Restaurant marketing: Without effort to more guests - How to

Few guests, no marketing budget, no marketing, no more guests. A vicious cycle. The good news is that restaurateurs can now easily break out of it in just a few steps. We reveal how.

Online-Platforms like openTable, quandoo etc. are signposts to restaurants. The service is usually expensive for restaurants and also carries risks. New and smaller restaurants are hardly advertised on portals. They even have to fear losing guests to larger and more popular restaurants due to portal recommendations. That doesn't have to be the case. With the following tips, restaurants can significantly improve online visibility even without a large marketing budget and thus attract more guests to the restaurant.

The ambitions are usually big and the restaurant is quickly registered with numerous portals. But those who don't stay tuned can quickly suffer damage to their reputation. You should respond as quickly as possible to user feedback and answer questions. This is where many restaurateurs get bogged down. If staff and time are limited, then focus on the three major players: TripAdvisor, Facebook and Google.

Restaurants with a free profile on GoogleMyBusiness appear in the Google search BEFORE the search results of paid portals! If you click on a restaurant, the GoogleKnowledgeGraph provides all relevant information, e.g. map of the area, contact data, opening times, ratings, etc. Google thus guides internet users past the fee-based portals to the restaurant - without fixed costs or brokerage fees.

Restaurants can enter a link to their reservation system in GoogleMyBusiness, saving time by taking reservations online instead of over the phone. If the link goes to the restaurant via paid portals such as quandoo, the portal receives a considerable commission for each online reservation. Gastronomes can therefore save a lot of money by displaying the link directly to their website or reservation system on Google. We'll explain below how this works.

1. Create a GoogleMyBusiness profile.

2. Navigate to "Info" in your profile.

3. Now under "URL Reservations" enter the direct link to your reservation system (if not available: your restaurant website).

   
   How to create the link?
   
   1. Use your main domain e.g. "https://wirtschaftimfranz.ch"
   2. add Parameter "?alenoWigdet=open"
   3. add Widget Key "&alenoWidgetKey=eyJrIjoid2l2dTVrM2lsNm15cnBiWlwdzZ4bmViajhycnVkaWRpZ280bGZwODBsbzlhNGlweTEiLCJyIjoiajJ6akw3cHlwRlJSelRSdHgiLCJzIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9teXRvb2xzLmFsZW5vLm1lLyJ9"
      You find your Key in the Settings under Widget Preview:
      Note: The CSS and Java Script have to be copied in the head of your website. Here the how to.