A sharp-eyed Australian SEO spotted indirect confirmation about Google’s use of AI detection as part of search rankings that was hiding in plain sight for years. Although Google is fairly transparent about content policies, the new data from a Googler’s LinkedIn profile adds a little more detail.

Gagan Ghotra tweeted:

“Important FYI Googler Chris Nelson from Search Quality team his LinkedIn says He manages global team that build ranking solutions as part of Google Search ‘detection and treatment of AI generated content’.”

Googler And AI Content Policy

The Googler, Chris Nelson, works at Google in the Search Ranking department and is listed as co-author of Google’s guidance on AI-generated content, which makes knowing a little bit about him

The relevant work experience at Google is listed as:

“I manage a large, global team that builds ranking solutions as part of Google Search and direct the following areas:

-Prevent manipulation of ranking signals (e.g., anti-abuse, spam, harm)
-Provide qualitative and quantitative understanding of quality issues (e.g., user interactions, insights)
-Address novel content issues (e.g., detection and treatment of AI-generated content)
-Reward satisfying, helpful content”

There are no search ranking related research papers or patents listed under his name but that’s probably because his educational background is in business administration and economics.

What may be of special interest to publishers and digital marketers are the following two sections:

1. He lists addressing “detection and treatment of AI-generated content”

2. He provides “qualitative and quantitative understanding of quality issues (e.g., user interactions, insights)”

While the user interaction and insights part might seem unrelated to the detection and treatment of AI-generated content, the user interactions and insights part is in the service of understanding search quality issues, which is related.

His role is defined as evaluation and analysis of quality issues in Google’s Search Ranking department. “Quantitative understanding” refers to analyzing data and “qualitative understanding” is a more subjective part of his job that may be about insights, understanding the “why” and “how” of observed data.

Download: SEO In The Age of AI

Co-Author Of Google’s AI-Generated Content Policy

Chris Nelson is listed as a co-author of Google’s guidance on AI-generated content. The guidance doesn’t prohibit the use of AI for published content, suggesting that it shouldn’t be used to create content that violates Google’s spam guidelines. That may sound contradictory because AI is virtually synonymous with scaled automated content which has historically been considered spam by Google.

The answers are in the nuance of Google’s policy, which encourages content publishers to prioritize user-first content instead of a search-engine first approach. In my opinion, putting a strong focus on writing about the most popular search queries in a topic, instead of writing about the topic, can lead to search engine-first content as that’s a common approach of sites I’ve audited that contained relatively high quality content but lost rankings in the 2024 Google updates.

Google (and presumably Chris Nelson’s advice) for those considering AI-generated content is:

“…however content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.”

Why Doesn’t Google Ban AI-Generated Content Outright?

Google’s documentation that Chris Nelson co-authored states that automation has always been a part of publishing, such as dynamically inserting sports scores, weather forecasts, scaled meta descriptions and date-dependent content and products related to entertainment.

The documentation states:

“…For example, about 10 years ago, there were understandable concerns about a rise in mass-produced yet human-generated content. No one would have thought it reasonable for us to declare a ban on all human-generated content in response. Instead, it made more sense to improve our systems to reward quality content, as we did.

…Automation has long been used to generate helpful content, such as sports scores, weather forecasts, and transcripts. …Automation has long been used in publishing to create useful content. AI can assist with and generate useful content in exciting new ways.”

Why Does Googler Detect AI-Generated Content?

The documentation that Nelson co-authored doesn’t explicitly states that Google doesn’t differentiate between how low quality content is generated, which seemingly contradicts his LinkedIn profile that states “detection and treatment of AI-generated content” is a part of his job.

The AI-generated content guidance states:

“Poor quality content isn’t a new challenge for Google Search to deal with. We’ve been tackling poor quality content created both by humans and automation for years. We have existing systems to determine the helpfulness of content. …Our systems continue to be regularly improved.”

How do we reconcile that part of his job is detecting AI-generated content and Google’s policy states that it doesn’t matter how low quality content is generated?

