Digital Marketing Guide

For Growing Australian Restaurants

Uplers helps Australian restaurant owners
get more customers with digital marketing.
Today’s society is deeply entranced by their smartphones, tablets and
laptops. Whether they are walking down the street, on trains, buses, in
coffee houses, or at home - the digital world is only an arm’s length away.

The world has gone mad for digital, and it’s not just the under 30’s any
more. A growing number of people have an email address, a Facebook
account, a Twitter handle, an Instagram page, and even a Snapchat
profile. They are glued to their smartphone to search for information, or
to check for updates, messages, and comments every other minute

These trends are significantly affecting Australian restaurants, as 1 in 6

restaurant visits are directly impacted by an online search or interaction.
Because before someone has even tasted your food, they are Googling
your business, reading online customer reviews, and checking out your
Facebook Page.

The real question for restaurant owners is not about whether they
should have a digital presence, but more about how they can use digital
marketing so that it actually helps them get more customers. There are
so many options available, and a lot of conflicting advice about what
works.

That’s why we created this Digital Marketing Guide for Australian

Restaurants, to help you make educated decisions about where you
should invest your digital marketing budget.

We hope you enjoy this comprehensive guide, and if you have any
questions at all please get in touch with our team.

Regards,
Team Uplers
Introduction
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and out of your depth as a restaurant
owner when first taking on the digital world. After all, you’re most likely
juggling 101 other priorities at the same time, and the last thing you
need is to become a generalist at something else.

Not to mention that there is a long list of potential tactics you can use
for attracting new customers to your restaurant online. Social media,
content marketing, SEO, Google AdWords… where do you start with all
of this?

The good news is that it doesn’t need to be as complicated as it looks.

At Uplers we’ve had the privilege of working with restaurants of all
shapes and sizes to improve their digital marketing strategy. From that
experience, we have simplified everything into a 3-step process for
establishing your digital presence and getting more customers through
the door:

Step 1: Optimise Your Restaurant Website

Step 2: Attract People To Your Website With SEO
Step 3: Use Smart Advertising To Get More Of The Right Customers

The rest of this guide will look at each step in this process in more
depth.
1 Optimise Your Restaurant Website

2 Attract Website Traffic With SEO

3 Use Retargeting To Get More Customers

1 OPTIMISE YOUR
RESTAURANT WEBSITE

50%
OFF
Your digital presence all starts with
BURGER ONLINE your website.

It’s all well and good to invest in

SEO, AdWords and other tactics
for attracting new business, but if
prospects land on a poorly
designed website then your
money is wasted.

In reality, the Australian restaurant

game is an extremely competitive
one.

According to Statista, the revenue of Australian cafes, restaurants

and takeaway food services, is expected to reach

34.8 billion Australian dollars by 2021

If you want your fair slice of that pie, you need to be able to stand out
from your competitors, and your website is a great opportunity to do
so.

Your website needs to not only look nice. It needs to give visitors the
information they need as quickly as possible, as well as naturally guiding
them on the next step in the journey towards visiting your restaurant.

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Because if it doesn’t, your potential customers will happily jump ship to
the next burger restaurant around the corner, or the Japanese takeaway
place in the next suburb.

Imagine your website as a digital outpost of your physical business – in

this instance your homepage is the first digital handshake you extend to
new customers. It should be firm and friendly – first impressions are
lasting.

Given the importance of the homepage when it comes to restaurant

websites, let’s take a closer look at some tips for designing one that will
entice your prospective customers into taking the next step.

1. Keep your copy crisp, concise

and compelling

Your homepage should clearly articulate

the name of the restaurant and what you
RESTAURANT
NAME
are about. Don’t drown visitors with
50%
OFF

BURGER ONLINE reams of dense, unnecessary copy – keep

it crisp, concise and compelling.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing
and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been
the industry's standard dummy text book.

Use punchy, direct and persuasive

language that fits the character of your
brand. When a visitor arrives on your
homepage, the copy should compel them
to stay.

