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SEO may be one of the more complicated concepts to learn if you want to do some serious site promoting but it is highly dynamic with various ways to approach it. Taking advantage of the several marketing tips that contribute to SEO can cause your website to be popular much faster, providing you have done your keyword research first. Once you know what keywords to use in targeting your audience, you can start using them to build content on these sites so you can increase your site’s ranking.

Blogging

Blogging is one of the most effective on-page SEO methods because a blogging platform makes it easy to introduce new content to your website. Updating your site with new blog posts not only adds to the SEO value but it also shows to your visitors that your site is thriving. Blogs have RSS feeds that others can copy to their favorite readers so they immediately know when your blog updates. You have full control of your site’s content as well so your success depends on how creative you are with the keywords.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is basically the process of spreading your content out of your website so you can ride on the page rankings of other sites like article directories. Many top search results for certain keywords can be related to articles hosted in a popular article directory site.

Although there are millions of articles in these sites, you still have a good chance of getting your articles exposed if you sprinkle the keywords evenly and post your articles in the correct category. You should also place a link back to your site somewhere in the article because backlinks contribute to SEO as well.

Video Sharing

Search engines won’t be able to find anything without associated keywords. However, search engines can find relevant video with ease because these videos are coupled with tags and descriptions. Video sites like YouTube are highly popular so take advantage by adding video content to your Internet marketing mix.

Video sharing takes more effort since you have to deal with webcams, digital camcorders, and video editing software. But if you are advertising a product or promoting an Internet opportunity, a nicely produced video can convince people that are on the fence to go on ahead. Plus, applying SEO to the video boosts your site’s exposure even more.

Forum Marketing

Many forums like to keep their forum sections and posts open to the public. Often times, it is so that search engines can properly index posts so the forum gets more popular. Just like other sites, you can ride on the site’s popularity by finding ways to put backlinks there. This is a bit tricky since some forum advertisements do not encourage blatant advertisements.

You have to find a nice section that has members that you think would be interested with your site. Get involved with that community and keep the advertising bits within your signature so your advertisement follows you wherever you post. As long as the forum does not disallow advertisements, you should be fine.

If organice SEO is not your thing, then click here to read about doing PPC the right way, or click here to learn the easy way to build backlinks.

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I find it’s a shame few restaurants take advantage of blogging as part of marketing a restaurant.

Marketing a restaurant with a blog serves several purposes such as:

* informing your prospective guests * entertaining your prospective guests * improving your search engine optimization (by publishing a lot of content – much of which is optimized for local searches).

Think beyond blogging about what’s happening in your restaurant. Start thinking about your town or city. Think about what might interest prospective guests.

11 Blogging Ideas and Topics for Restaurants

1. Events

You can blog about events in your establishment, in your town/city/state/province, and in your industry. I particularly like the approach to blogging about events in your town because you’ll automatically optimize blog posts for local searches.

2. Food

You can have a ton of fun here. Write about the food you use – the history, where it’s from, why you use it, etc.

3. Wine, Beer, and Liquor

Like food, you could write extensively on wine, beer, and liquor in your blog. Don’t aim that your blog be to serve prospective diners. Instead blog to be acknowledged as an expert in the food and drink your serve.

You could write about the brands you serve, how the drinks are made, how the alcohol is made, etc.

4. Places

Write about your town/city/state/province. These posts will help with your local search engine rankings. Every town has a ton of information to write about. Try to come up with interesting facts, events, happenings, etc.

5. Neighbourhood

This is related to places, but you can take this concept a step further by writing about your neighbourhood. Neighbourhoods can have an interesting history, events, and happenings as well.

6. Profile Employees

Write interesting information about your employees. Get their consent first. At the very least you could blog and profile the key players in your establishment such as your chef and/or general manager.

7. History of your Restaurant

Some restaurants have a fascinating history. Even if your restaurant didn’t serve some famous person in the 19th century, there’s sure to be some form of story behind your establishment. Blog about this.

8. Cooking Techniques

Some very popular blogs are cooking and recipe blogs. Why not join the fray and blog about cooking techniques your chef and cooks use. You don’t have to give away all the secrets, but I bet some of your guests will enjoy you sharing some of your professional techniques.

9. Blog About Other Local Businesses

Here’s an opportunity for your restaurant to get some online publicity. Approach local businesses and offer a joint venture. You’ll profile them if they profile you. You each get links and more publicity.

