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Improve Rankings With This Off-Page SEO Checklist For Restaurants

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Improve Rankings With This Off-Page SEO Checklist For Restaurants

In 2022, having an online presence for your restaurant business is essential.

When looking for new places to eat, people turn to search for thousands of results at their fingertips – and the competition is fierce.

If you want locals to find your restaurant while searching for places to eat in the area, you need to work on your online presence and appear prominently in those search results.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best and most affordable ways to distinguish your restaurant online.

While on-page SEO is all about optimizing your website, off-page SEO focuses on spreading your reach online.

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Below, you will find an off-page SEO checklist for restaurants featuring all the elements you need to keep track of regularly.

You will learn about Google My Business, TripAdvisor, Yelp, social media, link building, and more.

1. Claim Your Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly known as Google My Business, is one of the most powerful tools for businesses everywhere.

It allows owners to increase their business’ visibility on Google and make a good first impression by highlighting what makes them unique.

Whatever information you decide to highlight is what customers will see when searching for your restaurant or restaurants near them on Google.

If you want your customers to find your restaurant on Google Search and Google Maps, you need to claim and fill out your Google Business Profile.

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The more information you add about your restaurant, the bigger the chances of hungry customers finding it.

Your restaurant website is the most crucial element you need to add to Google My Business.

It will bring you an incredibly valuable free backlink and make it easy for people to navigate to your website.

Equally important for business is displaying your menu and order page.

Additional must-have Google My Business information includes:

  • Location.
  • Opening hours.
  • Contact information.
  • Photos of your dishes and the restaurant ambiance.

To make your GMB profile more attractive, showcase your daily specials, promotions, events, and behind-the-scenes videos.

If you have multiple restaurant locations, it’s good practice to have a separate Google My Business profile for each.

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2. Claim Your Profiles On Yelp And TripAdvisor

Yelp and TripAdvisor are both a close second on this off-page restaurant SEO checklist.

According to a BrightLocal survey, 98% of customers read online reviews of businesses in 2021.

Websites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp are visited by millions of consumers every month.

Naturally, that’s where your restaurant needs to be.

Add your restaurant to TripAdvisor and Yelp, or claim your listing if it’s already there.

Yelp For Restaurants

After you fill in your basic information, follow these steps to customize your Yelp profile and stand out in the crowd:

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  • Add your menu.
  • Provide additional information on your services, like delivery, table reservations, and online payment methods.
  • Add a restaurant description that you optimize with relevant keywords such as “Italian restaurant,” “pizza,” or “New York” – access this guide to learn how to do keyword research.
  • Add the Yelp badge to your restaurant website.
  • Grow your Yelp rating by encouraging reviews and filling in your profile 100%.
  • Add a call-to-action button that redirects customers to your website.

TripAdvisor For Restaurants

The rules above apply to TripAdvisor, too.

Start by filling in profile basics like name, address, and website.

Next, take your profile to the next level with these tips on how to rank higher on TripAdvisor:

  • Collect reviews and reply promptly (starting with the negative ones).
  • Keep your listing up to date.
  • Order branded TripAdvisor stickers to decorate your windows.
  • Set up direct messaging so customers can contact you directly. (This can help you solve complaints without affecting your public reviews).
  • Create a Storyboard where you showcase your best photos and reviews.

3. Link Your Website On Social Media

Social media is another vital aspect of off-page SEO for restaurants. While it’s not a direct ranking factor, it can still indirectly influence SEO.

How? Having your social media profiles redirect to your website will bring you additional traffic and business, and build your authority online.

However, having the profiles isn’t enough.

You must have an active presence and interact with your followers to encourage them to share your content.

Each social network has its function.

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On Facebook, you can post your menu using the ‘Start Order’ button to actively boost sales.

Instagram is where your dishes will shine. Post photos that your followers won’t be able to resist.

Twitter is an excellent place to address customer concerns.

Use it to update followers on opening hour changes, new menu items, events, and anything else they might want to know.

While Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the holy trinity of social media platforms, there are other platforms you can leverage that can wield surprising results, such as Pinterest, Snapchat, or TikTok.

On Pinterest, you can post delicious photos of your menu, link to your website, create recipe boards, interact with other people in the restaurant industry, and create exclusive giveaways.

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Snapchat can help you attract more local customers using geofilters and engaging your audience with little games and hidden discount codes in your stories.

