7 Ideas to Increase Your Restaurant’s Website Traffic

Check out these amazing tactics to drive people to your website.

How’s your website traffic? Are you getting all the customers you want?

Restaurants all over the country want similar things. The most important thing they generally want is more customers

One key to increasing customers is to fine-tune your website and draw traffic to it. So, how can you do it? Let’s look at seven ideas to increase your restaurant’s website traffic.

#1: Pay Extra Attention to SEO

Search engine optimization can help you drive traffic to your website. Paying attention to SEO means you are actively working to optimize your site for search engines.

This means that when people search for a place to eat, they are more likely to find you at the top of the page than on page two. Your goal is to appear in the first few spots on the search results page. Here are some essential tips:

• Use keywords that relate to your restaurants.
• Use some of these keywords in your title and description.
• Create exciting and relevant content using keywords. 
• Make sure your website is up-to-date with accurate and comprehensive information.

Lastly, you don’t want to overuse keywords (keyword stuffing)

#2: Add Regular Blog Posts

This is one of the most overlooked things you can do to drive traffic to your website and provide ongoing new traffic. 

It takes diligence to create, plan, and write your blog posts. If you’re going to do it, you need to make sure each blog post is optimized for SEO. 

In addition, if this sounds difficult, you can hire a ghost blog writer to do the heavy lifting for you.

Don’t put this on the back burner. Blog posts are essential. Not only do they provide valuable information, but they’ll make your SEO work better. 

Think about some of the questions your customers ask you and start there with answers for your blog posts. Post frequently. Research your topics by finding out what your audience wants to read and create a posting schedule with topics. 

Lastly, according to “companies who blog get 97% more links to their websites.”

#3: Write Guest Blog Posts

The purpose of guest blogging on someone else’s website is to build backlinks from the other website to yours. You’ll also have better results on search engine results pages. Ultimately, you’ll get referral traffic.

Google is happy with this strategy, and it may improve your position on search engine results pages. Here are a few more tips.

Research the website to make sure it is top quality.

• Ask them if they will share your post on their social media and tag you. Offer to do it for them. 
• Check out their domain authority. It doesn’t do you much good if they don’t have it.

#4: Leverage Online Directories

Increase your restaurant’s website traffic by getting yourself listed on online directories. Why is this important? 

It’s a great way to get more backlinks to your website. This shows Google that you have a top-notch website that others want to link to. 

In addition, getting listed in online directories helps you get information out on the internet about your restaurant. Here’s a tip: make sure to use the exact same name, address, phone, and hours. For example, if your restaurant is on a drive, you want to use 1718 Smith Drive and not 1718 Smith Dr.

Consistency in listings is key. Add photos if that’s an option. Here are a few potential online directories:

• Doordash
• Yelp
• TripAdvisor
• Google My Business
• Apple Maps
• LinkedIn Directory
• Map Quest
• Bing
• Super Pages
• YellowBook.com
• FourSquare

#5: Run Paid Ad Campaigns

With this tactic, you can reach thousands (and thousands) of potential diners. You can target a specific audience based on demographics and interests. 

By sending them back to your website, you have the opportunity to grab a new customer.

You can also run search and display ads on Google to boost your website traffic. 

Start running pay-per-click ads (PPC), slowly getting your feet wet. Then, after you have done some testing, you can optimize them and see which ones work the best.

#6: Utilize Email Marketing

Yes, email is not dead. And it’s a great way to get people to your website. First, you can promote your blog posts and other content and send it to your email list.

With links to pages on your website, you can send people there every time you send an email. Write intriguing subjects and provide great content.

Use buttons for calls-to-action that send people to your restaurant site for more info. Make them mobile-friendly and enticing photos and videos. And make sure to personalize the emails, so they are addressed to each person. 

Finally, be sure to do A/B tests for your emails to see which version gets the most clicks and opens. For example, use two different subject lines for your tests.

#7: Work with Influencers

An influencer is someone who has clout in your community. This might be a food or lifestyle blogger. The good ones have a large social media following and, most likely, a lot of website visitors.

So, find one or several in your city to work with. Talk to them about a partnership. Here are a few ways this works.

• Offer to pay them to post content on their social media platforms with a link and shout-out to you. 
• Invite all the food bloggers in town to a free meal. If you can throw them a party and close your restaurant to anyone else, you make them feel special. Ask them to write about it on their own blogs and social media. 
• ·Write blogs on one another’s blog with links to your site. 

Final Thoughts

Now that you have seven ideas to increase your restaurant’s website traffic, it’s time to put your marketing strategy in writing. 

Do note that some of these strategies may show positive results immediately, while others take patience. Experiment, test, and learn what

At Restaurant Engine, not only do we create great, responsive websites, but you can count on us to create a website that people want to visit. Let us help you make the perfect site that draws customers in, improves your conversion rate, and enables you to grow your business! Ready to take the plunge and create a new website? 

Images: Carlos Muza and Chris Liverani on Unsplash