Context is everything, that’s the answer. Here’s the context of his work profile:

“Address novel content issues (e.g., detection and treatment of AI-generated content)”

The phrase “novel content issues” means content quality issues that haven’t previously been encountered by Google. This refers to new types of AI-generated content, presumably spam, and how to detect it and “treat” it. Given that the context is “detection and treatment” it could very well be that the context is “low quality content” but it wasn’t expressly stated because he probably didn’t think his LinkedIn profile would be parsed by SEOs for a better understanding of how Google detects and treats AI-generated content (meta!).

See also: The 10 Best AI Writers & Content Generators Compared

Guidance Authored By Chris Nelson Of Google

A list of articles published by Chris Nelson show that he may have played a role in many of the most important updates from the past five years, from the Helpful Content update, site reputation abuse to detecting search-engine first AI-generated content.

List of Articles Authored By Chris Nelson (LinkedIn Profile)

Updating our site reputation abuse policy

What web creators should know about our March 2024 core update and new spam policies

Google Search’s guidance about AI-generated content

What creators should know about Google’s August 2022 helpful content update

Featured Image by Shutterstock/3rdtimeluckystudio

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/evidence-that-google-detects-ai-generated-content/537571/

Programmatic SEO is an approach to SEO and content creation that leverages automation and technology to efficiently create, optimize, and manage a large volume of webpages.

It’s particularly useful for websites that require thousands, or even millions, of pages to rank for diverse search queries.

Ecommerce giants like Amazon or travel websites like Expedia rely on programmatic SEO to dynamically generate pages for every product, location, or service they offer.

The power of programmatic SEO lies in its ability to handle such scale while maintaining a focus on relevant keywords, content structure, and user intent.

Defining Your Objectives

Before starting with programmatic SEO, define your goals.

Do you want to boost organic traffic, rank for more keywords, or improve user experience?

Clear goals guide your strategy and measure success.

1. Set KPIs: Use metrics like traffic growth, conversions, and rankings to track progress.
2. Find Opportunities: Research your industry and competitors to uncover untapped keywords or markets.
3. Prioritize User Intent: Create content that answers questions and solves user problems.

Programmatic Keyword Research

In traditional keyword research, the goal is often to identify high-search volume keywords that can drive significant traffic to a website.

However, these keywords usually come with high competition, making it challenging for newer or smaller sites to rank well in search engine results.

Programmatic SEO takes a different approach by targeting low-search volume and low-competition, long-tail keywords.

This strategy focuses on creating a large number of pages optimized for specific queries, allowing you to rank higher more easily and attract a highly targeted audience.

Keywords in programmatic SEO consist of two main components:

Head Terms

Head terms are broad keywords that describe a general topic or category. Head terms often have the following characteristics:

• High average monthly search volumes.
• Tend to be “short tail.”
• Have multiple common interpretations.
• Tend to be more stable SERPs with a lot of competition targeting the query.

Examples include keywords such as “onboarding software,” “winter sun vacations,” or “crm software.”

Modifiers

Modifiers are words or phrases that add specificity to head terms, and will vary greatly between sectors.

Modifiers are easily identifiable as they follow patterns, which again vary between different sectors.

Common modifier patterns include:

• “for SaaS.”
• “for staffing agencies.”
• “for accountants.”
• “best practices.”
• “2025.”

In contrast to head terms, aside from occasional spikes in traffic, average monthly search volumes tend to be lower, but when combined with head terms, they create more targeted queries with more focused intent. It helps capture visibility with niche audiences and consumers who may be showing intent.

Combined with head terms, we tend to call these “long-tail” keywords.

Reliable Datasets

To scale programmatic SEO effectively, you need a reliable dataset that can generate unique, valuable, and relevant pages.

Depending on the types of pages you’re creating, you need to understand and anticipate the change frequency of the data, and how your infrastructure will handle the changes.

Many platforms provide APIs that you can use to fetch structured data.

These include:

• Yelp API: For local business details.
• OpenWeather API: For weather-related data.
• Google Maps API: For location-based information.

Your own proprietary data can also be a valuable source for programmatic pages. These can be:

• Product catalogs from an ecommerce store.
• CRM data with user or location-specific insights.
• Inventory databases, such as hotel room availability or real estate listings.

Programmatic Keyword Clustering

Organizing your keywords into logical clusters is a powerful way to streamline your content creation process.

