At 7pm, someone types “restaurant” and the name of your town. Google shows them three places. If you’re not there, or if your profile looks less appealing than the one next door, that customer’s evening happens elsewhere. Here are the 7 settings that make the difference, in the order to do them.
1. Opening hours, including bank holidays
The number one reason for unfair 1-star reviews: “closed when Google said open”. Every mishandled bank holiday sends customers to a shuttered door, and some of them say so. Check your special hours before every bank holiday: two minutes that protect your rating.
What Markus does Markus keeps a calendar of bank holidays and prepares your special hours a week ahead. You approve with one tap, and you never think about it again.
2. The menu, readable on a phone
A menu shown as a blurry photo taken sideways loses customers. Google lets you add your menu as text, dish by dish, with prices. It’s tedious to enter once, and decisive every night: a customer torn between two places picks the one where they know what they’ll eat and what they’ll pay.
3. Photos less than 3 months old
Profiles with recent photos tend to get more direction requests. No need for a photographer: three photos a month is enough (a dish, the dining room, the team). The light of the lunch service is your best ally.
4. Reply to every review, even the good ones
A reply to a review isn’t written for its author: it’s written for the 50 people who will read it afterwards. A personal thank-you on a 5-star review shows you’re there. A calm, factual reply to a 2-star review shows you’re professional. Silence shows nothing, and that’s precisely the problem.
What Markus does Markus drafts a reply in your voice within hours of each review. You approve it with one tap from your phone, between two services.
5. The booking button
Every step between “I fancy it” and “it’s booked” loses customers. If you use a booking tool, connect it to your profile so the “Book” button shows up right inside Google. Otherwise, at the very least make sure your number dials in one tap.
6. The attributes Google loves
Outdoor seating, wheelchair access, vegetarian options, dogs welcome, air conditioning: these tick-boxes look trivial. They’re search filters. The customer searching for “restaurant with outdoor seating” will never see your terrace if the box isn’t ticked.
7. Google posts, the forgotten tool
You can post on your Google profile as you would on a social network: dish of the day, seasonal menu, an exceptional closure. Very few restaurants do it, so those who do stand out. One post a week is enough to show Google, and your customers, that the place is alive.
Where to start
If you do just one thing this week: opening hours and review replies. They are the two settings that cost the least and pay off the fastest. The rest can follow, one setting a week.
And if you’d rather all this happened while you’re busy in the kitchen, that’s exactly what Markus does for restaurants: he prepares the work, you approve it with one tap, and you see the proof every week.
