Local SEO / Google Maps / near me
Local SEO for restaurants: show up in the Map Pack for the searches that fill tables
Most first visits start on a map. We work on the three things Google says it weighs for local results, relevance, distance and prominence, through your Business Profile, your listings, your reviews and links to your site.
What a hungry search looks like
The three spots that decide dinner
Type "ramen near me" or "pizza delivery downtown" on a phone and the first thing on the screen is a map with three places under it. Each shows a star rating, a review count, a price level, how far it is, whether it's open, and often a photo and an order button. That block is the Map Pack, and for a restaurant it is the most valuable real estate on Google.
Getting into it is local SEO. It is a separate job from ranking your website in the regular results below, though the two feed each other: Google reads your website to judge what you serve, and the website gets more visits when the profile is strong.
Google's help pages are plain about what it uses to rank local results:
- Relevance: how well your profile and site match the search. Categories, the words on your menu pages, attributes, the business description.
- Distance: how far you are from the person searching, or from the place named in the search. Nobody can change this.
- Prominence: how well known you are. Reviews (count, rating, how recent), links and mentions on other sites, and how consistent your details are across the web.
Local SEO for restaurants is work on the two you can change, done every month, written down in a report.
See where you rank todayGoogle Business Profile optimization
Your Business Profile, set up the way a diner reads it
Every package includes it. These are the lines we check and fix, and then keep right month after month.
Have us check these six lines01Categories
Primary category that matches your kitchen
"Restaurant" is rarely the best primary category. "Neapolitan pizza restaurant" or "Ramen restaurant" says more. Secondary categories cover the rest: bar, caterer, brunch.
02Hours
Hours that are right tonight
Regular hours, kitchen and happy hour times where Google offers them, holiday hours set ahead. Wrong hours send a guest to a dark door, and "Open now" filters drop you.
03Links
Menu, order and reserve links
A menu link to a page on your site, your own ordering link where Google lets you add one, and your reservation link. Each one checked monthly, because systems change.
04Photos
Real dishes, the room, the door
Photos people act on: signature plates, the dining room at service, the entrance from the street so they can find you, the patio if you have one. Updated with the seasons.
05Attributes
Attributes diners filter by
Dine-in, takeout, delivery, outdoor seating, vegan options, good for kids, reservations. They show up as filters and as lines on your profile, so they're worth setting right.
06Name
Your real name, nothing added
Adding "best tacos downtown" to your business name is against Google's guidelines and can get a profile suspended. We keep it clean and put the keywords where they belong.
Citation building and cleanup
The same name, address and hours everywhere
A citation is any listing of your restaurant's name, address and phone: Yelp, TripAdvisor, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Facebook, OpenTable, the local tourism site, the delivery apps. Google reads them as confirmation that you are who and where you say.
They drift. An old address after a move, last year's hours on Yelp, a duplicate listing a former manager created, a phone number from the previous owner. Each one tells Google something different. Citation work is finding those, correcting them, closing the duplicates and adding the listings you're missing.
It is slow, unglamorous work, which is why it's usually skipped and why it's in every package.
The free audit lists every listing we can find for your restaurant and flags the ones that don't match.
Get the free Maps auditReview-generation work
More reviews, asked for the way Google allows
Reviews count twice: Google weighs them for prominence, and diners read them before they choose. A place with a 4.6 average from 40 reviews last year usually loses to a 4.5 with 400 and replies from the owner.
The fastest way to get more is to ask every guest, consistently, at a good moment: a card with the check, a line in the online order confirmation, a QR code at the counter. What you can't do is ask only the happy tables (that's review gating), offer a discount or a free dessert for a review, or have staff and family review you. Google's policies forbid all three, and breaking them can cost you every review you've earned.
Every package includes setting up that routine with you, plus reply templates for good, mixed and bad reviews. If you need more, such as a backlog of unanswered reviews or a fake-review problem, see restaurant reputation management.
Review gapFree tool
How long until you catch the place above you?
Enter your review count and pace and theirs. The calculator shows the months it takes at your current pace and the pace you'd need to close the gap in a year.
Open the review gap calculatorMore than one location
Local SEO for restaurant groups: one profile and one page per door
Each real location gets its own Business Profile, verified at its own address, and its own page on your site with that location's address, hours, menu (if it differs) and photos. Reviews belong to each location, and so do the replies.
What doesn't work: one page listing five addresses, or five near-identical pages with the town name swapped. The first gives Google nothing to rank; the second reads as thin copy. The approach that worked for a California company with a page for every city it served (not a restaurant, the same idea) was real pages with something specific to each place.
Platinum covers two domains and Titanium four, for groups that run each concept or location on its own site.
How local SEO runs
Month one to month three, on the line
Profile and listing fixes move first; reviews and links build over the following months. You see all of it in the report.
Order in01
Profile and listings audit
We compare your Business Profile, categories, photos and listings with the three places that show for your main searches, and send the gaps in writing.
Fire02
Profile fixes and citations
Categories, hours, attributes, menu and order links set right; your name, address and hours made identical on Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing, TripAdvisor and the rest.
On the pass03
Reviews and links
A review request routine your staff can run every shift, reply templates, and the month's guest posts, Web 2.0 pages and amplification links to your site.
Served04
Positions checked
Each month we check where you show for the agreed searches and list every link we placed, with its live URL, target and anchor text.
Packages / month to month / cancel by email
Local SEO packages for restaurants
Profile, listings and review work in every tier; the tiers differ in how many local searches we go after and how many links back them up. A single neighborhood spot usually starts on Silver or Golden; groups look at Platinum and Titanium.
TKT 01 / Silver10-12 days
Silver package
$125a month
or $140 once, no subscription
One location in a town or a quiet neighborhood, with a short list of searches that matter.
