Local SEO for restaurants: a working checklist

What makes restaurants different

Three things. Photos carry more weight because people choose restaurants with their eyes. Dish names are the keywords — nobody searches for “Chinese restaurant”, they search for “lanzhou beef noodle”. And delivery platforms absorb feedback that would otherwise have landed on your Google page.

Photos: work through this list

• The frontage by day and by night, so people can recognise the door
• Three to five interior shots covering the dining room and any private space
• Each signature dish on its own, shot somewhere bright
• The full menu photographed clearly, prices legible
• One of the kitchen or prep area — it buys trust
• Two or three new ones a month, refreshed when the seasonal menu changes

Dish names are the keywords

Fill in the menu section of your profile dish by dish rather than writing “Chinese food”. When somebody searches “flushing mala xiang guo”, Google has to find those words somewhere in your profile. The same applies to your website: put the menu on the page as real text, not as one large image. Google cannot read the words inside a picture.

Rhythm: restaurants can do this better than anyone

The advantage is frequency — dozens or hundreds of people a day. Keep the card permanently on the counter and the tables, have staff add one line at checkout, and the flow becomes steady.

• Dine-in: hand the card at payment, or leave it standing on the table
• Takeaway and delivery: a code sticker on the bag or the container
• Large parties: mention it while walking them to the door — the highest hit rate of all
• Keep the target modest: three to five a week, consistently, is genuinely good

Delivery platform praise does not transfer

Anything written on a third-party app stays inside that app and never reaches Google. That is exactly why restaurants with heavy delivery volume often have surprisingly thin Google pages. There is one fix: put the code on the physical packaging and bring those customers back.

Opening hours: the easiest way to lose a star

Changing hours for a holiday without updating Google is one of the most common causes of a one-star entry in this trade. Somebody drives over, finds the door locked, and rates you accordingly. Setting holiday hours in your profile takes a couple of minutes.

The tone of your replies

Restaurant replies do not need to sound like legal filings. “So glad you enjoyed the fish — tell the host next time and we will save you the window table” does far more work than a stock paragraph. For handling criticism, see You got a one-star note. Now what?

One thing to do today: move the QR table tent from the front door to the counter. In restaurants there is exactly one window — the thirty seconds after paying while they are still seated. Miss it and they are gone. Generate the code with the Google review QR code generator and print it. And if you have just opened and are still in single digits, start with from 0 to 50 Google reviews in 90 days — that pace from zero is far safer than one big push.