Managing Your Restaurant's Online Presence & Leveraging VIV Search for your business

What is a VIV Search? You probably perform local searches all the time. Let’s think about your internet searching behavior. How often do you turn to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, or Yelp to conduct a search for a restaurant? If you search for:

• “restaurant near me”
• a restaurant in a specific category, like “Italian restaurant”
• a menu from your favorite restaurant, like “Charlie Gittos menu”
• operating hours of a local restaurant, “Charlie Gittos hours”
• or – specifically during the pandemic, you may be looking to see if a restaurant is even open, available for dine-in, carry out or delivery options

All these searches are considered local searches. How quickly do you make a decision after conducting that search? In fact, 90% of local searches result in action within 24 hours. That makes sense, right? You are probably hungry and looking for lunch or researching your dinner options. You are likely going to make a decision within 24 hours – probably even sooner than that.

Why does that matter? It matters because restaurants not taking advantage of local search are missing out on customers - plain and simple. Restaurants should have all the information about their business available to customers, regardless of where they are searching. Believe it or not, Google is not the only search engine. Some people search Google, but others search on Yelp. A restaurant’s website is important, but more so are its local listings.

VIV Search, powered by Premier, is the key to local search.

Simply put, VIV Search:

• puts restaurants on the map
• helps restaurants perform better in local search
• allows restaurants to generate and manage their customer reviews
• lets restaurants showcase their business information like hours and menus
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Click here to watch a quick video about what VIV Search can do for your restaurant.

VIV Search puts your restaurant on the map.

You have probably done a search for “restaurant near me”, or “pizza delivery”, or for a specific restaurant. That search likely resulted in a map with red pins and some nearby restaurants. If your business does not have a Google listing created, it won’t appear in this map search. So, without this Google profile, the restaurant is just missing out on these searches. 

Another thing to consider is Google is not the only search engine. Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Facebook, OpenTable, PostMates – are all search engines and directories that consumers are using every day. Again, without a listing on these directories, the restaurant will not appear in the search on these directories. Why not position your restaurant to appear on all maps and directories? Think the old phone book yellow pages meets the Internet. VIV Search puts restaurants on over 70 maps and directories.

VIV Search helps your restaurant perform better in search.

We talked about just showing up in search, but you want your restaurant to be the best – ideally, the top result. You hear terms like Search Engine Optimization or SEO – most people do not know what that is or think it’s too confusing. In plain terms - search engine optimization, or SEO, means optimizing your business for keyword searches, or searches done by potential customers looking for information related to your business. Optimizing your restaurant for local search is not that hard: there are 2 major things to note.

1. The more opportunities your business has to appear in search, the more likely your business will appear in search. If your business has just a Facebook page or just a small website, your restaurant might have 1 or half a dozen opportunities to appear in search. If your business has a Facebook page, a robust website, and many local listings, your business has more opportunities to appear in a search. VIV Search gives restaurants more than 70 opportunities to appear in search. The bottom line is the more your business does online, including a website with blogs, social media posting, and many local listings, the more these chances to appear in search increase.
   
   
2. Google (and other search engines for that matter) care about their users – the everyday user. Google does not necessarily care about businesses. Google is in the business to make money, and Google makes money by being the best search engine. It is the best search engine because it offers the most accurate, unbiased information. It is not necessarily in the business to rank your business first or last. So, unless you are utilizing Google's Pay Per Click advertising, your best bet is to optimize your restaurant's online presence for your customer. 

There is an algorithm and best practices you can follow to ensure success. Google considers 3 factors when showing search results, which you will see is geared towards offering the best information to the everyday user. Those three factors are relevance, distance, and prominence.

Relevance means how well a profile matches a search. So, as a restaurant owner, you should enhance your online presence as much as possible. Include everything about your business, including your menu, and categorize your restaurant appropriately. Your business information should be available on your website and business profiles. Remember, the more places your information is, the more likely your information will be found.

Distance is easily explained – this just means how far the restaurant is from the searcher. Google is not going to show a restaurant in New York if you are in St. Louis searching for Italian restaurants near me. Google's going to show restaurants close to the searcher's location.

Prominence is defined as how well-known a business is. The more listings a business has across the web, the more well-known they are. The more reviews a business has, the more well-known the business is. The more updated your website is, the more well-known you are.

You can leverage all three of these Google consideration factors with VIV Search. It puts enhanced content on a lot of maps and directories. There is a website integration for convenience which helps keep the business updated across all platforms. It also has a built-in customer review generator and management tool to help increase prominence.

VIV Search gives restaurants the ability to generate and manage their customer reviews.

One of our favorite features of VIV Search is the customer review generator and management tool within the VIV Search dashboard. This is included with the service. You can use the dashboard to send out emails to your customers asking for reviews on Google or Facebook. Remember, more reviews increase your business prominence and therefore increase your search results.

VIV Search also includes customer review notifications via email or text message, so you can keep track of what your customers are saying about your business. You can even respond to your customers via text message when you are on the go. There are analytic insights available for restaurant owners, and we send out analytic reports each month, so you know how your listings are performing in search.

VIV Search lets restaurants showcase their business information like hours and menus.

We briefly mentioned the enhanced content available on your listings, but what does that mean? How does FULL menu sound for enhanced content? With VIV Search, you can showcase your entire menu, which is automatically optimized for search. Your menu is synced up on Google and other listings across the web, including Open Table and Postmates. We can even sync your menu to your website for your convenience, meaning if you update your menu, we update it once and it updates across the web*.

Does your restaurant offer carry-out, delivery, or dine-in options? Showcase all this information and more through VIV Search.

The Premier Advantage

VIV Search is powered by Premier Business Advantage, a locally owned company. Specializing in independent business owners for over 22 years, Premier offers a team of reliable and timely internet marketing enthusiasts to help restaurant owners stay up-to-date and stand out on the web. We can quickly update information like hours and menu across the web with an email or phone call – no 1 – 800 number. Our incredible clients have adapted quickly and needed an internet marketing team they could rely on to get their information and menus updated. And that is exactly what the team at Premier did - responded quickly and efficiently to help restaurants WIN during this unpredictable time.

Interested in VIV Search for Your Restaurant?

Contact Premier today to learn more about how VIV can help your restaurant stand out online and keep up with these ever-changing times. Call (636) 207-9000 OPT 2 or click here to schedule a consultation.

*Only available on listing profiles connected within the VIV Search dashboard. Contact a VIV Search rep to learn more.