10. Details About Your Restaurant – size, # of seats, etc.

You’d be surprised how many people are interested in facts. Share some facts about your restaurant such as square footage, the number of seats, stereo system used, music played, how many forks you have, number of wine glasses, etc. Be creative with this. I suspect guests would be curious to find out all the details about your restaurant.

11. Deals and Discounts

Publicize your deals and discounts on your blog. Don’t forget to include expiration dates.

Get website visitors to sign up to your e-newsletter by promising exclusive deals. Having people on your e-newsletter list is a fantastic marketing a restaurant opportunity. You can communicate regularly. Be sure to send out the type of information your subscribers are interested in – which is deals. If you send out too much garbage, your subscribers will stop opening your e-mail messages.

Next, get a step-by-step local search engine ranking tutorial for ranking small local businesses in the search engines at B2Web – Small Business Marketing website.

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If you have your very own local business, creating a website for it can be very worthwhile. If you already have a website, you better get to work and give it some exposure so your business can grow. More people go online nowadays, thanks to the popularity of mobile devices and the lowered prices of traditional laptops and netbooks.

Viewing websites of local businesses are highly convenient because you can take all the time you need to learn about the business just by checking out the different pages of the site. But people won’t be aware of your site’s existence unless you engage in some advertising techniques. Here are some modern and old methods that can work for your business.

Social Networking Sites

Out of the many advertising methods, joining social networking is the most effective at the moment because many of the available sites allow you to search for individuals living in a certain location. Once you make a social networking account or log into an existing one, you can let the social networking service do the rest of the work. Once you found a local community group in the site, you get the chance to tell these people what your site is all about.

Local Bulletin Boards and Forums

Online bulletin boards and forums aren’t so popular these days since most people are hooked with the social networking buzz. However, the few people that are involved still count as a potential target market and it can mean a lot if a large portion of a small group gets interested with your site.

If there is a forum that has more local members, go ahead and register so you can introduce yourself to the community. Remember that you are in these forums to contribute and share ideas. Being a good member early on can cause the members to visit your website out of curiosity. You just have to add a link to your site in your forum profile as well as your signature. If the site has an advertisement section, you can use that after you understand the site’s rules.

Classified Ad Sites

Many people still resort to classified ad directories when looking for jobs, companies, or online products. If you come across a website where local people share new startups, you should consider making accounts in these sites as well and get some extra attention. Even if the site isn’t very popular, simply attempting to place your advertisement there can increase your site’s search engine exposure if you place the site’s local section. Many of these sites allow you to specify a certain location before the advertisement is published.

These are the general sites categories that you can try out to increase your local exposure. Take note that depending on your location, there can be other places to see. You just have to find an area where you can add some content without looking like a spammer.

Use the search engine to find the most popular sites in your local area so you can get an idea on where to start doing your local advertising. Concentrating on these sites rather than general advertising area can increase your conversion ratios.

Next, discover local business marketing techniques for ranking small business websites in the search engines.

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About 6 months ago I was looking to book a reservation for a restaurant in my city. I knew the name, but wasn’t quite sure of the spelling.

I went to Google, and I simply couldn’t find the restaurant online. It turned out I had the spelling correct, yet couldn’t find it in Google.

Instead, I found a ton of reviews, most of which were good (that’s why I wanted to eat there).

But, in order to contact this restaurant, I relied on a telephone number in a directory rather than the restaurant’s website.

I did eat at this restaurant and it was fantastic. After I ate there I grabbed a business card, and they did have a website. What a shame their SEO was so bad or non-existent.

I don’t own a restaurant, but I own a small business with a local clientele. My SEO is not much different than a restaurants. Moreover, given I study online marketing for many types of small businesses (and do it for my own), I thought I’d publish an article for restaurants. Specifically an article providing restaurant marketing ideas using a website.

I’m all about a business’ website being unique. But, in nearly all industries, there’s basic information that is important to prospective customers. This is certainly true for restaurant websites.

16 must-have restaurant website features for both conversion and SEO are as follows:

1. Menus

Publishing up-to-date menus is a no-brainer. Every restaurant should have up-to-date menus on its website.

It’s critical it be up-to-date. The last thing a restaurant needs is telling guests “oh, that menu has changed and it’s not right on the website.” That’s unprofessional and won’t sit well with a guest.

