The Benefits of Writing a Blog For Your Restaurant
In the fast-paced and growing restaurant industry, it can become quite difficult to stand out. When searching for new ways to market your business, you may want to look into restaurant blogging. Starting a blog for your restaurant opens up the opportunity to present your restaurant online and maximize the revenue generated through digital platforms. This is a brilliant way to ramp up your content marketing!
The benefits of writing a restaurant blog far outweigh many other digital marketing methods. It transforms your website into an outlet for customers to find news and information about your business and industry. With the growing number of restaurants, it’s important to establish a unique brand identity, blogging can help you make that happen! On average, 90% of guests check out restaurants online before visiting. Adding a blog to your restaurant website instantly helps you reach more customers and better positions your brand in the public eye. Here are 4 ways your restaurant will benefit from adding a blog to your content marketing strategy:
Increase Search Engine Rankings
If you want a larger audience to hear about your restaurant you may want to start focusing on increasing your search engine optimization (SEO). It’s no surprise that the first page on Google gets the most traction. Writing blogs for your restaurant's website will grant you more chances to land a spot on a high-traffic Google search page! Search engines love websites that are updated regularly. Creating a blog with unique and fresh content will give you an outlet to update your website consistently.
Blogging allows you to target keywords that are difficult to include on your website's landing pages. Writing about industry-related topics will help you reach a larger audience and better market your brand. Regularly generating new high-quality content on topics relevant to your audience will make a huge difference in how your overall website performs in search engines.
When you write a blog you’re filling your website with valuable industry information that can be shared with a larger audience. Any time another business references your blog in their writing, it counts as an external link and will help lead more consumers to your business. A large number of external links will help Google view your website as trustworthy and authoritative.
Builds Brand Awareness
Establishing a brand name and building authority can be difficult in the food and beverage business, but blogging makes it easier! Since you’ll be able to choose the topics you write about, you can continuously provide insight to your customers. Keep them engaged and interested by giving them the inside scoop on restaurant trends! Blogging will help build the community and generate brand awareness.
Blogging gives you a creative platform where you can share information with your audience. It can be a place to establish a fun brand personality or even be used for education. Using your blog to help educate other restaurants in the industry will position your business in a role of leadership. This will impress your customers and increase your reputation. Soon enough, your website will be the first place people go to keep up with restaurant news!
Promote Customer Engagement
Building a relationship with your customers may be easy when they’re dining in-house, but once they leave it’s up to you to keep that relationship strong. With a blog, you won’t have to say goodbye at the door! You can allow readers to comment their thoughts on your blog post and start conversations with each other. They can interact and take part in your industry-related discussions, or you can take it a step further and generate more personal connections.
Building brand identity is a lot easier when your guests can put a face to the name. To further build on your relationships with guests and gain their trust, try writing a blog about your staff! People would love to see who’s been cooking their favorite meal. This can be set up like an interview, or even a behind-the-scenes look. Blogs like this will engage customers and in return boost their loyalty.
Drives Website Traffic
When someone reads an article they love, they’re more likely to share it, drive more traffic to it, and return for more. By posting useful information on your blogs, you’re encouraging guests' interest in learning about the restaurant industry. This may even convince them to sign up for your email list! When you get lots of traffic from repeat customers on your website, that attracts Google and raises your authority level in the algorithm.
Blogs make excellent content for your social media as well! The shareable content can be promoted on all of your digital platforms and will lead people to your website. As well as that, you can promote your social media in your blog and add links for easy access. A unique restaurant blog will give your audience something to talk about and provide an edge over your competitors
Restaurant Blog Ideas
Here are some restaurant industry blog ideas to get you started on producing content:
The Menu:
- New menu unveiling
- Seasonal additions
- Staff Favorites
Events:
- Upcoming special events
- Behind the scenes of a recent event
About The Restaurant:
- Meet the staff
- Meet the chef
- History of the restaurant
- Behind the scenes of a dinner service
Lists
- 5 most popular menu items
- 10 new food trends
- 3 best meals for a Friday night
Why Market Your Restaurant With a Blog?
Blogging is an investment that will provide a positive return! Chances are you already have a website for your business, so all you have to do is add a section for your blogs! Oftentimes this will cost little to no money, which means the largest investment here is your time. Writing one article a week will only take about a few hours, but will result in a community of loyal readers, a place to interact with new and existing customers, an increase in website traffic, and higher search engine rankings. I’d say that's worth it!