How to measure whether restaurant SEO is working

Most restaurant SEO reporting fails in the same way. It proves that something moved, then implies that the movement produced covers. Those are two different claims, and only one of them is usually evidenced.

Measuring properly means being precise about what each source can prove, and accepting that the last link in the chain — search activity to covers — is generally a correlation you argue for, not a fact you export.

A local pack position is not a single number. It varies across a catchment, by device and by query. Reporting one position from one location is the reporting equivalent of tasting one plate and grading the kitchen.

Source: Google Business Profile Help — Performance report — Definitions of the profile metrics referenced above.

Source: Google Search Console Help — Performance reports — How impressions, clicks and query data are collected.

Splitting search demand into brand and non-brand is the single most clarifying change most restaurants can make to their reporting. Brand demand reflects reputation, PR, footfall and returning guests. Non-brand demand — cuisine, district, occasion — is where discovery work should show up first.

If total traffic rose but the increase was entirely brand, the honest conclusion is that something else generated interest and search captured it. That is still useful; it is just not proof that the SEO work produced it.

The strongest evidence available to a restaurant is a chain of consistent movement: non-brand discovery searches rise, profile booking and website actions rise with them, and covers or enquiries in the corresponding day-parts or occasion categories rise afterwards. No step of that chain proves causation alone; together, and repeated over months, they make a defensible case.

Three questions separate substance from presentation: which of these numbers is measured and which is inferred, what would we expect to see if this work were not producing results, and which decision does this report change. An adviser who can answer all three is measuring; one who cannot is reporting.

A report that a restaurant owner can check themselves is worth more than a dashboard nobody opens. Five items, from sources the restaurant can open independently, cover almost everything worth knowing.

Written by

Alex Opsenica

Founder, Moolah Media

Founder of Moolah Media, a specialist restaurant growth and local SEO agency based in Ireland, working directly with hospitality operators on search, Google Business Profile and bookings.

More about how Moolah works.