You can develop scalable, template-based pages that enhance relevance for users and search engines by leveraging these clusters.

This approach allows for efficiency and customization while aligning with search intent.

Clustering also allows for more seamless automation and reduces the potential to create large swathes of pages with near-duplicate intents and purposes.

1. Categorize By Intent

Start by grouping keywords according to their search intent. This ensures your content addresses specific user needs, such as:

• Informational: Answering questions or providing knowledge. Example: What are the best coffee shops in Boston?
• Transactional: Enabling actions like purchases or bookings. Example: Order coffee beans online in Boston.
• Navigational: Helping users locate specific places or brands. Example: Starbucks locations in Boston.

2. Define Pages Based On Patterns

Once you’ve categorized keywords, identify common patterns to create flexible templates. This strategy helps structure content consistently across multiple pages.

• Location-Specific Templates:
  • Format: [Category] in [Location].
  • Example: Hotels in Paris.
• Feature-Specific Templates:
  • Format: [Product] with [Feature].
  • Example: Smartphones with best cameras.
• Use Case-Specific Templates:
  • Format: [Service] for [Audience/Use Case].
  • Example: CRMs for hospitality industry.

3. Expand With Modifiers

Enhance clusters by incorporating commonly searched modifiers to make the content more comprehensive:

• Price-Related Modifiers: Add terms like cheap, affordable, or luxury.
• Time-Related Modifiers: Include phrases such as “near me now” or “open late.”
• Specific Features: Highlight characteristics like “with a pool,” “pet-friendly,” or “free delivery.”

4. Combine Variations

Use combinations of templates, categories, and modifiers to address long-tail keywords and niche queries. Examples include:

• Pet-friendly hotels in Chicago with free breakfast.
• Best Italian restaurants in New York open late.

Programmatic SEO relies on automated systems to generate content at scale, reducing the manual workload involved in traditional SEO efforts.

Automation allows businesses to rapidly create pages that address various user needs, ensuring coverage of broad and highly specific search terms.

Programmatic SEO Challenges

Programmatic SEO can offer tremendous scalability and efficiency, but it’s not always the right approach for every website.

A manual SEO strategy may be a better fit for small sites or those requiring significant customization.

However, when using programmatic SEO, it’s important to address potential challenges to ensure success.

Over-Prioritizing Keywords

Automation should never compromise the quality of the user experience. Pages must provide meaningful, accurate, and engaging content that answers user queries effectively.

Overemphasizing keywords can result in content that feels unnatural or overly optimized. This can harm user experience and reduce click-through rates.

Avoid stuffing keywords and instead prioritize readability and relevance. Ensure your content provides value by answering user queries comprehensively.

Crawlability And Indexing Issues

Large websites with programmatically generated pages can face challenges with crawlability and indexing. If pages lack structure or unique value, Google may struggle to index them properly.

To alleviate these issues, aside from improving the overall page quality to show unique value and beneficial purpose, you can optimize:

• Internal Linking: Implement a robust internal linking strategy to help search engines discover and prioritize pages.
• Backlinks: Acquire backlinks to improve visibility and encourage indexing.
• Sitemaps: Use an XML sitemap and adhere to Google’s limit of 50,000 URLs per sitemap. Organize your sitemap logically by grouping pages into categories or themes.

These steps will enhance crawlability, and potentially move the pages above Google’s indexing threshold. If the issues persist, the focus should be on content pruning and improving quality.

Thin Content

Thin content lacks value for users and doesn’t satisfy Google’s quality standards. Pages with minimal or irrelevant information are unlikely to rank well.

Thin content can be addressed in several ways:

1. Remove Low-Value Content: Eliminate outdated or irrelevant pages that offer little benefit to users or your SEO strategy.
2. Improve Content Quality: Add meaningful text, descriptive captions, and relevant multimedia like images or videos.
3. Consolidate Pages: Merge thin content pages into a single, comprehensive piece to increase relevance and depth.

Final Thoughts

When implemented effectively, programmatic SEO can drive significant organic traffic, expand market reach, and establish a competitive edge.

