Imagine that every restaurant has a kind of digital “menu” — one that is seen not by customers, but by Google. It contains the restaurant’s rating, the number and history of reviews, photos, information about the business, and many other signals that the Google profile sends to the search engine.
Google doesn’t taste the food or evaluate the service. It analyses information about the business and its relevance to a search query.
And when a restaurant regularly appears near the top of the results for searches such as “best restaurant near me” or “restaurants in [city],” it gains a huge advantage over all the other restaurants.
One important caveat: ranking high on Google does not automatically mean that a restaurant is better. But what helps a business maintain a strong position in search?
Reviews
Asking a customer to leave a review is not such a small thing after all.
For a restaurant, a Google review can be more valuable than a tip.
Positive reviews help Google better understand how people perceive a business.
But it’s not just the number of stars that matters. Reviews work together with other factors — and two of the most important ones are below.
Time
Take this as a fact: a Google profile that has existed for a long time — even one with some negative reviews — and is regularly updated, continues to receive genuine reviews, and generates user interactions gradually builds up a digital history.
The days of trying to manipulate Google with fake activity are over. Unlike social networks, where bots and followers can be bought, Google relies heavily on signals that are much harder to build overnight.
There is no substitute for time.
In other words, Google looks not only at how many reviews a business has today, but also at the history of its presence online.
A business that starts working on its profile today has a much harder time catching up with a competitor that has been doing it consistently for years.
Search Presence
When you search on Google, you don’t see just a list of websites. You may see maps, images, business listings, answers to questions, news, and many other elements of the search results.
Where do you think Google gets much of this information? From the business itself — and a major source is its website.
That’s why a well-structured, clear, and technically sound website is one of the main ways a business can be found by new clients.
Back to Our Restaurant
Now it becomes a little clearer why its tables were full.
While one restaurant waits for a passer-by to notice its sign, our restaurant is already appearing on someone’s screen at the exact moment a hungry person types:
“Where should we have dinner tonight?”
They are found at exactly the moment when someone is already looking for what they offer.