Use TikTok to connect to a younger audience, create hashtag challenges, do funny skits and challenges, and take customers behind the scenes.

Don’t forget to add all your social media profiles to your website.

Use social media to share user-generated content too.

However, ensure you have your customers’ express permission to share their posts on your pages.

4. Do Link Building Outreach

Getting quality backlinks from high-authority websites can help improve your site’s authority, reputation, and search rankings.

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Having your restaurant featured in local online publications will expose your business to new customers, as well.

First, look for high-rated websites in the food industry and approach them with a guest post pitch.

You can offer your knowledge as a chef or restaurant owner and include a link to your restaurant website in the article.

Next, find local business directories and get in touch to add your restaurant.

The same goes for websites that rank the best restaurants in an area.

Offer to include a discount code for their visitors to sweeten the deal.

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Create A Restaurant Blog

If you want relevant websites to link to you naturally, consider opening a blog where you share your experience in the restaurant industry.

Remember to do keyword research to find topics that people are interested in reading about so your articles can rank high.

Here are some restaurant blog topic ideas you can explore:

  • How-tos and cooking guides (how to cook seafood, how to season rice, what wine goes with fish).
  • Lists (X common kitchen ingredients, X dinner etiquette tips, X types of food for movie night).
  • Menu, food, or industry trends (food trends 2022, restaurant trends 2022)
  • Menu updates, limited items, and FAQs.
  • New features or products (how to place an order online, how to book a table online, how to pay for your meal online).
  • Pages about you and your staff (employee of the month, meet the owner, the story behind your restaurant).

When looking for keywords, keep in mind your restaurant’s cuisine and key selling point.

If you own a vegetarian restaurant, for instance, you won’t be writing about “how to cut steak” but rather “vegetarian lunch box ideas” or “how to season vegetables for grilling.”

5. Collaborate With Food Influencers

Food bloggers and influencers with a social media following can be excellent promoters of your restaurant.

They can help boost traffic to your website and increase your search engine ranking by linking to your domain.

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Invite local influencers for exclusive tastings of your newest menu items so they can post about them on their blogs and social media.

You can also provide their followers with a special discount coupon.

You can find local influencers on subreddits created by and for food bloggers or use tools like meetup.com to look for foodie groups meeting in your town.

Try paid blogger outreach software if you’re willing to invest more in blogger outreach.

6. Keep Your NAP Updated Throughout All Platforms

Consistency of NAP (name, address, phone number) is an important step in restaurant SEO and a must-have item on this off-page SEO checklist.

Your NAP information should be available on your website, social media, and third-party websites.

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Search engines are particularly fond of this information, as it helps users find the answers to their questions.

For your restaurant information to be shown in relevant searches, you must display your NAP information and update it constantly across all platforms.

Make sure the information is spelled the same and is displayed in the same format.

Otherwise, it might confuse users and make you untrustworthy for search engines.

7. Add Your Restaurant On Popular Review Platforms And Business Directories

Once you’ve covered your bases with Google My Business, Yelp, and TripAdvisor, it’s time to research additional directories and websites where you can list your restaurant.

Some of these will help you get a valuable backlink, but all will expose you to new customers.

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For example, Bing might not be as popular as Google, but it’s worth adding your restaurant to Bing Places.

Here are other websites where you should add your restaurant to boost off-page SEO:

  • Citysearch.
  • Foursquare.
  • Local.com.
  • Yellowpages.com.
  • White Pages.

Remember the advice from the previous section – keep your NAP information consistent across all platforms.

Summary

Good food is just one element of your restaurant’s success.

Without a solid online presence, you can’t cater to today’s audience of food lovers.

Getting attention online starts with your website but continues with off-page restaurant SEO.

From social media to review websites and food blogs, check off all the items on this off-page SEO checklist to make your restaurant a fixture in the local community – and a dominant force in search results.

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Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

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Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

Content pruning sounds pretty appealing: delete a ton of content and see your organic traffic improve. But pruning has risks (like deleting useful pages and useful backlinks), and benefits are not guaranteed: So how does pruning actually work? And when

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8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

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8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

There’s no shortage of SEO reporting tools to choose from—but what are the core tools you need to put together an SEO report?

In this article, I’ll share eight of my favorite SEO reporting tools to help you create a comprehensive SEO report for free.

