Restaurant SEO Massachusetts: 6 Tips to Bring Traffic to Your Restaurant Website

Wondering why your brand-new restaurant website isn’t getting many visitors? Perhaps it is time you turn your focus towards strengthening the restaurant SEO for your Massachusetts restaurant website.

What is SEO, you ask? Simply put, SEO is what takes your website to the next level. By that, we mean to the first page of results on search engines. By incorporating the techniques and tools below, we can optimize your restaurant website so that when people type in a search term related to your kind of services, your site pops on the list of results.

SEO helps to improve your site and increase visibility related to your business on Google, Bing, and other search engines. While investing in SEO may not make sense at first, it is a necessary element in the marketing mix for businesses competing in the restaurant industry.

However, we do not advise you to incorporate SEO tactics into your online restaurant business yourself, as it requires different skills sets for various tasks. Furthermore, improperly executed SEO can be pretty detrimental to your restaurant’s online presence.

This SEO checklist helps restaurant owners and operators in Massachusetts increase the number of online visitors, which translates into more customers walking in through your doors.

Massachusetts Restaurant Website SEO Tips

Restaurant SEO Tip #1: Content that speaks volumes

What do people want to see when they visit a restaurant website? Excellent quality food images and drool-worthy descriptions of exactly what people can expect to be served. People also want to be able to understand effortlessly:

· How a table can be booked at your restaurant

· How home delivery orders can be placed and fulfilled

· Reviews from past patrons

· How well your restaurant can cater to special needs, diet restrictions

· Location, contact details, and more!

The content on your restaurant website is critical here. The info on your site needs to be precise, clear, attractive, and such that it gives more answers than raising questions. Also, because Google is focused on connecting searchers with the most useful content, it will determine your content’s usability based on how long visitors stay on your page. Visitors who linger on the website longer increase rankings, and search engines will display your website higher up on the search results and more frequently than others. However, if people bounce off your pages quickly, search engines make a note of that too, subsequently pushing your website down the rankings list.

Restaurant SEO Tip #2: Seamless Website User Experience (UX)

The value of a good ‘User Experience’ (UX) is something no restaurant must take lightly. Similarly, a sturdy UX design on a restaurant website makes all the difference in converting a potential customer into a regular.

This concept of user experience design is complicated, as it not only includes quantifiable disciplines such as interaction design, information architecture, and visual layout, but also adds non-measurables such as delight and emotion, which are harder to achieve. But, much like the sentiments one would feel after a great dining experience, a good UX design also evokes similar positive reactions from a visitor on a website.

To help achieve this, keep the following in mind:

Straightforward Site Architecture

A clutter-free website architecture helps visitors find the information they need without looking around for it.

Content Readability

Jargon-free, easily understandable, actionable content is what visitors to any website want to see. Unfortunately, bright backgrounds, moving graphics, and glaring fonts can put off readers, and you don’t want that!

Conversion Opportunities

For improving restaurant SEO, give online visitors plenty of actionable information. In addition, there must be adequate and identifiable opportunities guiding them through call-to-action steps such as buttons, internal links, external links and more.

Restaurant SEO Tip #3: Focus On Your Website Structure

Alongside good content and a smooth UX design, you can boost your website structure further by using these three criteria.

Mobile-Responsiveness: Mobile-friendly sites are highly recommended and are usually the standard for a restaurant website’s SEO. Having a UX design that automatically adjusts for all devices and screens increases the chances of visitors staying on the website for longer.

Security: All security certificates should be up to date, with internal safety mechanisms to protect your customer data.

Efficient Loading Speed: Nobody likes buggy pages that refuse to load. However, your site doesn’t have to be the fastest to be the best; it only has to be speedy enough to avoid frustrated visitors. Too many animations, videos, and effects can bring down your site speed, so keep that in mind!

Restaurant SEO Tip #4: Conform to Search Engine Guidelines

While you must focus on robust SEO techniques, going about it the wrong way can land your website in trouble. Search engines are intelligent that way; they can figure out when a website uses black hat SEO tools such as link purchasing, copying content from other websites, and keyword stuffing, among others. Google’s policies state that websites duplicating content off other sites are likely to get penalized. It can also result in being removed from search results altogether. So, while optimizing your restaurant website is a good thing, it is worthy to let the site grow organically.

Restaurant SEO Tip #5: Raise Your Domain Authority with Quality Backlinks

Domain Authority (DA) is a recent and relatively new search engine ranking score. This tool developed by Moz predicts the probability of a website to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). All websites initially hold a domain authority of 1 and go higher as the website earns more authoritative backlinks. Backlinks are created by another website pointing to yours. That said, you should never pay for or seek out backlinks because it is ineffective and runs counter to Google’s guidelines. Instead, links are earned through legitimate, relevant material that other websites, not under your control or supervision, link to without request.

Domain Authority scores go from one to 100, with higher scores related to a higher chance of ranking. However, note that Domain Authority is NOT a Google ranking factor and does not affect the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) negatively. Since most restaurant websites don’t contain inbound links, getting just one would give you a great advantage. Click here for more ideas on attracting quality backlinks for your restaurant website.

Restaurant SEO Tip #6: Start a Blog on Your Website

If you believe blogs belong to with fashion or lifestyle world, wait until you see what a good blog can do to your Massachusetts restaurant. Consider starting a blog in your SEO plans, as it plays a significant role in showcasing a restaurant online and maximizing your revenue through digital platforms.

You can connect with your customers and other businesses that collaborate with you through blogging. Blogging also helps create curiosity and publicity about your restaurant business in the online world. Finally, by publishing keyword-rich blogs, you can drive a good amount of traffic to your website.

If you are still not sold, here are some interesting blogging statistics you must know:

On average, businesses with an active blog section receive twice as much email traffic as businesses that don’t. (Source: Opt-In Monster)

Blogs can increase 434% returns for indexed pages and a 97% increase in indexed links. (Source: DemandMetric)

Brands with blogs gain an average of 67% more monthly leads than those without a blog. (Source: DemandMetric)

Blogs are one of the most highly-recommended lead-generating elements of an appealing restaurant website and one of your most effective SEO tools. Professional copywriting services are qualified to create blog posts to increase your rankings online.

Conclusion

If you are looking to improve your restaurant website’s SEO, give importance to creating high-quality material while keeping the UX user-friendly. As a result of this strategy, you will see your brand develop organically, inexpensively, and for the long term.

Use these pointers and other on-page and off-page SEO tools to notice a marked increase in traffic in as soon as a few months. Should you require any assistance with your restaurant website’s visibility, do not hesitate to reach out to OpenVine! Check out our SEO packages here or contact us to find out how we can help your business grow.