I would go so far as to include wine, beer, and liquor menus as well.

And while you’re at it, set out the nutritional value of the dishes. Many diners are interested in nutritional content.

2. Location Info and Map

These days it’s so easy to integrate Google Maps into a website. Make it easy for anyone to find your restaurant with a map. Many people search for restaurants with mobile devices. A map leads them straight to your door.

3. Contact Info

I believe all small businesses should have their telephone number and contact form on every page of their website. Restaurants included. Make it incredibly easy for your website visitors to contact you.

4. Photographs of the Establishment

Hire a professional photographer when you’re busy and get a ton of great photographs. Place those photographs all over your website. Part of dining is the environment and atmosphere. Show off your establishment on your website.

5. Event Calendar

If you have events such as live music or special dinners, put up an event calendar on your website.

6. Chef / Owner Bios

Feature in a bio your restaurant’s key players. Whether chef, owner, or both. If you have a general manager, consider having a bio of your GM. Spend some time writing up the bios. Perhaps hire a professional writer. In fact you might wish to hire a professional writer for all of your website’s content (or at least the key pages).

7. Restaurant History

Why not include in your About page a brief history of your restaurant. Some restaurants have a fascinating history. Guests may be interested in such information. It’s easy to write and it just might persuade someone to try your establishment.

8. Awards & Reviews

Don’t be shy. Publish your list of awards and reviews (get permission from the reviewer first). If you can’t get permission from the reviewer, then provide a link that is a popup window to the review. Why a popup? So your visitor stays on your site and doesn’t end up on another restaurant’s site through the review website.

9. Careers / Jobs Available

Make it easy for people to apply to your restaurant. Regrettably, many restaurants have high turnover and are frequently hiring. The more applications you receive, the more hiring options you have.

10. A Blog

As a restaurant owner or operator, you could have a lot of fun with a blog. A blog informs, entertains, and is good for SEO.

11. On-Site Local SEO

Take advantage of every page and blog post by optimizing your content for the search engines. It’s not hard to do. The more content you have (hence the importance of a blog), the more opportunities you have to rank for various search terms (called keywords) in the search engines.

Be sure to create meta titles and meta descriptions for each page and post. If you aren’t interested in doing on-site SEO, hire a great SEO company. Your goal is to rank well in your town, city, and state/province (or geographic area).

Don’t be like the restaurant I tried to find Online and not rank well in the search engines. There’s a huge opportunity for business simply by ranking well in the search engines. The good news for restaurants is you don’t have to compete globally. You need only rank well for your local area(s).

12. Online Reservation Maker

Not all restaurants will want to hand over booking power to customers. That’s why I consider it an optional restaurant website feature. However, if you take reservations, it’s an easy way to book reservations and freeing up your staff time all in one go. The more people who self-book, means fewer reservations your staff must make.

If use a Restaurant WordPress theme, you can easily add a reservation feature using a plugin. 5 reservation plugins to take a look at include:

* WebReserv

* Checkfront Booking

* Booking Calendar

* Wp-Reservation

* MealClick

If you don’t use WordPress for your website, check out:

* OpenTable

* Live Bookings

* Restaurant Diary

* Guestbridge

* Reservation Genie

13. Takeout Online Ordering

If you sell take out, why not offer website visitors the option to order takeout through your website. Like reservation software, you save your staff time processing orders and make it easy for website visitors to order a meal. You could even process payment online if you wish to save even more time when your guest picks up their food.

14. Pre-Ordering Service

Sometimes a guest is in a rush and would like to eat upon entering your restaurant. You could offer a pre-ordering option through your website.

15. Notable Guests

If your restaurant attracts notable guests, say so on your website.

16. Offer Gift Cards for Sale

Gift cards can be a terrific revenue generator. Sell them through your restaurant website. You need basic e-commerce software. It’s easy these days regardless the platform on which your restaurant website is built.

There’s no need for your restaurant website to be just like every other website. Get creative with what you can put on your site and in your blog posts.

Don’t forget about off-site SEO such as getting listed in key directories and other methods. Ranking for local search inquiries can be huge for your restaurant.

Next, get a step-by-step local search engine ranking tutorial for ranking small local businesses in the search engines at B2Web – Small Business Marketing website.