The Easy Guide to Search Intent
Just yesterday, a client asked me to write a blog post around a certain keyword. For the sake of example, let’s say it was wedding caterer Austin*. The client currently appears on page three of Google search results for that keyword, and they want to get up to page one. Now, this company is a Central Texas wedding caterer, and they have a strong website. So a well-optimized piece of content that focuses on that keyword should be able to get to page one. But when I got started, I ran into a snag regarding that keyword’s search intent. And it was a good reminder that not every keyword is…
The Quickest Way to Lose Customers
After a sleepless night of tossing and turning, jarred awake every few minutes by the A/C roaring to life, I finally began to drift off around 7:00 AM. Then… BANG! Thunder that sounded like Zeus himself was chucking lightning bolts at the foot of the bed, and a torrential downpour like marbles pelting the metal roof. I groaned and rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position on my lumpy pillow. But then the wind picked up, adding to the ferocity of the storm and whistling through chinks in the window facing the lake. “Our firewood is getting soaked,” I told Kirby, who also could not sleep. I got up…
How to Share User Generated Content — And Stay Out of Trouble
Around my house, I’m known as “The Disposal.” This is because I go hunting for any bits and bobs in the refrigerator or pantry, and combine them into some kind of Frankenstein’s monster-type lunch — aka, I eat like the garbage disposal. A bit of leftover rice, ground beef, and some veggies? That’s about to be a stir-fry. Some mushrooms and scallions? Hello, omelet-city. I’m all about using what I have and turning it into something to fill the hole in my tummy — to sometimes questionable effect. User Generated Content (aka UGC) is the leftover ground beef in the fridge. You can (and should) repurpose it into part of…
Designing A Restaurant Website: Tips From A Pro
I am a millennial. And as such, I am slavishly devoted to a food item called the Avocado Toast. On their own, both toast and avocados are bit bland. But when you mush that fatty avocado goodness onto a piece of crispy toast and add a sprinkle of salt and pepper on top, some kind of food alchemy turns it into a gift from the gods. A great restaurant website is the Avocado Toast of your marketing. Your site design is the crispy toast. Excellent, SEO-focused copy is the avocado. And when it comes together, magic happens. While I know a lot about the copy side of the restaurant website,…
Restaurant Website Content Ideas to Boost Your Search Engine Ranking
In a perfect world, when your customers search for “Best Thai food in town”, your wonderful Thai restaurant would pop up as the first Google result. But you and I live in the real world. And we know that’s probably not going to happen. That’s because of sites like Yelp, Foursquare, and TripAdvisor. These sites are so huge, so regularly updated, and get so many visitors that your little Thai restaurant can’t compete with them in SEO (search engine optimization). So when people search for “best Thai food in town”, they’re going to get a bunch of results like this: The top results are all review sites. But you…
Get Started with Google Analytics for Restaurants
When I worked for a big local restaurant a few years ago, we did weekly meetings where we would talk about “the numbers.” We discussed F&B sales, labor costs, cost of goods, rental fees, employee turnover, and more. But one number we never dove into was our web traffic. This was entirely due to the ignorance of the executive team, including myself. At the time, I didn’t even know how to monitor web traffic, let alone what to do with the information if I had it. To put it simply, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about online marketing, and I’ve gotten better…
Restaurants: A Love Letter
Restaurants, I miss you. I miss the anticipation of a night out. Putting on real clothes instead of my “daytime pajamas.” Swiping on some lipstick and mascara. Looking through my jewelry to pick the right earrings, even though I almost always settle on the same pair. I miss cocktail menus, full of delicious elixirs I could make myself, but won’t. At home, it’s always red wine, bourbon on the rocks, dirty martinis, or White Claws (pink grapefruit only!). But at a restaurant, it could be a frosé, icy and refreshing. Or an Old Fashioned with fancy bitters and rich syrupy Luxardo cherries. Or something herbal with an infused simple syrup…
Can Task Batching Work for Hospitality Pros?
It’s a crummy feeling. You started the day with a fire under your butt and pep in your step. You were going to accomplish all the things. But then that early site visit ran long, or a colleague pulled you into an unexpected meeting. You went looking for that one email, and ended up spending an hour bogged down in the inbox. By the end of the day, you’ve been running hard, busy busy busy. But nothing is checked off the list and you don’t feel like you’ve made any progress. This is a universal problem in our highly connected world. Every email, text message, Slack notification, or social media…
How Can You Get Backlinks for Your Restaurant Website?
If you’re working on boosting the visibility of your restaurant website, you’ve probably come across the term “backlink” or “backlink building” before. It’s a popular search engine optimization strategy, and it usually comes alongside a lot of talk about “writing quality content” and “providing value.” Those things are absolutely correct — when you’re in a blog-heavy industry. Marketers, for example, can get a huge SEO benefit out of a quality blog that shares tips and tricks for more visibility. But hospitality businesses — especially restaurants — aren’t often prolific bloggers. It’s just not the business they’re in. So they need to take a different approach for local search. Without a…
What Will Make Restaurant Guests Feel Safe During COVID-19?
About two weeks ago, my husband and I went out to lunch. It was only the second time we’d gone out for a meal since March. We chose a local restaurant that we like with plenty of outdoor seating, so it felt like a pretty safe option. When we went to the bar to place our order, the bartender was serving another customer. She took the customer’s card, swiped it on the POS, and returned it. She then rang in our orders and ran our credit card, before getting our drinks. I ordered an iced tea, and the bartender used her (unwashed) hand to add a lemon. She also passed…