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This is where you should state your strongest value proposition, to keep
potential customers from navigating to your competitors. Consider
breaking down your unique selling proposition into three categories:

A main headline

A tagline or positioning A compelling call to action

statement

2. Make a clear and explicit call-to-action

When an Internet user reaches

CALL your homepage, you want them
to do two things; recognise your
TO
brand, and give you their
ACTION business. To facilitate this second
feat, your homepage should
feature a prominent call to action.
3
The best call to action for your homepage will depend on the type of
restaurant you run and your unique marketing priorities, but some
popular calls-to-action include:

SEE THE MENU ORDER HOME DELIVERY
MAKE A RESERVATION
BOOK A TABLE JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
SIGN UP FOR VIP OFFERS
Any action that might help to
convert a potential customer
into a customer should be
prominently displayed on
your homepage – not buried
in a random sub-menu.

3. Make it easy for the visitor to take

the desired action

Highlight the call-to-action on your homepage with an obvious clickable

button or icon, to simplify the action. You can test different calls-to-action
by analysing click-throughs and conversions to see which one works best
for your business.

And while you should generally keep the copy on your homepage crisp
and uncluttered, you may like to experiment with multiple calls-to-action,
like the Supernormal example below.

4
Internet users can land on your homepage for various reasons. They
might already know your brand and wish to make a booking, or maybe
they found you randomly when searching for something in the area. By
featuring multiple calls-to-action on your homepage, you can cater
more broadly to the different people who visit your site.

4. Understand that less is more

When designing your homepage, think quality before quantity. The

design should be clean, balanced and beautiful, like an artfully arranged
plate in a fine dining restaurant – not an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of
information and imagery. Blank space is critical, to allow the eye to
travel from each piece of content to the next.

Don’t fill your homepage with unnecessary

images, information, buttons or testimonials.
If your homepage is overloaded with too much
visual noise, it drowns out your branding and
call to action. And a homepage laden with
too much content can cause sluggish load
times - which is guaranteed to deter visitors.
Can’t play

According to a study by Microsoft, the

average human’s attention span has
shrunk to just 8 seconds – that’s less than
a goldfish. So, pare down your messaging
so that only the most important and
compelling details are featured on the
page. Don’t expect visitors to sift through
layers of content to find what they need.

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5. Make guests feel at home with
logical navigation

Hard-to-navigate websites are

disastrous for business. If the
functionality of your website isn’t
blatantly obvious, few will take the
time to figure it out.

If people have to wait or they don’t

get the attention they expect on
your site, they will take their
business elsewhere – just like in the
real world.

6. Extend a friendly invitation to connect

With the rise of mobile search, many foodies are using their smart-
phones, on the go, to find their next dining experience. In many cases,
people only visit restaurant websites to obtain basic contact information,
such as a phone number or address.

A Nielsen study into mobile search showed:

7 out of 10 users visited restaurant websites to ascertain

business location

6
 Pu
b& sto
Re Re
sto b&
Pu

2 in 3 were seeking directions

-------------------------------------------------

Every second visitor came for the phone number

With that in mind, your restaurant homepage should make it easy for
potential patrons to find your contact details.

7. Create a timely experience

Foodies are an insatiable lot – when

they do mobile restaurant searches
they usually want instant gratification.
The mobile path to purchase for
restaurants is one of the shortest
timelines in the mobile space for
any sector.

7
Research shows that nearly of both smartphone and tablet

90%
users are looking to make a
restaurant spend within the
next day after they search for a
related term in a Google search.

They want immediate satisfaction. 30% of smartphone users

convert into a customer with a restaurant immediately, and more
than twice as many are buying within an hour.