Price: Free

Google Search Console, often called GSC, is one of the most widely used tools to track important SEO metrics from Google Search.

Most common reporting use case

GSC has a ton of data to dive into, but the main performance indicator SEOs look at first in GSC is Clicks on the main Overview dashboard.

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As the data is from Google, SEOs consider it to be a good barometer for tracking organic search performance. As well as clicks data, you can also track the following from the Performance report:

  • Total Impressions
  • Average CTR
  • Average Position
gsc-performance-overviewgsc-performance-overview

Tip

If you’ve signed up for AWT using Google Search Console, you can view your GSC performance data in Ahrefs by clicking “GSC Performance” from the main dashboard.

But for most SEO reporting, GSC clicks data is exported into a spreadsheet and turned into a chart to visualize year-over-year performance.

organic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-yearorganic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-year

Favorite feature

One of my favorite reports in GSC is the Indexing report. It’s useful for SEO reporting because you can share the indexed to non-indexed pages ratio in your SEO report.

google-search-console-indexed-pages-reportgoogle-search-console-indexed-pages-report

If the website has a lot of non-indexed pages, then it’s worth reviewing the pages to understand why they haven’t been indexed.

Price: Free

Google Looker Studio (GLS), previously known as Google Data Studio (GDS), is a free tool that helps visualize data in shareable dashboards.

Most common reporting use case

Dashboards are an important part of SEO reporting, and GLS allows you to get a total view of search performance from multiple sources through its integrations.

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Out of the box, GLS allows you to connect to many different data sources.

Such as:

  • Marketing products – Google Ads, Google Analytics, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360
  • Consumer products – Google Sheets, YouTube, and Google Search Console
  • Databases – BigQuery, MySQL, and PostgreSQL
  • Social media platformsFacebook, Reddit, and Twitter
  • Files – CSV file upload and Google Cloud Storage

Sidenote.

If you don’t have the time to create your own report manually, Ahrefs has three Google Looker Studio connectors that can help you create automated SEO reporting for any website in a few clicks

google-looker-studio-partner-connectorsgoogle-looker-studio-partner-connectors

Here’s what a dashboard in GLS looks like:

ahrefs-seo-audit-dashboardahrefs-seo-audit-dashboard
Ahrefs Google Looker Studio integration

With this type of dashboard, you share reports that are easy to understand with clients or other stakeholders.

Favorite feature

The ability to blend and filter data from different sources, like GA and GSC, means you can get a customized overview of your total search performance, tailored to your website.

Price: Free for 500 URLs

Screaming Frog is a website crawler that helps you audit your website.

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Screaming Frog’s free version of its crawler is perfect if you want to run a quick audit on a bunch of URLs. The free version is limited to 500 URLs—making it ideal for crawling smaller websites.

screaming-frog-user-interface-screenshotscreaming-frog-user-interface-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

When it comes to reporting, the Reports menu in Screaming Frog SEO Spider has a wealth of information you can look over that covers all the technical aspects of your website, such as analyzing, redirects, canonicals, pagination, hreflang, structured data, and more.

Once you’ve crawled your site, it’s just a matter of downloading the reports you need and working out the main issues to summarize in your SEO report.

Favorite feature

Screaming Frog can pull in data from other tools, including Ahrefs, using APIs. 

If you already had access to a few SEO tools’ APIs, you could pull data from all of them directly into Screaming Frog. This is useful if you want to combine crawl data with performance data or other 3rd party tools.

screaming-frog-api-accessscreaming-frog-api-access

Even if you’ve never configured an API, connecting other tools to Screaming Frog is straightforward.

Price: Free

Ahrefs has a large selection of free SEO tools to help you at every stage of your SEO campaign, and many of these can be used to provide insights for your SEO reporting.

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when-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustrationwhen-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustration

For example, you could use our:

Most common reporting use case

One of our most popular free SEO tools is Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT), which you can use for your SEO reporting.

With AWT, you can:

  • Monitor your SEO health over time by setting up scheduled SEO audits
  • See the performance of your website
  • Check all known backlinks for your website
ahrefs-overviewahrefs-overview

Favorite feature

Of all the Ahrefs free tools, my favorite is AWT. Within it, site auditing is my favorite feature—once you’ve set it up, it’s a completely hands-free way to keep track of your website’s technical performance and monitor its health.