In every package
- Google Business Profile tune-upCategories, hours, menu and order links, photos and attributes set and kept right.
- Citations built and cleanedName, address and hours made identical on the listings diners and Google check.
- Review-generation workA policy-safe way to ask real guests for reviews, plus reply templates.
Links and research
- 10 target keywordsThe searches we work toward and track for you.
- 10 guest posts, DA 20+Articles placed by outreach on other sites, each linking to yours.
- 10 Web 2.0 pages, DA 50+Pages we publish on big publishing platforms, pointing to you.
- 3,000 amplification linksSecond-tier links to those posts and pages, never to your site.
- Standard keyword researchKeywords chosen with you before any link goes out.
TKT 02 / Golden12-14 days
Golden package
$235a month
or $260 once, no subscription
One busy location in a city, with real competitors in the Map Pack for your cuisine.
In every package
- Google Business Profile tune-upCategories, hours, menu and order links, photos and attributes set and kept right.
- Citations built and cleanedName, address and hours made identical on the listings diners and Google check.
- Review-generation workA policy-safe way to ask real guests for reviews, plus reply templates.
Links and research
- 20 target keywordsThe searches we work toward and track for you.
- 20 guest posts, DA 20+Articles placed by outreach on other sites, each linking to yours.
- 20 Web 2.0 pages, DA 50+Pages we publish on big publishing platforms, pointing to you.
- 5,000 amplification linksSecond-tier links to those posts and pages, never to your site.
- In-depth keyword researchon-page audit, content gap analysis, premium indexing
TKT 03 / PlatinumBest value
Platinum package
$325a month
or $380 once, no subscription
Two or three locations, or a second site for catering or a sister concept, and you want to see what the top-ranked place nearby is doing.
In every package
- Google Business Profile tune-upCategories, hours, menu and order links, photos and attributes set and kept right.
- Citations built and cleanedName, address and hours made identical on the listings diners and Google check.
- Review-generation workA policy-safe way to ask real guests for reviews, plus reply templates.
Links and research
- 40 target keywordsThe searches we work toward and track for you.
- 30 guest posts, DA 20+Articles placed by outreach on other sites, each linking to yours.
- 30 Web 2.0 pages, DA 50+Pages we publish on big publishing platforms, pointing to you.
- 10,000 amplification linksSecond-tier links to those posts and pages, never to your site.
- In-depth keyword research, 2 domainson-page audit, content gap analysis, premium indexing, competitor research
TKT 04 / Titanium16-18 days
Titanium package
$575a month
or $620 once, no subscription
A group with several locations, a dense metro, or an old site whose link history needs a toxic link check.
In every package
- Google Business Profile tune-upCategories, hours, menu and order links, photos and attributes set and kept right.
- Citations built and cleanedName, address and hours made identical on the listings diners and Google check.
- Review-generation workA policy-safe way to ask real guests for reviews, plus reply templates.
Links and research
- 100 target keywordsThe searches we work toward and track for you.
- 50 guest posts, DA 20+Articles placed by outreach on other sites, each linking to yours.
- 50 Web 2.0 pages, DA 50+Pages we publish on big publishing platforms, pointing to you.
- 20,000 amplification linksSecond-tier links to those posts and pages, never to your site.
- In-depth keyword research, 4 domainson-page audit, content gap analysis, premium indexing, competitor research, toxic link check
Every month you get a report that lists each placed link with its live URL, the page it points to and its anchor text. No sample report, because every client's report is their own. Website work is quoted separately, from $400.
FAQ
Local SEO and Google Maps questions
Want the whole picture first? Restaurant SEO covers menus, ordering and links as well as Maps. Prices for everything are on the pricing page.
How do I get my restaurant listed on Google?
Search Google Maps for your restaurant first: a listing may already exist from public data or a guest who added it. If it does, claim it; if not, create a Business Profile with your exact name, address, phone and hours, then complete Google's verification. Pick the primary category that matches what you serve, add your menu and order links, and upload real photos before you ask anyone for a review.
Why does a worse restaurant show up above us in Google Maps?
Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence, not on cooking. The place above you may sit closer to where people search, use a more fitting category, have more and newer reviews, or have more sites linking to it. The free Maps audit compares your profile with theirs line by line so you can see which of those it is.
Does local SEO help with "near me" searches?
Yes, those are local searches. Google reads the searcher's location, so "near me" works like a neighborhood name. Being relevant (right categories, menu words, attributes) and prominent (reviews, consistent listings, links) is what lifts you for them inside the radius where you can realistically show up.
What does Google Business Profile optimization include?
Primary and secondary categories, hours including special and holiday hours, attributes such as outdoor seating or dine-in, menu and ordering links, reservations link where offered, a business description without keyword stuffing, photos of dishes, the room and the entrance, and a reply on every review. We set it up and check it every month.
We have three locations. Do they each need work?
Each real location needs its own Business Profile, its own page on your site with its address, hours and menu, and its own reviews. Done that way they don't compete with each other. Platinum and Titanium cover more keywords and more than one domain, which suits groups.
Do you work with other restaurants on our street?
We may, and we say so up front: we don't sell exclusive areas. Each client's keywords, data and reports stay with that client and are never shared with another, nearby or not.
Can you remove bad reviews from our profile?
Only Google removes reviews, and only when they break its policies (fake, off-topic, hateful, conflicts of interest). We help you flag those correctly and write replies to the rest. Review-generation work in every package brings in new, genuine reviews so one bad night carries less weight.
Order up / three ways to start
See who takes the three spots near you
Send your website and email. Within one business day you get a written audit: your Business Profile, your menu pages, your ordering links, and the nearby places that show up above you.
Or tap "Ask us" at the bottom of the screen for the site assistant, or write to support@restaurantseo.company.
