Google Maps
Google Maps offer restaurants a valuable opportunity to win search visibility and traffic for broad, high volume search queries. It can also offer opportunity above the more powerful aggregators (like TripAdvisor) or media outlets (Broadsheet) who tend to dominate the traditional page 1 Google rankings. Google Maps is, quite literally, made for local businesses.
What are rankings?
Search for cuisine type in your suburb (eg. Japanese food Sydney CBD) and you’ll almost certainly see a range of different results types. For me, when writing this article, I can see 3 restaurants as part of a maps section and then 10 regular entries on page 1, followed by a bunch of other stuff like related searches.
Rankings is a way to describe where a particular business features within the page. For example, rank position 3 in maps means the 3rd listing within the maps section. Position 5 in the regular entries is half way down page 1. Position 15 in the regular entries is half way down page 2 - as there are 10 entries per page.
Obviously, given the maps section is at the top of page 1, being visible within the first 3 maps entries offers premium visibility.
What are ranking factors?
The ranking factors are all the techniques or things that influence the rankings. There are over 100 important ranking factors, all with varying degrees of importance. In the below list, we have distilled down the top 25 factors that apply specifically to restaurant brands looking to achieve premium visibility within Google maps.
Top 25 most influential ranking factors for restaurants
Create & verify a Google Business Page
Primary category
Relevance of business location to search intent
Keywords used in listing title
Proximity of business to searcher
Google review score (exaggerated when very high eg. 4.9)
Secondary categories
Authority of inbound links to domain + GMB landing page
Relevance of inbound links to domain + GMB landing page
Anchor text of inbound links GMB landing page
Keywords & relevance in GMB reviews
Completeness of GMB listing
Quantity of google reviews
Keywords in GMB landing page title & headers
Domain Authority of website
Page Authority of GMB landing page URL
Internal links to GMB landing page from other pages of the restaurant website
Click-through rate from search results
Prominence on key industry-relevant websites
Quantity & quality of inbound links from industry-relevant & locally-relevant domains
Positive sentiment in reviews on GMB listing
Engagement on GMB listing (scrolling through listing, click to call, get directions, order ahead)
Quality & authority of structured citations & business directories
Volume of relevant, quality content on website overall
Volume of search for business name (particularly with keyword attachment)
