How to use Google My Business for your restaurant

We know the importance of location when it comes to setting up a restaurant or a new outlet within a chain.

On the Web, it's the same! Your potential and existing customers need information, inspiration and easy ways to reach you and interact with you.

One of the best approaches to achieve this is to fully exploit the Google My Business interface.

Google My Business: what exactly are we talking about?

Google My Business is an intuitive and free tool offered by Google to businesses, including restaurants. It allows you to manage the presence and visibility of your establishment(s), both in the search results pages and on Google Maps.

Very concretely, filling in the information about your restaurant, bringing your menu, your photos & videos to life, and collecting customer reviews will allow you to obtain this type of display(below, the results of a search on the restaurant "Père & Fish"🐟) :

As you can see on the example presented here, the presentation of information immediately attracts attention, while providing a wealth of content to customers, prospects or simply curious.

Your GMB account also allows you toincrease your chances of appearing in a selection of local addresses... by appearing before the best placed sites in the search engine results pages!

For example, if you are looking for a restaurant in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, here is what happens:

Some statistics to know to understand the need for GMB

You've just seen what a Google My Business restaurant listing looks like and how it stands out in the results, especially in local searches.

Here are some key figures to better understand why ranking on Google in this way is crucial:

• As a source of traffic, local Internet search is 300% more important than social networks (source)
• 46% of Google searches are to find a local business (source)
• Google now represents 90. 1% of the total search engine market share, ahead of YouTube (which it owns), Yahoo! and Bing (source).
• 86% of people search for the location of a business on Google Maps.
• Google's local pack occupies the 1st position of the SERP in 93% of the cases (source)
• 44% of users will click on the results of this local pack (source)
• 56% of customers select an establishment if it has good reviews in the local pack (source)

A wide range of information and interactions for your restaurant

Your dashboard allows you to display a wide range of information:

• Photographs (place, atmosphere, dishes...)
• Address
• Services: delivery, take-away...
• Information related to Covid-19
• Menu
• News articles (posts)
• Opening hours
• Peaks in attendance
• Customer reviews (which can and should ideally be responded to by facility managers)
• Culinary reviews
• Links to the website, a social account or the online ordering
• Questions and answers
• Ratings on delivery platforms or social networks if the restaurant is present there...

Well managed, Google My Business is a gold mine to control your image, interact with your community and increase your reputation with updated menus, offers and quality photographs!

Of course, some listings are not as long and rich as those of Father & Fish. But very often, a few photos that illustrate the spirit of the place and the cuisine, schedules, services and an updated address, a Web site and a few reviews are enough to quickly convert Web traffic that might otherwise turn to intermediaries to order or reserve a table(marketplaces and LaFourchette/TheFork in particular).

Note: some restaurant owners choose to link to their TheFork or UberEats profile in the "website" tab. The choice is yours, depending on the services you offer and your business model.

Take advantage of the main benefits of Google My Business

Does this work in practice?

The answer is yes. Google My Business is not a miraculous solution, but it is clearly a powerful option (and let's remember once again, free) to develop its reputation and control its online image.

Here are the main benefits for your restaurant (or restaurant chain):

1) Improve your local referencing & gain visibility

Filling out your GMB profile, updating it regularly, keeping it alive and exchanging with your customers will increase your chances of appearing in the local pack and improve your SEO.

As a reminder, the local pack is made up of addresses close to the Internet user or the area he/she has searched.

At a time when 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to find local information, Google My Business is the tool par excellence to gain notoriety.

2) Differentiate yourself from the competition

What makes a person choose one establishment over another? There is the food of course, but also the atmosphere, the delivery areas, the positive reviews left by previous customers, the budget...

All these elements mark your uniqueness. Google My Business allows you to fully highlight them.

3) Control your image

The Web is overflowing with restaurant reviews, photographs, comments, recommendations and tests, which is no surprise to anyone.

If having your own website (showcase and/or online ordering) is a must, as well as responding to reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor, the next step is to work on mastering the consistency and veracity of your image.

Google My Business allows you to centralize different types of information and exchanges, which allows you to take control of how you appear online.

4) Build a community and respond to reviews that are left for you

We love them or hate them, they horrify us or flatter us: the opinions leave absolutely nobody indifferent. It is a major criterion of choice during the research made by the consumers!

This implies two things: first, to encourage your customers to leave you a comment and a note. Secondly, to take the time to answer accurately to everything that is addressed to you... even if it is not always easy!

GMB is no exception to the rule: opinions carry a lot of weight.

"Local businesses that respond to at least 32% of reviews see an 80% higher conversion rate than those that only respond to 10% (or less) of the reviews posted on their listing" (source)

Remember to give your "owner's response" to each of them, without panicking if you come across a mixed or negative review. Moreover, it has been shown that Internet users tend to be suspicious of a profile where absolutely all the comments are positive: it seems suspicious to them!

5) Promote your news and current offers

Independent retailers and restaurant owners have tended to miss this very interesting (and visually impactful) feature of Google My Business: posts.

New card, contest, blog post, party or special event: write and publish short, well-illustrated articles that will appear on your profile!

Below is a preview of a recent post published by Clasico Argentino, one of our clients specialized in Argentine cuisine.

Note: you can now publish a post dedicated to the promotion of a product!

To do so, go to your dashboard and click on "posts" in the left side menu.

6) Make your menu stand out

Relatively recent, this option proposed by Google allows restaurant owners to add their menu to their profile.

This tutorial created by Partoo will allow you to do it very easily!

Finally, beyond the opportunity levers that Google My Business offers, it is also a very effective tool to obtain valuable statistics on your visitors and customers!

Are you already using this Google tool to promote your services, increase your live sales or bookings and interact with your community? Share your opinion by leaving us a comment below.