The Google map decides before you do
On “restaurant” followed by a town, customers look at three listings, a rating and a few photos. They rarely click further down. If your listing isn't among those three, your site won't even be opened.
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SEO for restaurants: more direct bookings, fewer tables paid for in commission.
People choose a restaurant on a phone, often shortly before sitting down to eat. The Google map shows three places, ratings and photos. Around them, booking platforms, delivery apps and online guides take up the rest of the screen. I'll be frank: you won't make them disappear. I work on your profile and your site so customers find you, read your menu and book with you, with no middleman.
- Rattle your competitors.
- Overtake them.
- Protect you from their attacks.
15 years in SEO
4 books on SEO and GEO
200+ sites tracked every day
1M / month visits to my e-commerce site
They trusted me with their visibility
Darty
Eurofins
Cegid
EBP
CNP Assurances
Ingram MicroThe detail of this page
Three listings on the map, and yours below
A couple are looking for somewhere to have dinner in Angoulême on a Tuesday evening. The Google map shows three restaurants. Yours is open, two streets away, but your listing only says “Restaurant” and has incomplete opening hours. Move it up.
- A restaurant 412 reviewsFrench cuisine · open tonight
- A brasserie 268 reviewsBrasserie · all-day service
- Another restaurant 157 reviewsWorld cuisine · online booking
- More businesses
- YouYour restaurant 64 reviewsRestaurant · opening hours not filled in
Your profile: no. 4, off the map
Fig. 1. A search for a Tuesday evening, three listings shown, yours below the fold. (You were open that evening. Your listing didn't say so.)
What this means for you. I set up your profile for what the customer is looking for at that moment: the type of cuisine, evening service, the terrace, how to book.
What is SEO for a restaurant?
SEO for a restaurant is the work that makes your establishment visible when someone is looking for somewhere to eat near them, this lunchtime, this evening or for a planned meal. It relies on an accurate Google Business Profile, a menu that Google and your customers can read, recent photos of your dishes and your dining room, and reviews you reply to. It is judged by the number of bookings and calls received directly, not by the number of site visitors.
The problem
What gets in the way for restaurant owners.
A platform holds your reservations book
It brings you covers, that's true. It also keeps the customer's contact details and takes its cut on every table, including your regulars who would have called you anyway.
Your menu can't be found or is out of date
The first thing a customer wants to see is what's on the menu and at what price. They come across a blurry photo of a chalkboard, a file to download or last season's menu posted by a stranger.
An audit, for real
What I see in thirty seconds on a restaurant website.
The site below doesn't exist, but its flaws do: they're the five I spot most often. Hover over a number.
https://votre-restaurant.exemple
YOUR RESTAURANTHome · Our spirit · Gallery · Contact
Cooking with passion
Fresh produce, a warm atmosphere, a moment to share.
Download the menuFig. 2. Fictional site, reconstructed. Any resemblance to yours would be a good reason to call me.
- 1A page title with no town or cuisine“Welcome” tells Google nothing. “Restaurant in Cognac: seasonal cooking, riverside terrace” says where you are and what people eat there.
- 2Neither “Menu” nor “Book” in the navigationThese are the two links visitors look for. They should come first, visible without scrolling.
- 3“Cooking with passion”Any restaurant can write that. Say instead the type of cuisine, the neighbourhood and the opening days.
- 4A stock-photo plateCustomers will compare it with the photos in the reviews. Show your dishes as they arrive at the table.
- 5Three blocks about youStory, values, gallery: nothing on the menu, prices or opening hours. Yet that's what people come looking for.
What your customers type
What your customers type before choosing a table.
Here are six plausible searches for a restaurant. They are examples. The audit gives the real searches for your establishment, with their volumes.
- 1“restaurant” followed by the name of the town or neighbourhood
- This is the most frequent search, and it's settled on the map. Your profile must have the right cuisine category, exact opening hours and photos that make people want to walk in.
- 2“restaurant open Sunday evening”
- Many establishments are closed that evening. If you're serving, write it on the profile and on the site. Wrong opening hours lose you the table and earn you a disappointed review.
- 3“restaurant with waterside terrace”
- The customer is looking for a setting before a dish. A terrace, a garden or a view deserves its own page, with photos taken at your place and the months it's open.
- 4“restaurant for a group of twenty”
- It's a family meal, a birthday or a retirement do. The person wants to know if you have room, a group menu and someone to talk to. A groups and private hire page answers all three.
- 5Your restaurant's name followed by “menu”
- This customer already knows you and wants to check the menu before booking. If the first answer is a platform's, they'll book through it. Your menu page must come first on your own name.
- 6“vegetarian restaurant” or “gluten-free” followed by the town
- This person is choosing the table for the whole group. Say clearly what you offer. For allergens, I use your information exactly as you display it in the restaurant, adding nothing.
