How to Start a Restaurant Blog

If you want to start a small business blog for your Restaurant, what kinds of things do you need to consider?

#1 Local Search

You are going to want to chose local search engine keywords that will be searched on by your target audience.  If you are in an area that tourists visit frequently, you may have to change the strategy a bit.  Also, consider things like downtown Chicago (as in Italian Restaurant Downtown Chicago)

#2 Converting Visitors

Your Restaurant blog must have a clear blog ROI which means putting people in chairs.  How you do this depends on the kind of restaurant you run.  Fine dining may ask people to call for reservations, while a diner may offer a sign up for online coupons.

#3 What to Write About?

The blogging search optimization strategy requires that you write regularly.  So what should you write about?

• Recipes
• Wine and Beer
• Local Events in the area
• Specials and cooking secrets
• Cultural aspect of food

Your restaurant blog can be really interesting.  It will depend on what your customers are looking for.

Blog as CMS

CMS means Content Management System.

This originally referred to ways to edit and organize websites.  But now it has morphed.  It still manages websites, but now the content has made the manager morph into a new media management system.

Video Blog?  Still a content management system.

Image Gallery?  Still managing content.

So when you are looking for the best content management system, it is not a question of which cms is best.  Instead, it is a question of which cms is best for your needs.

1. Do you need eCommerce?
2. Do you want to easily embed video?
3. Do you need to integrate with Amazon S3?
4. Do you want a small business blog or a five page website?
5. Who will be developing and supporting your cms?
6. Are there free plug-ins?
7. What other features may you need?  Threaded message boards?  Calendar with event registration?  Surveys?
8. Does it have RSS?
9. Is it search engine optimized automatically?
10. How does it manage users?  Does it allow for different user levels for advanced blogging and content management?
11. What language is it written in?  PHP or .Net?
12. How often does it get backed up?
13. Is it a hosted blog or cms – or do you need to host it on your own server?
14. Are there a lot of people that could customize it for you?
15. Are there free themes available?  Are they easy to modify to make them your own?

These are just some questions to get you started as you think about what CMS is the best option for you.

Small Business Blog

The purpose of blogging, especially for a small business blog, is to create either sales or leads.

Customer Acquisition is possible with a small business blog, but you have to be building a tool for customer acquisition, not a fun blog.  That means you set up your blog to focus on the fundamentals.

1. Your Blog Generates Search Engine Traffic
2. Your Business Blog has a clear purpose and call to action.
3. Your blog is updated regularly so it ranks higher and generates more traffic.
4. Your business blogging purpose is focused on customer acquisition, not having a blog because you heard it is cool.

A successful small business blog is primarily about knowing why you are blogging before you start blogging.

Working with Employee Ambassador can help with this because we only focus on business blogs and employee blog writing to generate qualified leads that want what you have to sell.