However, achieving success requires a thoughtful balance of strategic planning, technical optimization, and a commitment to delivering value to users.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/programmatic-seo/533719/

Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) are AI-generated responses that appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).

Unlike traditional search results, AIOs summarize information from multiple sources to provide direct answers to user queries while offering relevant links.

These overviews are displayed prominently: the AI Overview appears on the left, with relevant links to sources on the right.

Screenshot for search for [why is my cheese not melting], Google, November 2024

Google determines which sources to include based on their credibility and relevance to the user’s search intent. This is where SEO plays a critical role.

Why Are AI Overviews Important For SEO?

Being cited in an AI Overview boosts visibility since it’s the first result users see after their query. This positioning can significantly increase click-through rates (CTR), even for pages that aren’t ranked in the top 10 of the SERP.

Studies indicate that 52% of sources mentioned in AI Overviews rank in the top 10 results, meaning nearly half are pulled from beyond the first page.

This means that even if you don’t rank on the first page, you can still be featured on AI Overviews.

In addition to my own research with our clients, I studied different reports to better understand how you can rank on AI Overviews. Some of these reports include:

How To Rank In AI Overviews: 11 Tips For Organic Visibility

While you can’t directly control whether your pages are cited in an AI Overview, you can improve your chances by following these tips.

1. Add More Context To Your Articles

AI Overviews are designed to answer user queries directly. This means Google rewards content that is well-contextualized and written in a simple, easy-to-read format.

One thing to remember is that AIOs are triggered by informational search intent keywords 99.2% of the time, according to Ahrefs. If you’re writing an article on an informational keyword, focus on writing in a simple, easy-to-read format and add enough context to answer the query fully.

The Surfer SEO study shows that Google focuses on context over keywords. When AIOs show results to a user’s query, they mention exact keyword phrases only 5.4% of the time. Which means keywords are less important in AIOs.

In the example below, the query is [best month to visit Canada], but the AIO doesn’t emphasize the best month in its response. It’s the best time.

Screenshot from search for [best month to visit canada], Google, November 2024

Tips:

• Use tools like Ahrefs to find AIO-triggering keywords with high-traffic potential. (Use the Ahrefs AI Overview SERP feature, and navigate to the intent filter to choose Informational as the search intent. It finds long-tail keywords for you, and you can write specific answers to these search queries.)

Screenshot from Ahrefs, November 2024

• Structure your content to answer questions fully, incorporating related topics naturally.
• Use tools like Google Autocomplete or People Also Ask to identify common questions users have about your topic. (See example below.)

Screenshot from search for [can dogs eat chocolate], Google, November 2024

2. Use Long-Tail Keywords

AI Overviews are more likely to be triggered by specific, long-tail keywords than by generic, short-tail ones.

According to Ahrefs, they’re triggered more for queries with three to four words than for queries with one- to three-word queries.

Screenshot from Ahrefs, November 2024

These keywords often align closely with user intent.

How To Find Them:

• Use the “Questions” section in keyword tools like AnswerThePublic.
• Leverage Google Autocomplete to identify conversational search terms.

3. Leverage Structured Markup

Implementing structured data, such as Schema.org markup, helps search engines understand the context and structure of your content. This makes your page more likely to be included in AI Overviews.

Key Markup Types To Use:

• FAQ schema for question-based content.
• Article schema for blog posts and informational pieces.
• Breadcrumb schema to improve navigation signals.

4. Optimize On-Page SEO

On-page SEO remains foundational for ranking in both traditional SERPs and AI Overviews. 52% of AI Overviews sources come from the top 10 search results. This means you have a better chance of getting cited if your page ranks for that keyword.

Best Practices:

• Use primary and secondary keywords in titles, headings, and subheadings.
• Write compelling meta descriptions to boost CTR.
• Ensure your content meets E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) guidelines.

5. Target Keywords With Low Difficulty

Focus on keywords with low competition (Keyword Difficulty < 20).

These are often high-intent, long-tail phrases that are easier to rank for and align well with informational search queries.

According to Ahrefs, AIO keywords have an average difficulty of 12. An example is the keyword phrase “Can dogs have cinnamon?” which has a KD of 12.