What works
The five levers for a restaurant.
A Google Business Profile updated every week
For a restaurant, the profile matters more than the home page. I check the category, the hours for each service, annual closures, services offered such as the terrace or takeaway, and the booking link. That link should lead to you whenever possible.
A menu written as text on your site
A menu as an image or a file to download is unreadable for Google and a pain on a phone. I lay it out as text, with the dishes, prices and the date it was updated. You can edit it yourself every time the menu changes.
Recent photos, taken at your place
Customers look at the photos before reading a line. They want to see the plates, the dining room, the terrace and the frontage so they recognise you in the street. I tell you which shots are missing and how often to refresh them on the profile.
Reviews and your replies
Everyone reads reviews, and many also read your replies. A calm reply to criticism reassures more than a string of five stars. I help you ask for a review at the right moment, in line with the rules on reviews.
Direct booking
Your site must offer a simple way to book: a clickable number, a form or a booking module of your own. A table booked directly costs no commission and keeps the customer's contact details for next time.
What costs dearly
The mistakes I often see on restaurant websites.
The menu as a photo of a chalkboard
It's quick to post and nice to look at. Google can't read a word of it, and customers have to pinch to zoom. Keep the photo if you like it, but add the text underneath.
Different opening hours depending on where you look
The profile says open on Mondays, the site says the opposite and the social media page dates from last summer. A customer who finds the door shut doesn't come back, and writes about it.
The “Book” button that sends people elsewhere
On many sites, this button opens a platform's page. You then pay commission on a customer who was already on your site. Offer your phone number or your own form first.
Music and an animation when the site opens
They slow down loading on a phone and delay the only information people want: the menu, the address, the hours. Visitors leave before the animation ends.
The method
What I put in place for a restaurant.
Four steps, to follow in order. I start with what the customer sees first on their phone.
- The profile. Category, hours per service, photos, booking link, replies to reviews: I go through it all with you.
- The menu. Your dishes and prices as text, on an up-to-date page you know how to edit.
- Booking. A short path to your phone or your form, from the profile and from every page.
- Tracking. I look at where calls and bookings come from, and the share that still goes through middlemen.
One-minute test
Is SEO right for you?
Five frank questions to find out whether support makes sense in your situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and I'll tell you.
What it brings in
SEO you can count in euros.
A ranking doesn't pay a salary. What counts is what it brings: enquiries, customers, revenue. Move your page up and see what it could bring in.
Example assumptions, open to challenge: 1,500 searches a month for a restaurant in your town, 3% of visitors make an enquiry, one enquiry in three is signed (this varies a lot from one trade to another), €60 per customer. Click-through rates by position are rough orders of magnitude, and they have been shifting since Google started showing AI answers above the results. Run the numbers with your own figures
What your page could bring in
Ticket no. 10th · worked example- Searchesper month, for a restaurant in your town
- 1 500
- Estimated visitsclick-through rate: 1.5%
- 0
- Potential enquiries3% of visitors
- 0
- Possible customersone enquiry in three
- 0
Possible revenue€0
Close to home
Restaurants in Charente.
In Charente, a restaurant may serve local residents, office workers at lunchtime and passing visitors. In Angoulême and Cognac, people search by neighbourhood or type of cuisine, and in a small town like Jarnac or Ruffec they type the name of the town. The Newp agency is based in the département.
Visitors who came for cognac and the river
Around Cognac and along the Charente, visitors look for somewhere to have lunch after a tour or a boat trip. They know no addresses and rely on the Google map. A complete profile, with terrace photos and reliable opening hours, weighs heavily in that choice.
Angoulême, between ordinary days and festival days
Angoulême welcomes visitors during its festivals. They don't know the town and look for a table from their phone, near where they are. Announcing your extended hours and your capacity a few weeks beforehand helps them choose you.
The village restaurant
In a small town like Barbezieux or Confolens, people search for “restaurant” followed by the town name, often on the day. So your profile must carry that name, your opening days and your lunchtime hours. A daily menu posted on the profile every morning gives people a reason to come.
Beyond Google
What AI changes for a restaurant.
Some of your future customers now describe their meal to an AI such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Mistral instead of typing two words. For example: “there are six of us, including a child and a vegetarian, we're looking for a table on a terrace in Cognac on Saturday lunchtime”. The AI sums up what it found, then suggests two or three places.
It chooses these places from what it can read: your site, your profile, your reviews, online guides. A menu as an image teaches it nothing. A page saying “terrace open from May to September, children's menu, two vegetarian dishes on the menu” gives it what it needs to cite you. I make this information readable and identical everywhere your restaurant appears.
Question asked to an AIWhere can six of us, including a vegetarian, have lunch on a terrace in Cognac on Saturday?
