Introduction:

Real estate, real estate, real estate – we’ve all heard it, real estate is crucially important! If you have a bad location, you’re going to spend a ton on marketing to drive traffic to your restaurant. Conversely, if you have a great location with great foot traffic, you’re not going to have to spend that much money on marketing. Sometimes spending more on rent is better than saving on rent and needing to spend it on marketing.

Online Real Estate:

Today, we aren’t going to talk about your physical real estate, but rather your online real estate. Second to your physical location, and dare I say even more important than your physical location, is your online real estate. I don’t mean the URL or website addresses you are using using either.

The most important online real estate you can own is your restaurant’s reputation.

I’m sure you hate TripAdvisor and similar websites. I hate them too, but at the same time, I also love them. The difference is you’re just looking at all the negatives and probably say to yourself that “I can’t control it,” or that “I have nothing to do with it,” or “people are such jerks they’re putting these terrible reviews up.”

But if you take control of the online review process and you get a 100, 200, 500 or 1,000 four and five-star reviews, your restaurant is going to skyrocket. We’re not going into the specifics of how to do this but you better fall in love with online review sites and treat them as the most important real estate for your restaurant ever. If you ignore them and keep complaining about the 5, 20 or 30 reviews that have three stars versus doing something something about it – you’re going to get hurt.

I have heard recently about restaurants trying to expand to other locations and landlords are denying them leases because their original location only has three stars – no landlord wants to be associated with that. They want 4.5+ stars in their locations versus taking a risk on someone who might fail with only 3 stars.

The impact of search engine results (SEO):

Let’s assume you’re doing all this great marketing: you’ve got social media covered (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), and you’re doing some newspaper, radio or whatever ads. If someone has never heard of your restaurant, but learns about you from advertising/ social media (you created awareness), now you have to turn them into a customer. What’s the first thing someone’s going do? They’re going Google you. When they do, what’s the first thing they should see? The first thing that should show up when your restaurant is Googled is your website.

The second thing that shows up should be 500 or a 1,000 reviews on Yelp, Trip Advisor, Motto or any of those online websites with 4.5+ stars for your restaurant. If you’re not in the multiple hundreds of reviews with 4.5+ stars just under your website listing, you’re not controlling the most important real estate for your restaurant, which is online. It’s the only way you’re going convert someone who has just heard of you into a customer.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s video tip. See you next week with another tip for increasing restaurant profits.

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