Screenshot from Ahrefs, November 2024

If you’re using Ahrefs, use the AI Overview SERP feature filter. Filter out keywords above 50 and go through keywords relevant to your topic.

Screenshot from Ahrefs, November 2024

6. Build Brand Credibility

From our experience optimizing content for AI Overviews, we’ve observed that sources frequently mentioned in authoritative publications or regularly cited by others are more likely to be included. While this aligns with Google’s emphasis on E-E-A-T, our firsthand results reinforce this approach.

Having a consistent presence in credible and trusted outlets has, in our experience, improved the likelihood of being featured in AI Overviews. Building this presence strengthens your site’s perceived authority.

Action Steps:

• Engage in digital PR campaigns to secure mention in reputable publications.
• Monitor mentions of your brand on platforms like Quora and Reddit to ensure positive associations.

7. Optimize For Mobile SEO

With mobile-first indexing, Google evaluates your site’s mobile performance when determining rankings.

According to Ahrefs study, mobile traffic accounts for 81% of AI Overview citations.

Tips:

• Use responsive design to ensure your site displays well on all devices.
• Improve page load speed for mobile users using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.

8. Format Content For Easy Scanning

From firsthand analysis of sites that frequently rank in AI Overviews, we’ve found that well-structured content – using bullet points, lists, and clear sections – is often favored.

Formatting plays a critical role in helping AI parse information quickly.

Best Practices:

• Use bullet points, numbered lists, and short paragraphs.
• Structure content with clear headings and subheadings.
• Break up long blocks of text with visual elements like charts or images.

9. Focus On Simplicity

Content written in plain, accessible language tends to perform better in AI Overviews. This is something we’ve consistently seen when optimizing content for diverse audiences and industries.

Tools:

• Use Hemingway Editor or Grammarly to ensure your content is readable and concise.

Screenshot from Hemingway, November 2024

10. Acquire High-Quality Backlinks

While strong backlinks are widely recognized as important for SEO, our experience suggests they are equally critical for increasing the likelihood of being cited in AI Overviews.

Prioritizing quality over quantity in link building is key. Use strategic link building campaigns to improve your domain authority and visibility in AI Overviews.

11. Publish Timely, Relevant Content

AI Overviews often favor fresh, up-to-date information. Regularly update your articles and blog posts to ensure they remain current.

Do AI Overviews Affect SEO?

Yes, AI Overviews impact SEO strategies by shifting the focus from traditional rankings to citation opportunities.

While they can increase visibility and CTR for cited sources, they may also reduce traffic for pages that are not directly cited, even if they rank well organically.

Key Takeaway For Ranking In Google’s AI Overviews

Ranking in Google’s AI Overviews requires a multi-faceted approach: creating well-structured, mobile-friendly content, targeting specific long-tail keywords, and building brand credibility.

Leveraging tools like structured markup and keeping your content updated can further boost your chances.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/studies-suggest-how-to-rank-on-googles-ai-overviews/532809/

Being successful with restaurant SEO can be a challenge.

Whether it is finding the time, wearing a lot of hats, or not having the same type of budget and return on investment (ROI) measurement as other industries, you might be in a tough spot trying to figure out how to get it done.

No matter what your situation is or your starting point, there are specific strategic and tactical things you can do that will help move your brand forward and increase your online visibility and engagement through SEO.

There are 11 specific things that are important for restaurant SEO that I’ll unpack in this article to help you focus your time on what matters.

1. Define Your SEO & Content Strategies

Before jumping into a myriad of tools, platforms, and engagement channels, define your SEO strategy. This will help to greatly narrow your competition and give you a quicker path to driving quality traffic to your website.

Start by defining the geographic area you want to own (where most of your customers will come from because they either live or work nearby, or are visiting).

Next, research what keyword terms and phrases your audience uses through a trusted keyword research tool like Ahrefs, Moz Pro, Semrush, or others.

To learn more on how to do keyword research, read this keyword research guide.

There are a few distinct groupings of terms that you want to group and classify properly, and they all have different levels of competition.

High-Level Restaurant Terms

Terms like “restaurants” and “Kansas City restaurants” are some of the most generic variations a searcher might use.

