurant appears near the top for searches such as “Sushi near me” [Obviously substitute the type of food served by the restaurant for “sushi”] when the search is done in a community adjacent to the restaurant.
Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO is the use of illegitimate and manipulative techniques to rank higher for keywords on search engine result pages (SERPs). When detected, search engines heavily penalize websites using these processes.
At Sacramento Restaurant Marketing we never use black hat SEO techniques. In fact, our client agreement states that clients may not employ those techniques and must disclose any previous attempts that did use those strategies.
No matter which digital marketing company you work with, we strongly encourage you to check and verify they do not use black hat SEO.
For your information, these are the common black hat techniques.
- Purchasing Back Links – purchasing back links is a major no-no. Never offer to pay for a backlink. If someone solicits you with an offer of a backlink for money, politely turn them down.
- Service Exchanges for Back Links – Similar to paying for a backlink. You may not offer free dining experiences in exchange for a backlink.
- Hiding Back Links – This is a where websites will hide links using the same color as the background, a font size of 0, use small characters such as a period, or hide text off screen.
- Spamming Comment Systems – Adding links to a website by repeatedly adding a link in the comment sections of other websites.
- Link Text Abuse – This is stuffing the anchor text users click on with keywords. The applies to internal and external links.
- Link Schemes – Typically, this involves trading backlinks between 2 or more websites.
- Keyword Stuffing – Repeating a keyword term far too many times.
- Keyword Stuffing Image Tags – Repeating keywords over and over in the alt tags of images. Alt tags should describe the image, not list keywords.
- Hidden Content – Similar to hiding back links, this is hiding keywords by matching the font color to the background or setting the font size to 0.
- Plagiarized and duplicated Content – Duplicating content from another website. This is a major no-no.
- Article Spinning – Rewriting an existing an article on another site without changing the information delivered in any substantial way.
- Cloaking – Showing content to search engine crawlers that differs from that shown to users.