SEO in plain English — a restaurant owner's guide
No jargon. What SEO actually means, and what changes — in dollars — when you have a real website versus none.
SEO stands for search engine optimisation, but here's the plain-English version: when a hungry person nearby types “best pho near me” or “dumplings open now”, SEO is everything that decides whether they see your restaurant or your competitor's. That's it. Not a dark art — just being findable at the exact moment someone wants what you sell.
What Google looks at
Google wants to show searchers the most trustworthy, relevant answer. For a restaurant it reads three things: your Google Business Profile (address, hours, photos, reviews), your website (menu, story, details), and what the rest of the web says about you. The more consistent and complete those three are, the higher you show up.
Without a website: your visibility is rented
Plenty of owners run on a Google profile, an Instagram, and a delivery app. It works — partially. But Google ranks you lower without a site to verify against. You can't answer the questions people actually search (“do they have vegetarian options?”, “is there parking?”). And every order through a delivery platform pays up to 30% commission for a customer who was already looking for you.
With a website: the maths changes
A real site gives Google pages to rank for dozens of searches — your dishes, your suburb, “private dining”, “group bookings”. Your menu lives as real text (never a PDF — Google can't read scanned menus, and neither can phones without zooming). Bookings land directly, commission-free. One extra table a week from search pays for a Starter site inside two months — everything after that is margin.
A delivery app charges you 30% on every order. A website charges you once.
The 20-minute start
Claim your Google Business Profile and fill in every field. Make sure your name, address and phone read identically everywhere. Reply to every review — good and bad. Then give those searches somewhere to land: a fast site with your menu as real text, your hours, and a booking button that works one-handed on a phone. That combination — profile plus site — is what most local rivals still haven't done.
