How It Works

Not advertising.
Infrastructure.

An ad stops working the moment the budget stops. What we build — domain authority, citations, map pack positions — is permanent. It does not disappear. It compounds.

The difference matters because it changes what you are buying. You are not renting visibility. You are building an asset.

Flagship engagement · DA built from scratch
DA 15 → 44
City-centre engagement · DA from baseline
DA 33 → 47
The Distinction

Why most restaurant
SEO doesn't work.

Most agencies approach local SEO the way they approach advertising — get it live fast, show results quickly, move on. The problem is that local search authority does not work that way. It is not a campaign. It is construction.

Skipping the foundation to get to the results is like opening a restaurant without building the kitchen. You can take bookings, but you cannot deliver on them. The work below is sequenced the way it is because each layer depends on the one beneath it. There is no shortcut to the end.

When this work is done correctly, it does something advertising cannot: it gets stronger every month, with or without a budget increase. The domain authority earned in month one still functions in month fifteen. The citations filed in the first campaign still feed Google's trust signals two years later.

Digital advertising
Rented visibility
Stops the moment the budget stops
No compounding — month 12 costs the same as month 1
Visible to people in the buying moment, not building at all times
Platform owns the relationship — not you
Local SEO infrastructure
Owned asset
Permanent — citations filed stay filed
Compounds — authority earned in month 1 still works in month 15
Visible at every stage of the customer journey, not just paid moments
You own the domain authority — it travels with the business
The Method

Three phases.
One deliberate
sequence.

Each phase must complete before the next can hold. This sequence is required for results that hold.

The timeline below is drawn from multiple verified engagements across premium restaurants in Dublin. The phases, the work, and the signals are validated across those records and are transferable to similar venues internationally.

Months 1–3
✓ Foundation

Your venue gets
found consistently.

Right now, Google may be finding four different versions of your address across the web — and quietly distrusting all of them. Before any ranking can hold, that inconsistency has to be resolved. This phase fixes the data layer that everything else depends on.

Your Google Business Profile is fully built out — the version that drives direction requests, calls, and clicks, not the placeholder from years ago
Your business data is accurate everywhere Google checks — over 50 directories including Apple Maps, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Foursquare
You can see exactly where you rank on every target term from day one — no guessing, no waiting for end-of-month reports
What you notice: more direction requests, more profile views, more calls — within 6–8 weeks.
Months 4–9
✓ Authority

Your venue starts
outranking competitors.

With the foundation solid, your domain authority begins pulling ahead of the competitive set. This is the phase where the map pack opens up — the three results that capture the majority of local search clicks. Once you're in it, you're visible to people who have never heard of you and are searching right now.

Your venue appears in the top 3 for searches like "best steakhouse near me" — the terms your ideal customer uses when they're ready to book
Your domain authority reaches market-leading level — ahead of competitors who have been operating longer
Duplicate listings that were quietly suppressing your positions are identified and removed
What you notice: new faces in the room who found you on Google. Reservations from people who weren't already coming.
Months 10+
✓ Growth

Your covers grow
while competitors don't.

This is where the infrastructure compounds. Positions held at month 10 are stronger at month 15, and the gap between you and the market widens every month competitors stand still. You stop competing on the same terms as everyone else because you no longer need to.

Your cover growth runs ahead of the market — measured monthly against the same market data your competitors are losing ground in
Discovery terms open up — guests who had never heard of your venue find it first, because you rank above venues they already know
Every week, your positions are monitored and defended — before any slip becomes a booking problem
What you notice: covers up while the market is flat or declining. The gap is the infrastructure working.
Why the Sequence Matters

Every layer
depends on the
one beneath it.

This is the part most agencies get wrong. They move straight to link building without citation consistency. They target map pack positions before domain authority exists to support them. The positions appear briefly, then collapse — because the foundation was never there.

You cannot shortcut to the end. What you can do is build each layer correctly the first time, so the layer above it has something to stand on. The timeline is not slow. It is the right order.

