How to Optimize Google My Business (Google Business Profile) for Your Restaurant: Must-Know Tips

What Is Google My Business?

The previously called Google My Business and now renamed Google Business Profile is a free tool offered by Google that allows business owners to control their presence on Google Search and Google Maps.

You can register your website with Google, add your location, opening hours, photos, and more. You can also check out and reply to customer reviews, as well as adding your menu for people to see as soon as they look you up on Google. To optimize Google My Business for your restaurant is to expose your business to as many people as possible.

Is Google My Business (Google Business Profile) Worth It?

Have you ever heard the phrase: if it’s not on the first page of Google, it doesn't exist?

Having a presence on Google Business Profile is more than worth it. Learning how to optimize your Google My Business page for your restaurant website has become a necessity. If you’re not up there, your customers don’t know about you. They don’t buy from you. And hence, your sales are not quite where you’d want them to be.

However, creating your own Google business account and filling it in with real-life information puts you where most restaurant owners aspire to be: on Google Maps.

Many business owners don’t know how to get noticed on Google for free, which is a legitimate opportunity. They may understand the importance of starting a GBP profile and adding basic info. Still, they don’t know that they can use the service to attract more customers & increase their revenues.

Over the next few sections, you’ll learn more about the benefits of Google my Business for restaurants and how to optimize your Google Places page. Have the following questions “why is my business not showing up on Google Search?” or “why is my business not showing up on Google Maps?” popped to mind? Then you should know that it only takes a few minutes to:

• rank higher on Google Maps
• learn how to get your business to show up on Google first
• and bring more paying customers through your doors

So, how to get your business seen on Google? Let’s go through a couple of Google My Business hacks.

How to claim a Google Business Listing

Before you learn how to improve restaurant operations by using GBP, you have to claim ownership of your business. What does claiming a business on Google mean? It means you’ll have the authority to edit the listing and add any information you want about your restaurant.

Chances are your business is already on Google, so you won’t have to add it, just claim it. If it’s not, follow these steps to learn how to add a business to Google Maps and Google Search. To claim it, you just need to verify your identity.

However, after an unsuccessful attempt to claim it, you might say, “Well, someone else verified my business on Google, so what do I do now?” The next steps involve requesting ownership of that profile, which you can do following these instructions.

How To Get Your Business On Google Front Page:

Start With the Basics Before You Move to Advanced Optimization

When you open a Google Business Profile, the service will prompt you to give it some necessary information about your restaurant.

Do not skip any of these steps! Doing so will lower your visibility on Google’s search engine and prevent potential customers from finding your location.

Some of the basic information that you need to provide include:

• Your business’s category (example: “restaurant: pizza delivery”).
• Your address.
• Your contact information, including phone numbers, email address, and website URL.
• Your business hours.

Your restaurant’s Google Business Profile ranking depends on the accuracy of the information you put in there. Sure, you can edit your Google business listing later by going into your Google Business Profile dashboard. However, it’s best to have accurate information out there from the very beginning.

To check your Google rank, you can use a Google Business Profile ranking checker like the one from SERanking.

How To Make Your Business Visible on Google Maps When You Have a Multi-Location Restaurant

Do you have multiple locations & want to know how to get your business higher on Google Maps? Consider creating unique profiles for each of your Google Business Profile locations.

Adding each separate Google business location will make it easier for customers to find you online and on Google Maps. It will also let you provide specific details (such as daily specials, promotions, and hours of operation) for each location.

Make sure you double-check all of the details that you provide. A lot of third-party sites use Google Business Profile to give people all the information they request. Anything inaccurate on your profile could spread to other websites. This means misleading information could reach more of your customers and potentially bring your sales numbers down.

Labels are also useful when it comes to multiple restaurant locations. First, what are labels in Google Business Profile? Also known as tags, they help you organize your many listings. Each listing can have up to 10 labels, which you can use when creating a Google ad. For instance, if you want to promote just your location in Manhattan, you might use the label “Manhattan” to reach more local users.

How To Get Your Business Higher On Google Search:

Add Attractive Content That Will Tempt New Customers

Google Business Profile for restaurants lets you add quite a bit of content that will tempt new customers to try your food.

You can update your Google business listing and make it more attractive by adding:

• Beautiful pictures of your restaurant and menu items.
• Your Google Business Profile restaurant menu and daily specials.
• Videos that show how friendly and professional your staff members are.
• A profile pic that makes your restaurant look irresistible (such as the front of your restaurant or the most popular item on your menu).
• Google Business Profile events that you’re organizing at your restaurant.
• Links to your restaurant reviews.
• Links to your social media profiles.

Spend most of your time posting visual content like photos and videos.More than 80% of online communication relies on visual elements. Photos and videos also communicate a lot of information quickly, which matters in a world where people are surrounded by constant distractions and whose attention span has dropped tremendously.

Would you rather read a description of a burger or see a picture of the dish, instead? More importantly, which option would make your mouth water?

Read more: Why Food Photography Is Important for Your Restaurant Website and Menu

Replicate These Google My Business Posts Best Practices

Google Business Profile posts SEO is an excellent addition to your overall SEO efforts, so posting on GBP and optimizing your posts is a great idea. These posts can be news, offers, product updates, or events, and they show up at the bottom of your Google business profile. Below are some Google Business Profile posts examples to show you how they would look on your profile.