In the keyword research tools (each tool will vary on locality options), you can set your geographic focus to the area you identified and use both the generic term by itself (“restaurants”) and geographic modifier (“Kansas City restaurants”), as well as other general variations related to what your restaurant is about.

Also, don’t forget about voice search terms and variations of things like “restaurants near me” that will rely on location settings and the context of the search engine to return results for the searcher that you likely want to be included.

Niche-Specific Terms

The next level relates to the specific categories your restaurant would fall into.

Examples include “Mexican restaurants,” “pizza,” “romantic restaurants,” and other unique features and types of cuisine.

If you’re struggling with what specific categories or wording you should use, take a look at Google Maps (the Google Business Profile listings), Yelp, and TripAdvisor.

Use their filtering criteria in your area to see the general categories they utilize.

Brand Terms

Don’t take it for granted that you’ll automatically rise to the top of brand searches. Know how many people are searching for your restaurant by name and compare that to the high-level and niche-specific search volume.

Ensure your site outranks the directory, reservation (if applicable), and social sites in your space for your restaurant, as the value of people coming to your site is higher and trackable.

Once you’re armed with search terms and volume data, you can narrow your focus to the specific terms that fit your restaurant at high, category-specific, and brand levels.

Covering this spectrum helps you focus on what to measure and define your content.

2. Dominate In Local Search

To dive into local search, start by claiming, standardizing data, and optimizing listings for your restaurant across all of the major and relevant local search properties.

This includes a mix of search engine directories, social media sites, and industry-specific directory sites.

Moz Local and Yext are two popular tools (there are many available, though) that can help you understand what directories and external data sources are out there, and then you can ensure they are updated.

Accurate NAP (name, address, phone) information that is consistent across all data sources is a critical foundational element of local SEO.

Beyond that, you can then work on optimizing the fields of information, like the business description and business categories, to align with your focus terms identified in your keyword research.

Put your focus on the directories that matter.

Start with Google Business Profile, then branch out to Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other restaurant-specific directories and data sources. Some of them could be obscure, niche-specific, or not seem very significant, but they add up.

Set reminders or tasks to come back to your Google Business Profile on a regular basis to update content, including photos, specials, and offers, and to monitor engagement and review activity (more on both of those topics below).

All of this will work together to grow your online visibility.

3. Engage With Customers On Social Media

Even though social media’s direct impact on SEO has long been debated, we know that social media engagement can drive users to your site.

Social media can be a powerful touchpoint of the customer journey, showcasing what customers can expect to experience at your restaurant.

A strong social presence often correlates with a strong organic search presence as content, engagement, and popularity align with the important SEO pillars of relevance and authority.

Develop a social media strategy and follow through with implementation.

Make sure to engage with followers and reply to inquiries promptly. How you communicate online sets a perception of your overall customer service and approach.

Find your audience, engage them, and get them to influence others on your behalf.

Ultimately, through engagement with fans and promoting content on social media that funnels visitors to your main website, you will see an increase in visits from social networks.

This will then correlate with the benefits from the rest of your SEO efforts.

4. Encourage Reviews & Testimonials

It’s nearly impossible to do a search for a restaurant and not see review and rating scores in the search results. That’s because people click on higher star ratings.

Reviews are often considered part of a social media strategy and are an engagement tactic, but have a broader impact on traffic to your site through search results pages as well.

Through the use of structured data markup, you can have your star ratings appear in search results and provide another compelling reason for a user to click on your site versus your competitor’s.

If you have online ratings that don’t reflect the quality of your restaurant, come up with a review strategy now to get as many reviews as possible to help bring up your score prior to implementing the code that will pull the ratings into the SERPs.

A higher star rating likely means a higher click-through rate to your site – and more foot traffic.

5. Create Unique Content

If you have a single location, your job is a lot easier than the multi-location local or national chain.

However, you have to stand out from the competition by ensuring you have enough unique content on your website.

Having a wealth of engaging and helpful content on your site will serve you well if it is valuable to your prospects and customers. Building a strong brand will translate to better rankings, higher brand recall, and greater brand affinity.

Keep in mind that content doesn’t all have to be written copy; you can present your menus, in-house promotions, and more through video, photography, and graphics.

