Does your restaurant have a blog? Perhaps you have never thought about whether or not it should? A blog can be a fantastic Hospitality Marketing tool for your restaurant and it’s absolutely worth starting one if you haven’t already.
When you start a blog for your restaurant you create the ideal place to tell a story about your brand and connect with your customers. A blog can be somewhat of an online journal, where you can record all of the most important things that happen at your establishment. Your blog can be a very powerful part of your restaurant’s online marketing campaign.
So what are some of the reasons why your restaurant should have a blog?
It’s an Excellent Marketing Opportunity
Your blog is the perfect venue to offer information about your restaurant to your customers, such as the story of how you got started, the biggest events in your history, the philosophy of your chef and even stories about your suppliers or recipes. This means that anyone visiting your website for the first time will be able to get to know your restaurant and get a sense of your personality – making them feel more connected to your dining establishment. This engaging and personable narrative makes it much more likely for your customers to frequent your business.
It Educates Your Customers
Your blog will give you a chance to offer educational material to your customers that will improve their understanding of the products and services that you have to offer. For example, if you are a steakhouse you could write a blog post about the differences between each cut of beef so that customers understand your menu better. Or, if you have a health food restaurant you could publish blogs about the health benefits of the various foods you have to offer.
It Starts a Conversation
When you have a blog with a lot of interesting, thought provoking and well written content you will probably get readers commenting on your blog posts, which is a great way to engage your customers. Starting a conversation about something important and relevant on your blog, whether it’s the farm-to-table philosophy or the best condiments on a classic burger, will get people talking about what is important to them. These conversations will reinforce the values of your restaurant and help people to feel more connected to your brand.
It’s Great for SEO
Google prefers websites that are regularly updated with high quality content, which is why having a blog will greatly improve your SEO. This means that your Hotel Website will rank higher in search results when people are searching for accommodation in your area, which will bring you more traffic. If you want to learn how to optimise your blog for SEO, your online marketing consultant can help.
It Encourages Social Sharing
When you write a very helpful, informative, thought provoking or entertaining blog post that provides value to your readers it is much more likely to be shared on social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. Any time this happens it is great for promoting your hotel and building your brand – so make sure that you are creating high quality content that people will want to share.
Starting Up Your Restaurant Blog
These are just a few of the reasons why your restaurant should consider having a blog. Before you get started on setting up your blog, make sure that you think about the format, frequency and tone of your blog posts and create a plan for writing and publishing them. Generally your blogs should be entertaining to read and not too long, so aim for around 400-800 words for each one.
Also, make sure that you include a lots of photos within each blog post, as they will add visual interest and make the blog more appealing to read. Think about your audience and what you want to write about, then make a list of blog post topic ideas. You can either write the blog yourself or you can hire a professional freelance writer to do the job for you. Your online marketing consultant will likely be able to set up a writer for your blog if you don’t know anyone.
A blog takes some time to get started and to build up a collection of posts, but as it grows it can be a very useful Online Marketing pool for your restaurant!