Stand up to your competition

The gastronomy industry has always been a highly competitive market, but advances in digitisation provide us with tools that allow us to quickly gain an advantage. over our competition. The days when gastronomic businesses grew in popularity thanks to word of mouth are long gone. Nowadays, almost everyone has a smartphone and can search for services on the spot. If you appear higher than your competitors in the search results, users are likely to click on your website sooner. With this in mind, it is very important to have a mobile-optimised version of your website that works perfectly so that your customers can find you on their smartphones.

Good SEO is the basis of everything!

Good SEO should be applied to all websites, but even more so to companies or businesses belonging to the gastronomic sector. Most people are now searching online for restaurants, bars, hotels, etc.. especially if what they need is an interesting place to go out or spend the night in a foreign city. If you optimise your website for search engines, you have the opportunity to show Google & CO. and your potential customers that you are what they are looking for. We recommend that during on page optimisation you include your most important keywords, such as "best", "hamburger" and "Madrid", in the core of your website. A well-optimised website is much more likely to rank higher in search results. for the corresponding keywords, leading to more visibility and more customers.

Make the most of digitisation

Digitalisation, which is always progressive, offers many new possibilities to increase customer loyalty. As we have said, in the past, the opinion of a friend or acquaintance was the only information available when choosing a restaurant or hotel.. Nowadays you can access hundreds of detailed reviews from different customers and users in just a few seconds, which considerably detracts from the importance of in-person recommendations. There is a wide range of platforms for leaving reviews and it is very important to keep them constantly in mind in order to respond quickly to both good and bad reviews. This strengthens your position in the online world and also the loyalty of your customers.

In another blog post we explain what to do about bad reviews.

Local directories

In addition to review platforms, there are a large number of online directories where you can leave your business details, such as address and directions, so that you can be better found in a local search. As many of these directories are well known, thousands of users use them and creating a business listing is very simple and quick to do, it would be irresponsible not to take full advantage of this opportunity. Foursquare and Tripadvisor are two good examples of directories that are especially interesting for sector-specific businesses.. But beware: TripAdvisor is currently one of the most important influencers in the market. A bad review on TripAdvisor can get you into trouble, so be aware of your reviews and react immediately. However, TripAdvisor also awards recommendation seals, which can be used both on websites and in the establishment, giving guests a sense of comfort and security.

Globalisation as a business opportunity

In the past, it was almost impossible to promote a restaurant or hotel efficiently beyond regional borders. The Internet and various online marketing channels now offer everyone new possibilities to reach guests abroad and tourists even before they start their trip.. The first and most obvious step is to offer the website in several languages; at least an English version should be available. Depending on the region and the average demographics of the tourist groups, it is advisable to create language versions of the website. For example, if you run a hotel in southern Germany, you should also offer your website in Italian.. Local directories, as mentioned above, are also available in the most common languages and are used internationally. This gives you the opportunity to reach thousands of people, something unimaginable 10 years ago.

Therefore, a successful business must modernise its online presence in this competitive market and should not turn down any opportunity to stand out from the competition.