Restaurant marketing is the work of being the place a hungry person nearby picks, and of getting the booking or the order directly instead of through someone who takes a cut. Restaurant SEO is the search part of it, and for a restaurant search mostly means the map: a diner looks at a few names, photos, a rating and a menu, and often decides without opening a website. So the work starts on the Google Business Profile and moves outward from there.
Advernation is a marketing agency run by a native New Yorker. It was started in Queens in 2007 by Christopher Maddaloni, a former electrician, and works from 1115 Broadway in Manhattan. We work without contracts and start with a free audit.
Tell us your restaurant’s name and neighborhood. We will show you what a diner sees when they search for your kind of food near you.
Who this page is for
This page is for independent restaurants and small groups: dining rooms, cafes, bakeries, pizzerias, bars with kitchens, and delivery kitchens. It is written with New York City in mind, where a diner has many choices within a short walk and where the city has rules of its own on grades and delivery apps. The method holds elsewhere.
How diners search for a restaurant
Diners search in four ways, usually on a phone.
- Hungry now: “ramen near me”, “pizza open now”. The map answers, and distance, hours, photos and rating decide within a minute.
- By cuisine and neighborhood, for tonight or the weekend: “Italian West Village”, “brunch Astoria”. The diner compares several places and reads the menus.
- By occasion: a birthday for twelve, a private room, a rehearsal dinner, office catering. These searches are fewer and each is worth many times a table for two. They are the ones a restaurant’s own website can win.
- By name. Someone heard about you and wants the menu, the hours and a table. If the profile shows an old menu or the wrong hours, that diner goes somewhere else.
Local SEO for restaurants: the profile is the storefront
Google chooses the restaurants on its map mainly by relevance, distance and prominence, and says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up. It also says a better local ranking cannot be requested or paid for. For a restaurant, complete has a particular meaning, because Google’s guidelines carry rules written for food businesses.
- Hours. Google’s guideline for restaurants is to use the hours when diners can sit down and dine. Kitchen closing times, holiday hours and private-event closures are kept current, because a diner who walks to a dark door leaves a review.
- The menu. Google says the menu should be representative of what is available, that sample menus listing only popular items should not be submitted, and that a menu link cannot point directly to a third-party ordering or delivery service. Its menu editor takes items with descriptions and prices, grouped into sections, and Google may transcribe menu data from the restaurant’s website.
- Ordering links. Google lists third-party ordering providers on a profile automatically when they state they have a relationship with the business. The owner can add the restaurant’s own ordering link, mark a link as preferred for pickup, delivery or both, and ask for a provider to be removed. Google says providers must remove links within five business days of a request.
- Booking links work the same way: links from providers can appear on their own, and the owner can add a link and set the preferred one.
- Photos. Real dishes, the room, the front of the building so people can find the door.
A restaurant’s profile can fill up with menus and links the restaurant never chose. Taking the menu, the ordering link and the booking link back is the first month’s work, and it is the least expensive thing on this page.
New York rules that touch a restaurant’s marketing
Two city rules shape how a New York restaurant is seen online. The first is the letter grade. The Health Department scores inspections in points: 0 to 13 is an A, 14 to 27 is a B, and 28 or more is a C. Grade cards must be posted where they can easily be seen by people passing by, and the city publishes inspection results in its own lookup tool. The grade is public whether or not the restaurant mentions it, so it is part of the reputation diners find.
The second is the city’s law on delivery apps. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection’s requirements cap what a third-party delivery service may charge a restaurant on each online order, with limited exceptions: 15 percent for delivery, 3 percent for transaction fees, 5 percent for basic service and 20 percent for enhanced service. The same requirements prohibit listing a restaurant without a written agreement, and say an app that lists a restaurant’s phone number must include the restaurant’s direct number.
One more requirement matters most for marketing. Delivery apps must provide restaurants with customer data at the restaurant’s request unless the customer opts out: name, phone number, email, delivery address and order contents. A restaurant that asks has the beginning of its own customer list, and the customers on it can be invited to order direct.
The website and its pages
A restaurant’s website has a short job: give the facts fast and win the searches the map does not settle. The facts are the menu as text with prices, the hours, the address, the phone number and one button each for booking and ordering, all readable on a phone. A menu that exists only as a picture or a download is hard for a diner on a phone, and Google lists making important content available in textual form among its best practices.
The searches a site can win are the occasion ones. A private dining page says how many the room seats, what a set menu costs and how to ask. A catering page says what is offered, the minimum order and the lead time. A group with several locations gives each one a page with its own hours, menu and neighborhood. We do not write a page for every nearby neighborhood: Google’s spam policies call pages made to rank for similar searches and funnel visitors to one place doorway abuse.
Reviews
A restaurant collects reviews whether it asks or not, so the work is in the asking and the answering. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help a local ranking, requires that reviews reflect a genuine experience, and prohibits offering free or discounted goods in exchange for them. A free dessert for five stars breaks that rule, and a Federal Trade Commission rule separately bars incentives conditioned on a review being positive.
Google’s own advice for a bad review is a constructive reply and a follow-up on the concern. We draft replies in the restaurant’s voice for the owner or manager to approve, and we put a link or QR code for reviews where a happy table will see it: the check presenter, the takeout bag, the follow-up message after a booking.
