Marketing Your Michigan Restaurant on the Web: Part 2 - The Fanpage

So, you have a beautiful new website that is nice to look at, easy to navigate and full of great content.  Now you need potential customers to find your restaurant in search engines.  Seems like a gigantic task.  The good news is that if you think of it in terms of a series of smaller tasks, it can be a bit less overwhelming.  What's even better, you can get your website ranked in search engines without spending a dime.  You can tackle this project for only the cost of your valuable time.  So, for part 2 of 7, I thought we'd discuss one of the easiest and most popular ways to get your Michigan restaurant ranked in search engine results - the Facebook Fanpage.

Setting up a fanpage on Facebook is very simple and can actually be fun.  It causes you to think about your business in terms of what potential customers are looking for, especially the demographic who are using facebook the most.  Since Facebook is the most used application on the web, I feel this is the single most important place to start marketing your restaurant and your restaurant's website on the internet.

Step one is to set up a facebook account.  Simply go to http://www.facebook.com/, fill out the quick application and click on the "sign up" button.  Once you've set up your account and filled out your personal information, click on the icon that says "set up a page for your business".  This will take you to the fanpage section of facebook.  The single most important part of the process is to fill out a comprehensive profile of your Michigan restaurant.  Be as specific as possible, highlighting everything your restaurant has to offer.   

Next, upload photos of your restaurant into a photo gallery.  Facebook users LOVE to look at photos!  Use your own digital images or hire a professional to take some beautiful pictures of your establishment, making sure you hire a professional who uses digital equipment.  Upload your photos and write keyword-heavy descriptions of each photograph.  Think in terms of how your customers will be searching when you write these descriptions.

A Facebook fanpage isn't much of a fanpage without...FANS!  You have to get followers engaged with your fanpage and there is only one way to do it.  Invite them.  Invite them through email.  Invite your facebook friends.  Invite your Twitter followers.  Put your Fanpage address anywhere you'd put your web address.  It's almost just as important.  If your Facebook Fanpage address is on your menu, internet-based mobile phone users will use their phones to become fans while their waiting for their meals to be served.  Put a link to your fanpage on your website. 

After that, you're good to go and ready to start posting content to your fanpage.  Add links to your website wherever possible.  Talk about specials you're having, events that will be happening in your restaurant and even coupon availability.  Provide links to your favorite websites.  When you have an event, talk about it the next day and post photos of the event.  Post photos of your specials along with detailed descriptions.  Start customer loyalty programs.  Take a poll.  Get your customers involved in discussions.  Have give-aways.  The possibilities are practically endless.  The more you can do to get customers to interact with you on Facebook, the better search engine results your website will get.  So do everything you can.  The only way you can get this wrong is to not do it!  Visit Michigan Flavor's Fanpage at http://www.facebook.com/michiganflavor.

So that concludes part 2.  Stay tuned for part 3 when we'll tackle Twitter.  Between now and then, make sure you check out the Michigan Flavor Restaurant Directory at http://www.miflavor.com/.  Have questions regarding anything in any of our blog posts or need help implementing any of our suggestions?  Contact me via email at jodi@miflavor.com.  Interested in advertising your Michigan Restaurant on Michigan Flavor?  Call Dennis at 248-302-2738 or contact him via email at dennis@miflavor.com.  He or one of our other account managers will be happy to visit your restaurant and give you a full demonstration of Michigan Flavor. 

Candles as Condiments?

Who knew candles are good for more than Michigan Restaurant mood lighting?  According to a Food Network Magazine article, cooks in one Chicago restaurant are using candles as condiments.  Chef's at David Burke's Primehouse make edible candles out of bacon and beef drippings.  The wicks are coated in vegetable wax.  They use these edible candles to finish dishes with a few drops for flavor.  Not living in Chicago?  You can still try this trick yourself at home by ordering candles from the restaurant.  Just light one and add a little bacon flavor to your salad.  Perhaps Restaurants in Michigan should give this trick a try.  It is certainly a way to add a little "wow" to your menu.