The search engines are focused on context and not just the keywords on your site.

By identifying and regularly generating new content, you also can keep the pipeline full of engaging material that helps you stand out from your competition.

For example, if you have a niche restaurant, embrace that and set yourself apart from the generic chain down the street (no offense if you own, operate, or do marketing for a chain – you have a different challenge of scaling your efforts).

Share information about the founders, the culture, and most importantly – the product.

Give details about your menu, including sourcing of ingredients, how you developed recipes, and the compelling reason your chicken marsala is the best in town.

6. Consider Content Localization

Again, single-location restaurants have an easier road here. Based on decisions you’ve made about your market area, make sure you provide enough cues and context to users and the search engines as to where your restaurant is and what area it serves.

Sometimes, the search engines and out-of-town visitors don’t fully understand the unofficial names of neighborhoods and areas.

By providing content that is tied into the community and doesn’t simply assume that everyone knows where you’re located, you can help everyone out.

One example of this is a 100-location chain that started small with a single paragraph for each location written in a way tailored to the store, local history, neighborhood, and community engagement.

From there, we were able to find other areas to scale, and it worked well to differentiate stores from each other.

When it comes to nuanced and potentially confusing location names and context, addresses can be misleading. Think about how Google will handle those.

These are important factors to consider so you aren’t trying to have a location compete with too broad of a geographic area for search rankings.

7. Apply Basic On-Page SEO Best Practices

Without going into the details of all on-page and indexing optimization techniques, I want to encourage you not to skip or ignore the best practices of on-page SEO.

You need your page to be indexed to ensure you have the potential for visibility and on-page SEO to ensure the proper classification of your content.

You can spend a lot of time on a full SEO strategy, but if you’re just getting started, I recommend putting the rest aside and starting with these two areas.

To ensure your site is crawled and indexed properly now and in the future, check your robots.txt and XML sitemap. Set up Google Search Console to look for errors.

When it comes to on-page, ensure that you have unique and keyword-specific page URLs, title tags, meta description tags, headings, page copy, and image alt attributes.

This sounds like a lot, but start with your most important pages, like your home, menu, about, and contact pages, and go from there as time permits.

8. Think Mobile First

Mobile accounts for a high percentage of visits to restaurant websites. Google now crawls the mobile version of a website to understand its content.

Hopefully, you have a responsive website or one that passes the necessary mobile-friendly tests.

But that’s just the beginning when it comes to mobile.

It’s also critical to think about page load speed and providing a great mobile user experience.

9. Implement Schema “Restaurants” Markup

Another area where we can build context for the search engines and gain exposure to more users in the search results is by using structured data.

In the restaurant industry, implementing the Schema.org library for restaurants is a must.

This task requires a developer, website platform, or content management system with the right plugins or built-in options.

10. Measure Your Efforts

This could have been tip No. 1, but I’m including it here, as it is important throughout the process. With the previous nine tips, there’s something to do and implement.

But before you embark on any aspect of optimization, make sure those efforts are measurable.

When investing in your strategy, you want to know what aspects are working, which ones aren’t, and where your efforts were (and are) best producing a return on investment.

Track visibility, engagement, and conversion metrics as deep as you can connect them to your business.

Beyond that, you’ll need to identify the right progress metrics tied to goals to know you’re moving in the right direction.

11. Don’t Ignore AI

This is less of a specific recommendation or tactic and more of a wide-reaching one. AI provides a lot of opportunities to scale content, create efficiencies, and do more with less.

Whether you’re leveraging AI tools natively, using SaaS products to help you research, optimize, and measure efforts, or relying on things like AI Overviews in Google to engage with users in search, it is hard to ignore.

Know that while AI is helpful to further scale efforts and be where searchers are finding content, you don’t want to abandon your brand or generate content that is clearly generic and not human-generated.

Don’t ignore AI, but use it with care to avoid losing out on the unique value important for search and searchers for your restaurant.

Restaurant SEO Matters For Visibility And Traffic

There are unique challenges for restaurant SEO. However, if you can dedicate the time and effort to a strategy and follow through on tactics and measurement, it can be highly rewarding and profitable as well.

