Are The Rumors True?

The rumors have been spreading about my new book on Restaurant Marketing.

Well…they're mostly true. The new book is ready. It will be officially announced on Monday; but you have an insider's opportunity to get your own copy by joining our email list here on the blog. Join where it says: "Free Marketing Tips",  just below the yellow star for Ezine articles.

Simply register with your first name and your primary email address; and when we launch the new e-book….we'll send you your own copy first…….absolutely FR.EE

Yes, you read that right…free.  Nada, rien, nothing, gratis, zero…as in "fre.e".

This is no typical piece of fluff. I've been working on this for months….more like 30 years; because that's what's inside this book….30+ years of my international restaurant marketing experience, combined with my last 11 years in online marketing….plus a very secret weapon that I can't even name until Monday.

To give you a "taste" of some of the items contained in this free book, here is just one excerpt from the section on "local search".

"I think this goes without saying, but you really must have a web site.  I know you’re thinking, but what do I have to do to get to the very top of the first page of the search engine results when I have to compete against every other restaurant in the city, the state, the region or the country? The answer is that you really don’t.  You only have to compete with other restaurants in your ‘trading area’, or the approximate circle surrounding your own location.

If Jennie lives in Bellingham, Washington, and she needs to meet Glenn for lunch in the Fairhaven district of town, she needs to find an appropriate restaurant…but only in that specific locale.  Jennie knows she can get on the Internet and do a search for “ restaurant Fairhaven district” and Google maps will show her restaurants in this neighborhood. This service even shows her where they are located, so she prints out the map and drives over to the Fairhaven district.

Understand that Jennie uses the location name in her search because she knows that if she just Googled  “restaurants” she would get pages and pages of restaurants from all over the world, which would be of no use to her.

With your own restaurant, therefore, you should use those same location-specific keywords throughout your own site. In this manner, you’ll get to the top of the search ranking pages for the specific group of people you are targeting; namely: those potential patrons wanting to dine in the Fairhaven district, and not all over Bellingham (in this example) or in another city/state.

Most of your competitors will NOT KNOW how to optimize their web site to achieve these top page rankings, and hence the attention and attraction of the targeted customers you want.

How do you optimize your site for local search? Here are 3 excellent ways:

Use “geographic keywords”. If you want to target only those who live within a ‘x” mile radius of your outlet, and you know from other research you have conducted  the ‘dimensions’ of your trading area, then you know that you will have to specify exactly where you are: the city, the neighborhood, the street, even the street address. People will use all these terms when they perform their online searches.  Don’t forget to think about HOW locals will search for it; and what specific terms they will use. For example, if you live in Boca Raton, Florida, the locals just call it ‘Boca’; if you’re in Beverly Hills, they might call it ‘90210’ or if you’re located on the upper levels of Hamilton, Canada, the locals call it ‘The Mountain.’

Make sure one of your pages is a directions page, including a Google map.

Display your address and phone number. Put your full street address on the footer at the bottom of EACH page and on the side or top navigation bar of your site. Don’t forget to include the area code with your local phone number. This too helps the search engines with the information they may need to pinpoint your location.

Try to obtain as many inbound local links as you can. The search engines really love links that point to your site from other reputable sites and organizations they know, trust and find ‘relevant’ (that word again)!  The best way to get these inbound local links is with local directories. There are many different local directories you can use."

There are 12 listings for local directories….they're in the book.

You will learn more about the new book in the very next post.  Stay tuned…you'll be surprised and delighted. Join the list to get yours…on the right hand side of this page.