3%
Not ready to buy
7%
30%
Within month
Purchase intention Immediately
of smartphone users
25%
on mobile restaurant Within day
search

30%
Within hour
-------------------------------------------------

1%
Not ready to buy
15% 15%
Immediately Within month

Purchase intention of
tablet users on mobile
restaurant search
29%
Within hour 40%
Within day

8
Restaurant mobile search activity is very locally driven and far more
urgent than other categories, such as travel. The study revealed:

BAKERY SHOP

3 in 4 More than half of More than 8 in 10

smartphone users this activity happens mobile restaurant
access restaurant while the user is in users ultimately go
information on the a car on to make a
go purchase

For restaurateurs, this presents a huge opportunity and a unique challenge

to wow foodies within this tight window with a knockout homepage, and
guide them to purchase.

9. Use ‘social proof’ to build trust

To convert strangers into customers,

105
build up your restaurant’s ‘social
proof’. In the digital world, social
proof is evidence – in the form of
online reviews or social media
engagement – that your business
is credible and authentic. Your
homepage is a good place to flaunt
your social proof and boost
conversions.

9
 A recent survey found that

92%
of consumers now read
68%
say they are more likely to trust a
online reviews, and business with positive reviews.

In the restaurant game, reviews can make or break your business.

10. Indulge those #FoodPorn fantasies

with video

Food appeals to some senses more

than others. Taste and smell are
obvious frontrunners, but sight is
integral to the foodie experience too.

Restaurants live and die by the visual

presentation of their food. Sharing
Instagram photos of the food we eat
has become as important as eating the
actual meal.

Until recently, the go-to visual content for restaurant home pages has
been striking hero images of food or decor. That still works a treat. But
the rise of video is opening up new online possibilities for restaurants.

The fact that YouTube is second only to Google in its use as a

search engine tells us that video is the medium of choice at the
moment. Video can captivate and influence even the most impatient
website visitors.

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 Home(page). It’s where the heart is.

They say that home is where the heart is. Likewise, your
homepage is the heartland of your website. It should
encapsulate the essence of your brand – the soul of your
restaurant in a nutshell.

A happy homepage is a familiar place that makes visitors

feel like they belong. These homepage tips will make visitors
feel at home on your website, and convert casual Internet
browsers into loyal restaurant patrons.

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2 ATTRACT WEBSITE TRAFFIC
WITH SEO

Now that your homepage and website are designed to convert, you
need to actually attract prospective customers to your site. The most
consistent and sustainable way to do so is by turning up in a Google
search for search terms related to your value proposition.

The art (and science) of turning up in these searches is known as Search

Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Why is this so important to your restaurant? Well as we mentioned

previously, 90% of smartphone uses are looking to make a purchase
within a day of searching for restaurant-related terms in Google, and a
majority of these searches are made on-the-run in the vicinity of your
restaurant.

That’s why Local SEO is critical for the growth of brick-and-mortar

businesses. Local SEO helps restaurant owners attract more customers
from their own area. If you get Local SEO right, you will capture
prospective customers at the very moment they are actively looking to
make a purchase.

Here are four smart tactics which you should consider when developing
your local search strategy:

1. Create a local listing and keep it consistent

To find business information online customers will often Google it, or

search Facebook, Yelp or other social platforms and local directories.
If you aren’t visible on these platforms, people are less likely to have
confidence in your credibility.

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Optimising your local listings is a mandatory step to raise visibility on
all the major social media platforms, online review sites, and search
engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo. But be warned, this can be a
time-consuming process and requires a certain level of expertise.
You may need help from an SEO consultant.

Here are some things to incorporate into your listings:

Pictures of your
business/office/
2 people

Your NAP
(Business Name,
Address, Phone
Number)

Website link

Open Opening hours

Customer reviews

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2. Use location-based landing pages

A landing page is the first page someone sees on your website after
they click on a search result or listing. Consider designing separate
landing pages for each service or location you have on offer, to make
your way to the top of search results in local organic traffic.

zeusstreetgreek.com.au/store-locations/surry-hills/

zeusstreetgreek.com.au/store-locations/south-bank/

14
Consider including the following critical
details on your landing page
Business name, address A map which directs
and phone number (NAP) the user to your store

Services details Business hours

A unique URL, page title, Links to your social

meta description (location media profiles
based)
Responsive design,
Keywords which help in especially on mobile
search engine ranking
Compelling content
(images, video and text)

Things not to include:

1 Don’t copy the same content on each page

2 Don’t use the same title name and meta description on all pages
by just altering the city or names

3. Localise your content strategy

Your content strategy is not just about creating content for blogs, social
media and website pages – it’s much deeper than that. For an effective
local content strategy, you need to create consistent content across all
of your online platforms, promote it effectively, and make continuous
alterations based on the feedback and results you see.