Restaurant marketing beyond SEO
A restaurant marketing agency has more to work with than search, and for restaurants social media is the largest of the other parts.
- Social media. Food photographs well, and diners check a restaurant’s recent posts the way they check its reviews. A steady record of real dishes and the real room matters more than polish. See social media marketing.
- Search ads. Worth testing for the high-value searches, private dining and catering, and for a new opening. They are limited to the neighborhoods you can draw from and run under Google Ads management, from $500 per cycle. A cycle is one test and you set its length, so a single event season can be its own test.
- The website. If the menu cannot be read on a phone or the booking button is three taps deep, we rebuild it under web design.
- AI search. People ask an assistant where to eat. Google says its AI features need no special optimization and lists an up-to-date Business Profile among its best practices. See AI search optimization.
Google’s pay-per-lead ads list a restaurant category, but it is a pilot in a few other cities, and New York is not among them.
What we do, month by month
| When | What we do | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| Month one | Free audit of the profile, the site and what diners see for your cuisine and neighborhood. Hours, menu, ordering and booking links corrected and set to your preferred ones. Tracking for calls, bookings and direct orders. | A profile that is yours again, and a count of where bookings come from. |
| Months two and three | Menu put on the site as text with prices. Private dining, catering and location pages written. Listings on other sites made to match. Review requests placed. Help with your request to the delivery apps for your customer data, if you want it. | New pages live, reviews answered, direct orders counted beside app orders. |
| Months four to six | Links from neighborhood press, food writers and local organizations. Social posting on a schedule. An ads test for events or catering, if wanted. | Positions moving for cuisine and occasion searches, and inquiries for events. |
| Every month after | Menu and hours kept current, holiday and event pages prepared ahead, replies drafted. | One short report: calls, bookings, direct orders, positions. |
What it costs and how to judge a quote
Judge a quote by covers and by what an order leaves you. Take your average check, subtract food and labor, and you have what one more table is worth. Divide the monthly fee by it. Then do the same for one private event and for one delivery order moved from an app to your own ordering link, where the fee you no longer pay is the gain. The number of extra tables has to be one your room can seat on the nights you are not already full.
We quote monthly SEO plans for restaurants after the free audit, with no contract. Get a quote.
The SEO audit is free. Google Ads management is from $500 per cycle and re-targeting is from $400. The pricing page has them together. Be careful with any quote that counts followers or impressions and never mentions bookings.
What we need from you
We need access to the Business Profile and the website, the current menu with prices, and the real hours. We need to know which booking and ordering systems you use and which one you would rather diners use. We need photos of the food and the room. And we need a weekly count of bookings and direct orders from whoever closes out the night.
What we can and cannot show
We have not published a result for a restaurant, so we will not hand you a number. Our published case studies are from other kinds of business. For a restaurant we show the audit, which is mostly a list of things a diner sees that are wrong, and then the weekly counts. We will not promise a position, since Google says no one can guarantee a first place ranking, and nobody can promise a full room.
Related pages: local SEO services covers the map in full, and the New York SEO company page covers the city. Other industries have pages of their own. A restaurant is a small business first, so small business SEO applies. A restaurant that ships food or sells goods online should read ecommerce SEO, and dispensary marketing is our page for another storefront with rules on what it may advertise.
Ask for the free audit. We will send you what a diner sees today, with the wrong parts marked.
Questions people ask
What is restaurant marketing?
It is everything that brings a diner from a search or a recommendation to a table or an order: the Google Business Profile, the menu, reviews, the website, social media and ads. For most restaurants the profile and the reviews come first, because the choice is made on the map.
What does a restaurant marketing agency do?
It takes charge of what diners see before they arrive: the profile, the menu and ordering links on it, review replies, the website, social posts and any ads. A good one reports bookings and direct orders, not followers.
What is restaurant SEO?
It is the work of appearing on Google’s map and in its results for searches by cuisine, neighborhood and occasion, and of making sure a search for your name shows the right menu, hours and booking link.
How long does restaurant SEO take?
Corrections to the profile show within days and matter the most. Ranking a private dining or catering page usually takes three to six months. Google’s guidance is that some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months.
Can I remove a delivery app’s link from my Google profile?
You can ask. Google lets the owner request removal of a provider’s ordering link and says providers must remove links within five business days. You can also add your own ordering link and mark it as preferred.
What can delivery apps charge a New York City restaurant?
The city’s requirements cap fees per online order, with limited exceptions: 15 percent for delivery, 3 percent for transactions, 5 percent for basic service and 20 percent for enhanced service. Check the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection’s current page before relying on any summary.
Should I put my menu on Google or only on my website?
Both, as text with prices. Google’s menu editor takes items, descriptions and prices, and Google says the menu should be representative of what you serve, not a list of popular items. The website’s menu should say the same.
Can I offer something free for a review?
No. Google prohibits offering free or discounted goods in exchange for reviews, and a Federal Trade Commission rule bars incentives conditioned on a review being positive or negative. Ask plainly, with a link or a QR code.
Does social media matter more than SEO for a restaurant?
They do different jobs. Social media makes people want to come. Search is where they look when they are deciding where to eat tonight and where they check your hours and menu. A restaurant needs the profile right first, then both.