Use your website to drive your digital marketing strategy.
Your website is the hub of your advertising activities. It is the centerpiece of your restaurant’s marketing strategy.
It is vital to your success, and it can be what convinces diners to visit you.
As a restaurant owner, you can be sure your customers are looking for you through Google search, and then they are directed to your website.
In addition, you are driving all social media, email marketing, pay-per-click ads, direct mail, and radio and TV advertising to your website as well.
So, you can see how your website is easily the center of all your marketing efforts and the driver of traffic to your restaurant.
Because of its important marketing role, let’s look at using your website to grow your business.
Leverage Local SEO
Local SEO (search engine optimization) is incredibly important to your restaurant, and it can help you grow your business. Why? Because your potential diners are searching for you online.
Consider these stats on online searches:
- Local searches lead 50% of consumers to visit their searched-for location that same day. This means local search works.
- Your restaurant address is what people are looking for most often, with this leading local searches.
- Nearly half of online searchers specify a location.
- When the majority of online searchers look for you, they’ll select the organic listings or Google Maps information because these most often contain reviews, and they want to know what others think about your food.
- Google My Business pages are essential to your success as they lead to enhanced visibility on smartphones.
Local search rankings can’t be underestimated as they prompt visits to your restaurant. High local search rankings translate to increases in customers and revenue at your restaurant.
Grow Your Email List
Use your website to grow your email list; this gives you access to new customers.
Email marketing is one if the most cost effective forms of digital marketing. When your customers give you their email address, they’re inviting you inside the inner sanctum of their computer – their email.
Make sure your email sign up is easy to find on all of your landing pages and that the call to action is strong.
Have a Responsive Website
To use your website to grow your business, it must be responsive to screen size. In other words, it must be mobile-friendly.
With Google demanding mobile-friendly websites in Google search, you can’t afford to neglect this any longer. If you want to grow your business, you’ve got to have a mobile-friendly site in 2017.
Get Reviews
Use your website to encourage your current customers to leave you reviews.
Then, when potential customers visit your website, they’ll see the reviews which, in turn, makes them want to dine with you as well.
Reviews are the best way to build credibility with your website audience and gain new restaurant customers.
Blog Often
Do you have a blog? Are you actively using it and promoting it?
We recommend blogging at least once a week about things that interest your customers.
When blogging, consistency is key along with providing valuable and relevant content for your diners and potential customers. (tweet this)
It’s also a good idea to share your blog posts on social media and through your email marketing to increase their reach.
Through blogging, you can create a relationship with your customers. Whether you’re writing an article about the newest set of pans you just bought or highlighting a cooking how-to video, you’re sure to establish a personal connection.
Blogging helps grow your business by setting you apart as the expert on all things food. You’ll engender yourself and your restaurant to customers, thus bringing in more revenue on a daily basis.
Paid advertising drives traffic to your website where you can grab them.
Dive into Pay-Per-Click
A more advanced way to use your website to grow your business is through paid digital advertising channels. This may include Google AdWords and social media advertising.
When you use pay-per-click, you serve several purposes: you can send people to your website, and you can re-target people who visited your website.
Let’s look at a few of your choices when it comes to paid digital advertising.
- Google AdWords – You probably notice the ads at the top of search engine results pages. These are businesses who have paid for the privilege of showing up at the top of search pages. You’ll also find paid ads at the bottom of search pages. When an Internet user clicks on your ad, you’re charged, and they are taken to your website.
- Google AdWords Remarketing – Using this tool in Google AdWords allows you to re-target website visitors with something they might find useful. These are often the ads you’ll see as you peruse the Internet. For example, if someone was on your website looking at your pizza offerings, Google may serve them an ad that features the same pizza.
- Facebook Advertising – This is, as of right now, the most cost effective way to get your restaurant in front of more people. You can also use Facebook’s re-targeting options to grab website visitors as well. In addition, Facebook has a wealth of targeting options so you can get your ads in front of the right people. You can even target your own email list. When advertising on Facebook, you also have the option of sending ads to Instagram which is terrific for the restaurant with great photos.
Create Dedicated Landing Pages
When it comes to pay-per-click, you want to send people to specific landing pages.
These pages should match your ad description so people are getting exactly what they think they should be getting. Ads should match landing pages for the best success.
When creating your landing pages, they must include a strong call to action. And, they should have just one call to action per landing page.
The goal of your pay-per-click campaign is to get the customer to your website where they take your desired action. (tweet this) If they don’t do this, you’ve wasted your money.
Once you’ve earned the click, it’s up to your website to earn the business, and that starts with your landing page.
Don’t send customers to your website’s homepage through a pay-per-click campaign. Have a dedicated landing page for each campaign.
Final Thoughts
In the past, a restaurant’s website was created and left to sit. After all, it looked good and contained the right information.
Yet, in today’s fast-paced, competitive world, that is no longer acceptable.
Your website is the centerpiece of your marketing. It should be fluid, and you want to add new content to it (think blogs, downloads, etc.) on an ongoing basis.
This keeps the search engines interested and your customers coming back for more.
So, take a look at your site today. Ask yourself how you can use it to grow your business. What do you want your site to do, and how will you use it? These questions can propel you to growth and higher revenues.
Do you have an online website that’s attractive to your customers and site visitors? Your restaurant needs a responsive, mobile-friendly, interactive website. It’s the ideal way to highlight your restaurant while appealing to your customers.
At Restaurant Engine, we build responsive, mobile-friendly restaurant websites. Contact us today for your free website consultation. We are here to help you update your website and stand out in the crowd so you can stay ahead of your competition.
Image: Igor Miske and Katlyn Giberson
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