15
Here are some tips for localising your
content strategy:

Get to know your ideal customers based on their

Step challenges, objectives, goals, and socio-cultural
1 backgrounds.

Step Target a specific geographically-based niche and

eliminate the competition.
2

Step Analyse where your audience lives online and which

social media platforms they use. Then set your
3 content strategy accordingly.

Make sure that you have the same messaging and

Step details on all of your listings, social media profiles,
4 website and offline marketing collateral.

Step Be present on multiple platforms, by creating

blogs, infographics, personalised images and more.
5

4. Utilise customer reviews strategically

An overwhelming majority of consumers (92%) judge a business 92%

based on their online reviews. So getting positive reviews on a
regular basis is important for your online credibility, and for
your search engine rankings. 14
Consider the following points while developing
your review strategy:

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Set a goal
You should have a clear goal of how many reviews you
need – per week, per month and per year.

Make it easy
Keep your review process easy with fewer actions. Customers
will hesitate to give a review if they find the process hard and
time-consuming.

Ask immediately
The right time to grab the review is right after the service has
been delivered. As it is the time when a customer has the
highest level of satisfaction.

Optimise with Trial and Error

Did you meet the goals you outlined? If not, figure out what went
wrong and tweak your review strategy until you have a successful
outcome.

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3 USE SMART ADVERTISING TO GET MORE
OF THE RIGHT CUSTOMERS

If you have your website, listings,

and social media presence
optimised, you can then consider
scaling things up with some
advertising.

Your advertising options are quite

diverse, but the main options to
consider for local restaurants are
social media advertising
(Facebook) and Google AdWords.

The problem with both of these platforms is that they are very
competitive, and can cost a lot of money if you’re not well informed.

One of the most cost effective advertising tactics in the toolbox of the
modern restaurant marketer is known as retargeting. (Also known as
remarketing)

What is Retargeting?
Retargeting helps you reconnect
(via ads) with people who have
visited your website, keeping
your brand top-of-mind long after
that first contact.

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Recent reports show that 3 in 4 online shoppers – across all
sectors – abandon their orders in the process of buying. These customers
may never come back to your business again unless you have a way to
communicate with them. That’s the power of retargeting.

In the past, restaurant marketers struggled to reach the right audience

with scattergun marketing methods, such as letterbox drops, email blasts
and pop-ups. But retargeting is the real meal deal. It sends your ads only
to online users who have expressed an interest in the cuisine and services
you offer. Bull’s-eye!

You can target people who have already expressed an interest in your
restaurant, or other restaurants like yours – and get ahead of the pack.
Just as your signature dish needs the right mix of special ingredients, your
marketing mix needs a balanced recipe of digital tactics. When combined
with a cleverly crafted SEO regimen, retargeting delivers mouthwatering
results.

The most popular retargeting tactics include:

Website Search Mobile

Retargeting Retargeting Retargeting

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 Email Social Media
Retargeting Retargeting

Let’s take a closer look at each of them:

1. Website Retargeting

Who are your

customers?

BUY

Website retargeting places your ads in front of people based on their

website browsing activity. You can capture their information as they
visit your website, and deliver ads to them in the form of banners on
other websites using Google AdWords.

Your advertising budget should never be spent on ads on websites that

are not visited by potential customers. Don’t waste money marketing
steak to vegans.

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Use your advertising budget to provide steak lovers with valued
information about your steak dishes. Or let remarketing tell vegan-curious
Internet users all about your chef’s special marinated tofu and greens. You
can do this by specifically targeting websites with your ads that are closely
aligned to the interests of certain customer types.