1
Layer 01
Consistent NAP data across 50+ directories
Before Google will rank a business locally, it needs to find consistent Name, Address, Phone data across independent sources. One wrong postcode on five directories creates a trust conflict that suppresses all positions above it.
Unlocks: Google's willingness to surface the business in local results
2
Layer 02
Domain Authority from quality referring domains
Each linking domain is an independent signal of trust. One engagement moved DA 15 to DA 44 from scratch. Another moved DA 33 to DA 47 — highest in its competitive set. Authority cannot be faked. It is earned through real editorial links from credible sources, and it accumulates permanently.
Unlocks: The ranking power needed for map pack positions to emerge and hold
3
Layer 03
Map pack positions on high-intent search terms
Map pack positions are the output of layers 1 and 2. With consistent NAP data and sufficient domain authority, positions emerge — and hold. Without those foundations, any positions gained are fragile and temporary.
Unlocks: Visibility at the moment a potential guest is actively searching
4
Layer 04
Discovery positions on non-branded terms
The growth frontier. 96% of current organic traffic comes from people who already know the venue name. Trust Flow at 30+ unlocks top-3 on terms like "best steakhouse Dublin" — reaching the customer who has never heard of you yet.
Unlocks: New customers who were not already going to come
The Monthly Retainer

What the monthly
retainer actually does.

Positions stop holding themselves the moment active management stops. The retainer is not maintenance for its own sake — it is the ongoing work that keeps the infrastructure ahead of competitors who are also building, every month.

Weekly
Rank Monitoring
Desktop, mobile, and map pack positions tracked across all targeted terms. Movements flagged before they appear in booking data.
Weekly
Local Search Grid
Map pack grid monitored across the full venue area. Competitor advances on held positions identified and responded to before positions are lost.
Monthly
Citation Monitoring
All live listings watched for data drift, postcode errors, and ownership changes. NAP inconsistencies directly suppress map pack positions.
Monthly
GBP Management
Google Business Profile reviewed monthly. Conversion drops, seasonal patterns, and profile completeness assessed and actioned.
Ongoing
Authority Building
Trust Flow improvement through editorial link acquisition. Targets the threshold needed for next-phase discovery positions.
Monthly
Competitor Tracking
Authority gains and ranking changes in the competitive set monitored. Early warning on threats to held positions.
Monthly
Review Management
Google and TripAdvisor review velocity tracked. Response guidance provided. Review score is a direct input to map pack ranking.
As needed
Page Optimisation
Meta title and description rewrites for high-impression, low-CTR pages. Reservation and group booking pages are Q2 priorities.
Quarterly review
Reporting & Strategy
Plain-English report. Commercial framing — covers, visibility, positions. Forward actions stated clearly. No vanity metrics.
Engagement model
Fixed monthly retainer.
Discussed on the first call.

No setup fees. No lock-in contracts. Month-to-month from day one. The infrastructure built is yours — domain authority, citations, and positions do not revert if the engagement ends.

What It Produces

Infrastructure is
the input.
These are the outputs.

The numbers below come from multiple verified engagement records across premium restaurants. They are not projections or estimates. Every figure is platform-verified from OpenTable, Google Business Profile, and Moz.

Nine case studies on the Proof page document the full picture from nine different angles — competitive positions, market benchmarks, financial returns, before-and-after infrastructure, and guest discovery pipelines.

43×
Return on engagement — flagship Dublin venue
~€310,000 attributed revenue. 61,000+ annual covers, up ~25% while the broader local market declined. Conservative attribution — 50% of growth credited to digital work.
OpenTable · Moolah Media attribution model · 2025
37×
Return on engagement — premium city-centre steakhouse venue
~€290,000 attributed revenue. +7% covers while the local market fell ~13% — a 26-point swing against 200+ competing venues. Three-tier attribution model, full working shown on Proof page.
OpenTable · Moolah Media attribution model · 2024–2025
766K
GBP profile views — flagship engagement, full year 2025
73,000+ actions taken directly from the profile — direction requests, calls, website clicks. 19,600+ direction requests alone, the highest-intent pre-visit signal in the dataset.
Google Business Profile analytics · flagship engagement · 2025
Ready to start

See where your
restaurant stands
before anything else.

Before any conversation about working together, we audit your current domain authority, citation score, and map pack coverage. You leave knowing exactly what the gap looks like — and what it would take to close it.

15-minute call. No pitch. No commitment.