While you might not be able to directly attribute SEO performance to ROI for restaurant SEO, you can find correlations between a stronger brand presence and visibility and volume in your location(s).

I encourage you to nail down your strategy and dedicate focus to the tactics to see it through.

More Resources:

Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-tips-to-boost-your-restaurant-visibility/531144/

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https://www.entrepreneur.com/starting-a-business/7-techniques-for-successful-website-link-building/470502

If you run a personal or hobby website, getting a copyright notice from a law firm about an image on your site can trigger some fast-acting panic. As someone who has paid to settle a news service-licensing issue before, I can empathize with anybody who wants to make this kind of thing go away.

Which is why a new kind of angle-on-an-angle scheme can seem both obvious to spot and likely effective. Ernie Smith, the prolific, ever-curious writer behind the newsletter Tedium, received a “DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice” in late March from “Commonwealth Legal,” representing the “Intellectual Property division” of Tech4Gods.

The issue was with a photo of a keyfob from legitimate photo service Unsplash used in service of a post about a strange Uber ride Smith once took. As Smith detailed in a Mastodon thread, the purported firm needed him to “add a credit to our client immediately” through a link to Tech4Gods, and said it should be “addressed in the next five business days.” Removing the image “does not conclude the matter,” and should Smith not have taken action, the putative firm would have to “activate” its case, relying on DMCA 512(c) (which, in many readings, actually does grant relief should a website owner, unaware of infringing material, “act expeditiously to remove” said material). The email unhelpfully points to the main page of the Internet Archive so that Smith might review “past usage records.”

There are quite a few issues with Commonwealth Legal’s request, as detailed by Smith and 404 Media. Chief among them is that Commonwealth Legal, a firm theoretically based in Arizona (which is not a commonwealth), almost certainly does not exist. Despite the 2018 copyright displayed on the site, the firm’s website domain was seemingly registered on March 1, 2024, with a Canadian IP location. The address on the firm’s site leads to a location that, to say the least, does not match the “fourth floor” indicated on the website.

While the law firm’s website is stuffed full of stock images, so are many websites for professional services. The real tell is the site’s list of attorneys, most of which, as 404 Media puts it, have “vacant, thousand-yard stares” common to AI-generated faces. AI detection firm Reality Defender told 404 Media that his service spotted AI generation in every attorneys’ image, “most likely by a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) model.”

Then there are the attorneys’ bios, which offer surface-level competence underpinned by bizarre setups. Five of the 12 supposedly come from acclaimed law schools at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and University of Chicago. The other seven seem to have graduated from the top five results you might get for “Arizona Law School.” Sarah Walker has a practice based on “Copyright Violation and Judicial Criminal Proceedings,” a quite uncommon pairing. Sometimes she is “upholding the rights of artists,” but she can also “handle high-stakes criminal cases.” Walker, it seems, couldn’t pick just one track at Yale Law School.

Why would someone go to the trouble of making a law firm out of NameCheap, stock art, and AI images (and seemingly copy) to send quasi-legal demands to site owners? Backlinks, that’s why. Backlinks are links from a site that Google (or others, but almost always Google) holds in high esteem to a site trying to rank up. Whether spammed, traded, generated, or demanded through a fake firm, backlinks power the search engine optimization (SEO) gray, to very dark gray, market. For all their touted algorithmic (and now AI) prowess, search engines have always had a hard time gauging backlink quality and context, so some site owners still buy backlinks.

The owner of Tech4Gods told 404 Media’s Jason Koebler that he did buy backlinks for his gadget review site (with “AI writing assistants”). He disclaimed owning the disputed image or any images and made vague suggestions that a disgruntled former contractor may be trying to poison his ranking with spam links.

Asked by Ars if he had heard back from “Commonwealth Legal” now that five business days were up, Ernie Smith tells Ars: “No, alas.”

This post was updated at 4:50 p.m. Eastern to include Ernie Smith’s response.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=2014933

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/ever-wonder-why-certain-websites-rank-higher-than-yours/467390

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/how-to-convince-google-youre-an-expert-in-your-niche/470503

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/enhance-your-websites-visibility-and-dominate-your/467866

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/ultimate-seo-guide-on-how-to-get-100000-visits-per-month/465813