Remember that quality of reach is more important than quantity. There’s

no point broadcasting your ads to a massive audience of people who have
no interest in your product or service.

With retargeting, your ads appear on highly visible, premium websites at

affordable rates.

2. Mobile Retargeting

LOGO

burger Pizza

Mobile retargeting works much the same as website retargeting by

showing ads to people on their phone or in apps. And seeing restaurant
searches are a popular category in both local and mobile searches, mobile
retargeting is another great way to boost conversions on your website.

Where mobile retargeting becomes especially interesting is if you have

an app of your own. Once users leave the app, and browse other apps,
you can send them reminders to revisit your app.

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If the visitor shows special interest in a particular item or feature in your
app – such as placing an online delivery order – they can be sent
targeted reminders, prompting them to revisit that specific item or app
feature.

3. Social Media Retargeting

Social media retargeting enables you to run ads to certain target groups
while they are scrolling through their social media feeds - such as
Facebook and Instagram.

You can create these target groups based on the activity of visitors to
your website, engagement within certain smartphone apps, or actions
they have taken on social media itself.

In the restaurant industry, where consumers eat with their eyes first,
visual platforms like Instagram are a great opportunity to display your
mouthwatering dishes to already interested parties.

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4. Email Retargeting

Email retargeting takes two forms;

you either send an email to a user
after they have visited your
website, or send targeted ads to
online users after they’ve read an
email from you.

Both require you to capture email addresses from your prospects. You
can do this on your website, in your restaurant, or on social media, by
giving away deals and offers to repeat customers. Once you have their
email address, you can then send them time bound deals whenever you
want. You can also upload your list of email subscribers to Facebook
and deliver ads directly to them!

5. Search Retargeting

Search retargeting identifies potential diners based on their previous

web searches. With this tactic, you put your brand in front of anyone
who searches for restaurants of your kind online.

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Try to pay close attention to popular search words. Does your target
group prefer to dine in or take away? If people search at lunchtime,
show them ads for your lunch menu, promotions, and specials. Your ad
messaging should be as tailored and targeted as possible.

SEO and search retargeting work hand in hand to keep your restaurant
on people’s minds. The SEO boosts your website’s visibility in the first
place, and the retargeting brings your website back onto customers’
radars like a boomerang.

Why is retargeting so important for

restaurants?
First time visitors to a website usually spend less than a minute on that
site. They also typically view less than five pages. By driving visitors back
to your website, time and time again, the various forms of retargeting
give you more opportunity to engage and resonate with people.

Retargeting also helps make your brand recognisable and memorable.

This tactic reinforces your branding efforts by repeatedly displaying your
restaurant logo, images and slogan to interested customers on a number
of different platforms.

If you keep turning up in the right places, people will start to search for
your restaurant by brand, because they know it. Brand recognition is a
powerful tool. If web users know your brand, they are more likely to
come directly to your website and, more importantly, dine at your
restaurant.

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CONCLUSION
Running a restaurant is hard work… but growing a
successful one is even harder.

To be successful in today’s cut throat online world, you need to be

consistently optimising your listings, encouraging positive reviews,
staying on top of new search trends, and investing in retargeting.

But you don’t have to be an expert at everything - so why not outsource

this to a team that have proven results for restaurants in Australia just
like yours?

According to Google, Uplers is one of the top 16 search marketing

agencies in Australia and New Zealand, and we specialize in search
engine marketing for restaurants. Not to mention our prices are
extremely competitive and affordable, based on the results you can
expect to see.

If you’re ready to grow your restaurant with digital marketing, and you
need some help to make it happen, get in touch today!

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Contact for a tailored
custom quote.
hello@uplers.com

US : +1 213 674 6665 | UK : +44 20 3286 7410 | AUS : +61 08 7200 6665 | IND : 079 4032 4566
hello@uplers.com | www.uplers.com