In today’s day in age, if you’re looking to make it as a successful restaurant owner, then your business needs to have an online presence – and a Google Business Profile is the perfect place to begin. After all, where do you go to find businesses in your area? Chances are you google what you’re looking for – as do your potential clients. In order to get your restaurant, food truck, or café listing seen by them, you need to set up your Google Business Profile. And although there are many platforms such as Yelp or GrubHub to help us find local places to eat, most of your potential clients still turn to Google.
So what exactly is a Google Business Profile? Formerly known as “Google My Business”, it is one of the most popular business listing platforms used worldwide to help users discover restaurants, cafés, and various other businesses in order to check their reviews, find their addresses and opening hours, contact info, or to just view their pictures. It’s like a virtual business card. Not convinced? Just type “search local restaurants in my location” into the search engine and have a look at the results. Google is the best local restaurant guide that’ll help your potential clients discover your business in no time!
Why You Should Use Google Business Profile and Local Search?
Your Google Business Profile is your digital business card. It contains all the information a potential client would need about your business, and even things such as how busy your restaurant is during certain days of the week. When you get started with your Google Business Profile, make sure to give clients a taste of what they can expect from your restaurant – upload high-quality pictures of your menu items, your restaurant’s interiors, and your smiling staff. But how does Google My Business work on your clients’ end? When they google the name of your restaurant or search terms such as “best burgers in my area”, they get all the results related to the search, as well as a mini map that shows all of the local restaurants that fall under that category. From there, they can skim through the results, look up reviews, addresses, opening hours, menus, and photos.
Quick tip: in order to rank higher in search results, make sure you’re using Google search keywords in your description, providing high-quality photos, and including all the information your clients would need before ordering from your restaurant.
How to Create a Restaurant Page on Google?
A Google Business Profile is the hub for promoting your business on Google, but what is a Google listing? Google local listings show all of the restaurants in the area, and in order to appear there, you need to set up your account. Once you have that out of the way you can easily manage it and make any changes to any information if necessary. With an active Google Business Profile, clients can leave you comments to which you can reply to, which lets them know you care for their experience at your business. And when they Google search restaurants in the area, your business will appear.
How to Promote Your Restaurant on Google?
Did you know that 86% of diners use Google maps for choosing restaurants to eat at? And many use the “search by location” option – especially when they’re somewhere new. So how do you stand out from other businesses besides getting 5-star reviews and adding loads of pictures to your profile? Consider trying Google ads for your Google Business Profile and remember to include information about your business and add high-quality photos. Customers tend to go to restaurants that share loads of pictures of their delicious meals – so add to your heart’s content!
You might be also wondering: “How do I rate a business on Google? Can’t anyone just leave me a negative review and ruin my restaurant’s reputation on Google?” First off, in order to leave reviews on Google, you need to have a Google account – so no need to worry about anonymous reviewers. And if you’ve got questions such as where to find my Google local page, my restaurant’s location on Google, and Google business listing cost, make sure to go to the Google My Business page and click on the “help” button. Although setting up and editing your profile should be fairly straightforward, you can always count on the support team to help.