Answer
Three places come up for this meal:
- Our client— independent restaurant: terrace open on Saturday lunchtime, two vegetarian dishes on the menu, menu and prices published on its site, booking by phone.
- — restaurant listed in an online guide, menu not specified, booking via a platform.
- — chain brasserie, all-day service, same menu everywhere.
Restaurant siteGoogle Business ProfileCustomer reviews
Fig. 3. Reconstruction, names hidden. This is the spot we aim for: on the list, with the most precise description.
Three typical cases
Three restaurant scenarios.
I made up these three restaurants to show how I work. None is a client. For yours, I start from the audit.
A town-centre bistro, full at lunchtime and quiet in the evening
Office workers know it, local residents much less so.
- Publish the evening menu as text, with prices.
- Add photos of the dining room taken in the evening to the profile.
- Create a group meals page for birthdays and team dinners.
A riverside restaurant, open in season
It depends on a booking platform and the weather.
- Announce the opening dates on the profile before the season starts.
- Create a terrace page with recent photos and directions.
- Put the phone number and booking form before any other link.
A village restaurant taken over by a new chef
The old reputation still holds, and so do the old reviews.
- Update the name, category and photos on the profile.
- Introduce the chef and their cooking on a page of the site.
- Reply to old reviews mentioning the change of ownership.
In practice
What you get.
- A Google Business Profile checked point by point, with your hours per service
- Your menu as text on the site, easy to update
- A list of photos to retake and the recommended posting frequency
- Template replies to reviews, positive and negative
- A record of direct bookings and those that go through a middleman
Pricing
How much does an SEO consultant cost?
The fee depends on four things. I give you a precise amount after a free first thirty-minute conversation.
- The size of the site: ten pages or ten thousand
- The competition on your queries
- What you can do in-house, and what needs producing for you
- The pace you want
Fancy a game?
Insert a coin.
Quote platforms, directories, comparison sites: they swim between you and your customers. Take the coin and slide it into the machine.
Slide it into the machine
JAWS OF THE WEB
INSERT COINSLIDE THE COIN INTO THE SLOT
Credit: 0
Fig. 4. Sixteen seconds. No sharks were harmed, only their commission.
Together, let's devour your competitors.
One by one, and in order. Every spot gained makes the next one easier to take: that's why it keeps growing. See the method
Who you're talking to
Your SEO consultant: a business owner, not just an SEO.
My name is Kévin Papot. More than fifteen years in the job, four co-written books, and the Newp agency, co-founded in Charente. I also run my own online shops, in France and internationally: one of them went from zero to a million visits a month.
Before we talk tags, we talk margin, average basket and profitability. When you book a call, I'm the one who picks up.
FAQ
SEO and restaurants: your questions.
Should I leave the booking platforms?
No, not abruptly. They bring customers who didn't know you. The aim is to win back those who were already searching for you by name. We then compare what each channel brings in and what it costs, and you decide.
My restaurant is already full at weekends. What does SEO do for me?
It fills the quiet services: Tuesday evening, off-season lunch, the back room for a group. We target the searches that match those slots, not Saturday night ones.
Do I really need a site if I have a Google Business Profile?
The profile is enough to be seen. The site is for being chosen and booked directly. It carries the full menu, the groups page and your contact details. A few well-made pages are enough, no need to create twenty.
Should I show my prices online?
Yes, I recommend it. Customers look for them, and they'll find them elsewhere with mistakes if you don't give them. For exactly what you have to display, the price display rules apply. I invite you to check them with your trade association.
How should I talk about allergens on the site?
I use the information you already give your customers in the restaurant, in the same terms. I make up no statements. Allergen information requirements fall under a specific framework, to be checked with a qualified professional.
Can I offer a coffee in exchange for a review?
I advise against it. Reviews given in exchange for a benefit and fake reviews are covered by the rules on reviews. Simply ask, when bringing the bill, those who had a good time. That's enough to make progress.
What should I do about an unfair review?
Reply in two or three sentences, without anger, giving your version of events. Future customers will read your reply as much as the criticism. If the review breaks Google's terms, it can be reported, with no guarantee it will be removed.
I also offer delivery through an app. Is that a problem?
No, if the numbers work for you. Just check that your name doesn't lead to that app first. Your site can offer direct takeaway for customers in the neighbourhood.
How long before I see an effect?
A corrected profile sometimes brings calls within a few weeks. A site takes longer to settle into the results. I guarantee no ranking. I show you how direct bookings evolve.
What will I have to do myself?
Let me know whenever your menu or opening hours change, take a few photos each season and reply to reviews. I take care of the rest. I've co-written four books on SEO, two of them dedicated to the Google Business Profile.
See also
Other industries
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Support services
SEO consultant in Charente
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