If you already have access to Google Search Console, it’s a no-brainer to set up a free AWT account and schedule a technical crawl of your website(s).

Price: Free

Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar is a free Chrome and Firefox extension useful for diagnosing on-page technical issues and performing quick spot checks on your website’s pages.

Most common reporting use case

For SEO reporting, it’s useful to run an on-page check on your website’s top pages to ensure there aren’t any serious on-page issues.

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ahrefs-seo-toolbar-overviewahrefs-seo-toolbar-overview

With the free version, you get the following features:

  • On-page SEO report
  • Redirect tracer with HTTP Headers
  • Outgoing links report with link highlighter and broken link checker
  • SERP positions
  • Country changer for SERP

The SEO toolbar is excellent for spot-checking issues with pages on your website. If you are not confident with inspecting the code, it can also give you valuable pointers on what elements you need to include on your pages to make them search-friendly.

If anything is wrong with the page, the toolbar highlights it, with red indicating a critical issue.

severity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbarseverity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Favorite feature

The section I use the most frequently in the SEO toolbar is the Indexability tab. In this section, you can see whether the page can be crawled and indexed by Google.

indexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbarindexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Although you can do this by inspecting the code manually, using the toolbar is much faster.

Price: Free

Like GSC, Google Analytics is another tool you can use to track the performance of your website, tracking sessions and conversions and much more on your website.

google-analytics-screenshotgoogle-analytics-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

GA gives you a total view of website traffic from several different sources, such as direct, social, organic, paid traffic, and more.

Favorite feature

You can create and track up to 300 events and 30 conversions with GA4. Previously, with universal analytics, you could only track 20 conversions. This makes conversion and event tracking easier within GA4.

Price: Free

Google Slides is Google’s version of Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have a dashboard set up to report on your SEO performance, the next best thing is to assemble a slide deck.

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Many SEO agencies present their report through dashboard insights and PowerPoint presentations. However, if you don’t have access to PowerPoint, then Google Slides is an excellent (free) alternative.

google-slides-screenshotgoogle-slides-screenshot

Most common reporting use cases

The most common use of Google Slides is to create a monthly SEO report. If you don’t know what to include in a monthly report, use our SEO report template.

Favorite feature

One of my favorite features is the ability to share your presentation on a video chat directly from Google Slides. You can do this by clicking the camera icon in the top right.

share-video-chat-google-slidesshare-video-chat-google-slides

This is useful if you are working with remote clients and makes sharing your reports easy.

Price: Free

Google Trends allows you to view a keyword’s popularity over time in any country. The data shown is the relative popularity ratio scaled from 0-100, not the direct volume of search queries.

Most common reporting use cases

Google Trends is useful for showing how the popularity of certain searches can increase or decrease over time. If you work with a website that often has trending products, services, or news, it can be useful to illustrate this visually in your SEO report.

Google Trends makes it easy to spot seasonal trends for product categories. For example, people want to buy BBQs when the weather is sunny.

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Using Google Trends, we can see that peak demand for BBQs usually happens in June-July every year.

bbq-google-trends-graphbbq-google-trends-graph

Using this data across the last five years, we could be fairly sure when the BBQ season would start and end.

Favorite feature

Comparing two or more search terms against each other over time is one of my favorite uses of Google Trends, as it can be used to tell its own story.

google-trends-comparison-examplegoogle-trends-comparison-example

Embellishing your report with trends data allows you to gain further insights into market trends.

You can even dig into trends at a regional level if you need to.

regional-trends-via-google-trendsregional-trends-via-google-trends

Final thoughts

These free tools will help you put together the foundations for a well-rounded SEO report.

The tools you use for SEO reporting don’t always have to be expensive—even large companies use many of the free tools mentioned to create insights for their client’s SEO reports.

Got more questions? Ping me on X 🙂

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Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

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Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

A new study by Authoritas suggests that Google’s AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE), currently being tested with a limited group of users, could adversely impact brand visibility and organic search traffic.

These findings include:

  • When an SGE box is expanded, the top organic result drops by over 1,200 pixels on average, significantly reducing visibility.
  • 62% of SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results.
  • Ecommerce, electronics, and fashion-related searches saw the greatest disruption, though all verticals were somewhat impacted.

Adapting to generative search may require a shift in SEO strategies, focusing more on long-form content, expert insights, and multimedia formats.