Looking for interesting restaurants in Michigan or an interesting way to market your Michigan restaurant?  Visit http://www.miflavor.com/ to learn about a fantastic Michigan restaurant advertising opportunity or call 248.302.2738 to speak with an account representative.

Your Restaurant Invested in a Beautiful Website - Now What?

You know your restaurant needs a website.  You know that diners choose places to eat by searching the web.  You know all this, so you went ahead and invested a significant amount of capital into having a beautiful website designed.  You picked out and purchased a domain name, probably the name of your restaurant.  So how do you drive traffic to this beautiful new website?  How do you get diners to find your beautiful website, click on your carefully chosen domain name and eventually walk through your door?

I can't tell you how many times I've heard the words, "I am ranked #1 in google when you search for the name of my restaurant".  That's wonderful, but what if diners don't know the name of your restaurant?  Diners search for restaurants and bars by typing keywords into a google, yahoo, bing, etc. search.  They're not typing the name of your restaurant into these search engines unless they've already been to your restaurant or they have heard by word of mouth that they should dine at your establishment.  

Diners are much more likely to type in searches that look something like this "restaurants in Any City, Michigan" or "Michigan Asian Restaurants".  How does your restaurant website rank in searches like that?  If you have a website and a website alone, I'm guessing you don't rank as high as you'd like.

There are services all over the internet promising to get you ranked high in search engine results.  You can pay consultant after consultant to ensure that diners are finding you on the web.  You can invest countless capital trying to buy adwords or pay for sponsored advertising in these search engines.  You can do all that and chances are, you'll be pretty successful in driving customers to your site; but you're going to have to invest a significant amount of money to make these strategies work for you.

The key to ranking high in search engines in content.  Search engines browse the web for relevant, keyword-heavy content about your restaurant, your city and your industry.  Content, content, content is the key to inexpensively driving traffic to your website.  So how do you build content?  Social media (facebook.com, twitter.com, myspace.com, etc), videos (youtube.com, dailymotion.com), articles (digg.com, ezine.com), press releases, social bookmarking (delicious.com) and blogging (blogger.com, wordpress.com).

Creating a combination of all of the aforementioned media will no doubt increase the amount of content related to your website spread throughout the web just waiting for search engines to find it and direct diners to your site.  Seems pretty simple right?  What's the problem then? Time!  Anyone who has tried his/her hand at social networking and internet marketing knows that it becomes a full time job.  You end up with dozens of sites to keep track of while making sure you update your social media pages and writing blog posts.  Even then, there are articles to write, press releases to submit, photos to upload, videos to produce and the list goes on and on.

So what if you could partner with a website who did all this hard work for you?  With an enhanced listing on http://www.miflavor.com/, you essentially receive the benefits of all of our hard work.  Your restaurant will essentially receive a mini-website inside Michigan Flavor's directory of Michigan Restaurants.  Once there, your restaurant reaps the benefits of all the behind the scenes search engine optimization that is going on at Michigan Flavor.  We'll worry about getting Michigan Flavor ranked in the search engines.

When diners find our Michigan Restaurant directory, they'll find your restaurant page, complete with photo gallery, downloadable menus, a listing of your specials and events, a map and directions, a listing of your hours of operation and a description of your establishment.  Your restaurant page on Michigan Flavor has a direct link to your restaurant's website and social networking pages, automatically boosting your website's organic search engine listing, leaving you, the restaurant owner/manager, the time to do what it is that you do best, run your establishment.

To learn more about our fully searchable, interactive online directory of Michigan Restaurants, visit our website at http://www.miflavor.com/ or call 248.302.2738.  If you have search engine optimization questions you'd like to email, direct your questions tomailto:jodi@miflavor.com.  To learn more about getting your restaurant listed on Michigan Flavor, email dennis@miflavor.com.