Next, here are some GBP posts best practices to get you started:

• Keep it short: Your content should draw attention with carefully worded phrases or relevant information that provides value to the reader. Use between 150 and 300 characters.
• Use media: Photos and videos will make your content pop, and users click on your posts.
• Choose the correct post type: What you can include in your Google Business Profile posts (titles, photos, videos) depends on the kind of post you select. Choose carefully.
• Post often: GBP posts disappear after a week, so you have to keep the content fresh by posting regularly. Once a week should be enough.
• Include a call-to-action: your ultimate goal with Google Business Profile posts is to get users to visit your restaurant website. To do that, add an engaging call to action like “learn more,” “buy,” or “book online.”

Craft a Great Google Business Description

Your Google Business Profile restaurant description will appear on your listing under the reviews. You have a chance to use it to highlight what your restaurant excels at. What sets you apart? What do you offer that’s unique as a local business? Here are some Google business description examples to use as inspiration

Test Out These Google Maps SEO Tips

1. Strive to get many Google reviews: The more reviews your restaurant has, the more likely it is to appear in Google Maps. These reviews show Google your restaurant is popular and well-liked.
2. Submit your restaurant to local directories: This will give you more backlinks and citations, which will increase your chances of getting featured in Google Maps. Some of the most popular local directories are Yelp, Local.com, and iBegin. Read more about how to rank high on Yelp in our complete Yelp restaurant marketingguide.
3. Submit your restaurant info to data aggregators to get even more links and citations. Get started with Neustar Localeze and Express Update.

How to Grow Your Restaurant Business by Communicating With Customers

When you optimize Google Business Profile for your restaurant, you should pay close attention to Google reviews that you get from customers. Ideally, you should get a few 5-star reviews every month. The more positive reviews you get, the more other people will want to try your food.

However, don’t just let positive reviews sit on your profile. Use the opportunity to communicate with your customers and thank the people who leave them. They’re doing you a great favor!

If you get a negative review, use the opportunity to apologize and ask for more feedback. You can’t make everyone happy, but you can use negative reviews as a chance to show your focus on improving customer experience.

How to Add a Preferred Link to Your Google My Business Page

The “Business preferred” option allows you to highlight a link that you want (preferably one to your own website) on your Google Business page. This can help you combat issues like food delivery portals adding an ordering link to your page without permission and users being tempted to order from there. The preferred link lets them know they should, ideally, place the order directly on your website. Follow these steps to add a preferred link to your GBP page:

1. Log in to your account and choose the restaurant location for which you want to do this (if you have more than one registered).

2. Select Edit Profile.

3. Select the transaction type, for example “Booking” or “Pick-up and delivery”.

4. Select “Set preferred link”.

5. Select the link you want as your preferred link and click Save.

How to Stop Third-Party Delivery Apps from Hijacking Your Brand

Some third-party delivery companies have an agreement with Google to work together to provide online ordering services to customers. What this means is that sometimes, you may see third-party ordering links appear on your GBP profile automatically and without someone having contacted you to ask for permission.

Unfortunately, you can’t remove these links directly from Google Business Profile. The bad news is that these companies make it seem like they’re working with you directly, even though that’s not true. This way, they are hijacking your brand and essentially stealing from you by directing customers to their platform, so they can get a commission out of every sale

So, what can you do? Get in touch with the third-party provider and ask them to take their link down. However, these companies are sneaky and can offer replies like “Only Google can remove this link” (completely false) or “Yes, we will do this but the employee in charge is currently on vacation” (sounds convenient, right?). They might also lie and say that if they remove the link, you also have to stop using their portal for your restaurant.

The key is to insist, send them a detailed email with your request, and then give them another call. Do not accept any intervention if it’s not explicitly written, so you have proof that they promised to take the link down and, very importantly, never re-add it again.

Some restaurants have found themselves required to send a cease and desist letter. You can send one yourself using this model.

If nothing else works, it’s probably for the best to remove your restaurant from these platforms entirely because they definitely don’t have your best interests at heart.

Optimize Google My Business for Your Restaurant & Enjoy Its Multiple Benefits

It takes a little effort to improve your restaurant’s GBP page. If you follow the Google Business Profile tips and tricks above, though, you can expect to get a lot in return.

Some of the top benefits of optimizing your restaurant’s Google Business Profile page include:

• Maintaining consistent, accurate information across your profiles - thus enabling your customers to find you easily.
• Increasing traffic to your restaurant’s website.
  Learn how to increase restaurant website traffic for online ordering.
• Helping customers locate your restaurant for dining in & delivery orders.
• Using Google Business Profile SEO practices to get your restaurant business to show up on Google first.
• Learning how to register your business on Google Maps - so customers can immediately spot your restaurant on the map when searching for “restaurants near me.”
• Attracting more customers with photos and videos.
• Accessing analytics that shows you how to rank higher on Google Maps and how to make your restaurant website appear on the first page of Google.

Consider that it only takes an hour or two to learn how to optimize a Google Business Profile. Thus, you can’t afford to let this great local search marketing opportunity pass you by.

Get Help Optimizing Your Google My Business Account (Google Business Profile)

GloriaFood can provide you with all of the Google My Business (Google Business Profile) support that you need. We can share with you all the knowledge you need to optimize Google My Business for your restaurant. Alternatively, we can do it for you at no cost.

We have experience working with thousands of restaurants, so we’ll help your business get more online visibility and hence, more online orders. Whether you have an ice cream parlor in San Francisco or a pizza delivery business in NYC, we’ll show you how to be first on Google search for free.

If you ever need any assistance in discovering the answer to how to be found on Google, reach out to us for help. Do you feel like you don’t have time to optimize your restaurant’s Google Business Profile page? We’re happy to offer you our free Google My Business optimization service and Google Maps optimization service.

Simply click on the blue-chat button located in the bottom right corner of the screen to get in touch with our Customer Success Team.