Did you know that effective restaurant website blogs can create more customers?  Here is a fact for you: Businesses that blog 15 times or more per month receive FIVE TIMES the amount of traffic as businesses that don’t!

Here it is again:  Businesses that blog 15 times or more per month receive FIVE TIMES the amount of traffic as businesses that don’t!

Here are a few other interesting stats…

  • Websites with 51-100 pages generate 48% more traffic than websites with 1-50 pages.
  • Companies that increase their blogging from 3-5x per month, to 6-8x per month almost double their leads.
  • The average company will see 45% growth in traffic when increasing blog articles from 11-20 to 21-50.
  • Companies with over 200 blog articles have 5x the leads of those with 10 or fewer.

Ok, I know what you are thinking. I am a restaurant owner and restaurants are so much different than other businesses.  Yes they are… completely different.  Even more importantly, restaurants get more business from having a good listing in search engines than most normal businesses.

Imagine a family driving home from a long day of traveling and they just want to find a place to sit, relax and enjoy a good meal.  Unfortunately, they can’t make up their minds.  So they “Google” it.  Up comes a number of websites after their search for good restaurants near “x” city.

This is where it gets important. The more pages you have, the more likely you are to show up in the search results.  Don’t believe me?  Google just about anything.  You will find that Google works very hard to make sure that the sites on the first page have lots of pages. And relevant content.

The brilliance of having a 50-100+ page blog is that you can cover so many topics about your restaurant that you can’t fill on your homepage.  This is why businesses with more content get more traffic!

So the natural question you’re probably asking yourself right now is: “What do I write about? I can’t possibly have 50+ pages of information to write about!”.

Well, it’s actually easier than you think to have a 50 page blog if you understand your customers and how to tell a story.

1. Write With Your Customers In Mind

Please understand that your restaurant has a target demographic.  Even McDonalds and Papa John’s have a target demographic… so make sure you know who yours is.

When writing, you want to keep this target in mind.  What questions do they want answered?  Most people looking online have a question.  They want to know where you are, when you are open, what your specials are, do you have a bar, what options are on the kids menu, do you have a gluten free option, etc.

Create this target “persona” in your mind, and then write for him or her.

I know it sounds silly, but I am thinking about a 58 year old man who owns a small italian restaurant that he runs with his family.  He is a good person, has great food, but awful marketing.  He needs help and he needs to learn how to find more diners!  His first question might be “how does a website help me get more business?”.

2. Tell a Story

Nobody knows Franco’s restaurant (yep, I even named my target persona) better than he knows himself. Should he be writing about his daily happy hour specials?  Not really. Not unless he can attach an engaging story to it. Everyone has happy hours specials. So a basic blog post about this would be uninteresting and mundane.

Instead he should be telling people what makes his restaurant special and the stories that revolve around his business.

For example, Franco could write about how he imports his cheese from Italy or that he has been cooking the same lasagna dish for 25 years, a special recipe handed down through 7 generations and taught to him by his grandmama. He should explain that his technique for creating the pasta noodles takes 3 hours because in Italy, creating pasta noodles is unique to each region… and then explain what is unique about his region.

I know it might sound a bit silly, but customers connect to stories about other people and will want to be a part of that story.

If Franco can be creative, which we know he can from the wonderful menu he creates… his blog should be too!  Tell people what makes you special and never be afraid to discuss the history or tradition of what made your restaurant what it is today.

3.  Be Specific – This Will Help With Search Engine Optimization Keywords

Google uses an algorithm to determine what is relevant to display on the first page of a search.  What this means is that they look at the words used in the search and compare that with all the websites in the world that use those same words (keywords). From there, the algorithm determines which websites are the most relevant and orders the results accordingly.

The reason that you want to be specific is because you never know what people will search for.  Google says that 15% of all searches have never ever been seen before.  Think about that for a second.   With all the searches that have been done over the past fifteen years of Google’s existence, 15% of all searches they see everyday haven’t been searched before.

Being specific allows Google to index all your content for those new and unique searches and gives you a better chance of ranking in the first page for those searches.

For example, since Franco has Bra Tenero Cheese on his menu, (an imported italian cheese), he should also describe it as:

“a soft, relatively young, and incredibly tasty cow’s milk cheese from the Piedmont region in Italy.  Bra Tenero, a younger and softer cheese than its cousin, Bra Duro, has a semi-hard texture and a dense, slightly piquant flavor.”

This is very specific and unique. And if someone happens to be looking for “Bra Tenero Cheese”, there is more information on his website than just a mention of its name.

4.  Don’t Forget To Tell People What You Want Them To Do

One very common mistake made by all types of businesses, from mom and pops to fortune 500’s, is forgetting to give people direction.

Think about how many advertisements you see or hear on a daily basis that are only “branding” without a call to action.  Once you have sparked the interest of your readers, you need to tell them what to do next.  Should they move on? Should they call to make a reservation? Should they subscribe to a newsletter for coupons? Should they join your loyalty program?

Next Steps

The most important thing you need to do now is take action.  Don’t just sit there and think about what was said… do something.  Get on your computer right now and write for 10 minutes.

Thats all. Just take action. Tell a story.

Your blog doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be filled with unique, relevant content.

Don’t hold back because you are worried that it won’t be the greatest post ever written about Lemon Chicken.  Chances are good that 100 people have already written about Lemon Chicken.

Put another way – just because another restaurant serves Lemon Chicken doesn’t mean you can’t also serve your own unique version of Lemon Chicken. And so, the same applies to your blog content.

Everyone is a unique individual with a set of unique experiences and perspectives. If you apply those unique experiences, stories, etc. to your blog content, you’ll always be presenting your business in a fresh and interesting way.

Get yourself started today, and you’ll have 50+ blog posts, eh, stories before you know it.

Don’t have a website blog?

Don’t have a website blog?  Not sure where to begin?  Need someone to write blog posts for you?  We have you covered.  Contact us today!