As Google continues to invest in AI-powered search, the Authoritas study provides an early look at the potential challenges and opportunities ahead.

High Penetration Rate & Industry-Wide Effects

The study analyzed 2,900 brand and product-related keywords across 15 industry verticals and found that Google displays SGE results for 91.4% of all search queries.

The prevalence of SGE results indicates they impact a majority of websites across various industries.

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The research analyzed the typical composition of SGE results. On average, each SGE element contained between 10-11 links sourced from an average of four different domains.

This indicates brands may need to earn multiple links and listings within these AI-curated results to maintain visibility and traffic.

The research also suggests that larger, well-established websites like Quora and Reddit will likely perform better in SGE results than smaller websites and lesser-known brands.

Shifting Dynamics In Organic Search Results

With SGE results occupying the entire first page, websites that currently hold the top positions may experience a significant decrease in traffic and click-through rates.

When a user clicks to expand the SGE element, the study found that, on average, the #1 ranked organic result drops a sizeable 1,255 pixels down the page.

Even if a website ranks number one in organic search, it may effectively be pushed down to the second page due to the prominence of SGE results.

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New Competition From Unexpected Sources

The study revealed that SGE frequently surfaces links and content from websites that didn’t appear in the top organic rankings.

On average, only 20.1% of SGE links exactly matched a URL from the first page of Google search results.

An additional 17.9% of SGE links were from the same domains as page one results but linked to different pages. The remaining 62% of SGE links came from sources outside the top organic results.

Challenges For Brand Term Optimization & Local Search

The study reveals that SGE results for branded terms may include competitors’ websites alongside the brand’s own site, potentially leading to increased competition for brand visibility.

Laurence O’Toole, CEO and founder of Authoritas, states:

“Brands are not immune. These new types of generative results introduce more opportunities for third-party sites and even competitors to rank for your brand terms and related brand and product terms that you care about.”

Additionally, local businesses may face similar challenges, as SGE results could feature competing local brands even when users search for a specific brand in a regional context.

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Methodology & Limitations

To arrive at these insights, Authoritas analyzed a robust dataset of 2,900 search keywords across a spectrum of query types, including specific brand names, brand + generic terms, brand + product names, generic terms, and specific product names. The keywords were distributed across 15 industry verticals.

The study utilized a consistent desktop browser viewport to quantify pixel-based changes in the search results. Authoritas also developed proprietary “alignment scores” to measure the degree of overlap between traditional organic search results and the new SGE links.

While acknowledging some limitations, such as the keyword set needing to be fully representative of each vertical and the still-evolving nature of SGE, Authoritas maintains that the insights hold value in preparing brands for the new realities of an AI-powered search ecosystem.

Why We Care

The findings of the Authoritas study have implications for businesses, marketers, and SEO professionals. As Google’s SGE becomes more prevalent, it could disrupt traditional organic search rankings and traffic patterns.

Brands that have invested heavily in SEO and have achieved top rankings for key terms may find their visibility and click-through rates diminished by the prominence of SGE results.

SGE introduces new competition from unexpected sources, as most SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results. This means businesses may need to compete not only with their traditional rivals but also with a broader range of websites that gain visibility through SGE.

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As Google is a primary source of traffic and leads for many businesses, any changes to its search results can impact visibility, brand awareness, and revenue.

How This Could Help You

While the rise of SGE presents challenges, it also offers opportunities.

Taking into account what we’ve learned from the Authoritas study, here are some actionable takeaways:

  • As SGE favors in-depth, informative content, businesses may benefit from investing in comprehensive, well-researched articles and guides that provide value to users.
  • Incorporating expert quotes, interviews, and authoritative sources within your content could increase the likelihood of being featured in SGE results.
  • Enriching your content with images, videos, and other multimedia elements may help capture the attention of both users and the SGE algorithm.
  • Building a strong brand presence across multiple channels, including social media, industry forums, and relevant websites, can increase your chances of appearing in SGE.
  • Creating a trustworthy brand and managing your online reputation will be crucial, as SGE may feature competitors alongside your website.

Looking Ahead

While the long-term impact of SGE will depend on user adoption and the perceived usefulness of results, this study’s findings serve as a valuable starting point for businesses and SEO professionals.

By proactively addressing the challenges and opportunities SGE presents, you can increase your chances of success in the new search environment.


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