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Restaurant SEO

What should a restaurant SEO agency actually do?

A specification you can hold a proposal against: what should happen in month one, what should happen every month, what should be reported, and what should never be promised.

Alex Opsenica, founder of Moolah Media

Alex Opsenica · Founder, Moolah Media

2 min read
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Most restaurant SEO proposals describe outcomes, not work. "Improve your rankings" and "grow your online presence" are not deliverables. This is what the work looks like when it is real, written so you can compare any proposal against it — including ours.

Month one: establish the truth

The first month is diagnosis and remediation, not campaigns. Nothing further is worth doing while the basic record of the business is wrong.

Every month: work that leaves a trace

What monthly restaurant SEO work should consist of

Business Profile

Monthly work
Accuracy checks, seasonal hours, photos, posts, questions answered
How you verify it happened
Profile edit history and the Performance report

Website

Monthly work
Page changes for real intents — menu, occasion, location, bookings
How you verify it happened
A change log with dates and URLs

Content

Monthly work
Pieces that answer guest questions, not filler
How you verify it happened
Published URLs, not a word count

Reviews

Monthly work
Response coverage and latency, escalation of policy-violating reviews
How you verify it happened
Response rate and time-to-respond

Measurement

Monthly work
Grid visibility, discovery searches, profile actions, commercial page performance
How you verify it happened
A monthly report you can read in five minutes

Google publishes its own baseline of what legitimate SEO work involves, and it is worth reading before commissioning anyone.

Source: Google Search Central — SEO Starter Guide — Google's baseline description of the work, including what to expect from an SEO provider.

Source: Google Business Profile Help — How to improve local ranking — Relevance, distance and prominence — the factors any local programme should be addressing.

What should be reported — and how

  1. Local pack coverage across the catchment, shown as a grid over time rather than one flattering position
  2. Discovery versus direct searches, so you can see whether new people are finding you
  3. Profile actions: calls, direction requests, booking-link clicks
  4. Search Console performance for commercial pages — menu, private dining, bookings
  5. Work completed this month, with links
  6. What is planned next, and why

Red flags

  • Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed covers — nobody controls Google's results
  • No named person doing the work, or undisclosed subcontracting
  • Ownership of your Business Profile, website or analytics accounts held by the agency
  • Twelve-month contracts with no exit and no notice period
  • Monthly blog posts as the entire deliverable
  • Local visibility measured from one search, taken from inside the restaurant
  • Fees quoted without stating VAT treatment

For what this work typically costs in Ireland and what sits behind each price band, see the pricing article rather than guessing from a quote.

Common questions

How long should a restaurant SEO contract be?

Long enough for the work to read — usually three to six months minimum — with a clear notice period after that. Twelve months with no exit is a commercial term, not a technical necessity.

Should the agency own my Google Business Profile?

No. You should remain the primary owner and grant manager access. Ownership sitting with an agency is the single most common source of painful handovers.

Is a restaurant specialist better than a general agency?

Not automatically, but the work is different enough that a generalist often defaults to blogging and links while the profile, menu and review surfaces — where restaurant demand is decided — go untouched.

What should I ask for in the first meeting?

The named monthly work, who performs it, how local visibility is measured, what happens to the accounts if you leave, and what is explicitly excluded.

How soon should I expect results?

Accuracy fixes on the profile can read within weeks. Content, review habit and authority work usually take three to six months to show clearly. Anyone promising all of it quickly is describing only the easy part.

Working on this yourself? Packages and pricing.

Comparing proposals?

A free visibility audit gives you an independent read of what your restaurant actually needs — useful whoever you end up hiring.

Get Your Free Visibility Audit

Written by

Alex Opsenica, founder of Moolah Media

Alex Opsenica

Founder, Moolah Media

Founder of Moolah Media, a specialist restaurant growth and local SEO agency based in Ireland, working directly with hospitality operators on search, Google Business Profile and bookings.

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