The year is 2011. Steve Jobs passed away and Occupy Wall Street was in full effect. Schema.org was also introduced.
Mashable wrote a piece called “The Scary Side of Schema” where they stated:
“Schema.org might also tempt search engines to directly answer questions on the results page. This will eliminate the need to actually visit the site that helped to provide the information”
It opened up a whole new world of possibilities for SEO’s and webmasters everywhere.
A new way to search for restaurants
4-5 years ago, if you wanted to find a new place to eat, the process would go something like this:
Perform a Google query
Locate the website that piques your interest
Find more information on that website
Take action
These days finding new information on a restaurant looks something like this:
Perform a Google query
Find everything you need at your fingertips
Recently when Google announced that it was now able to display restaurant menus within search results, it was a big announcement for SEO’s and technologists around the world.
The addition of menus in the search results was really the last nail in the coffin for restaurant websites.
Really, there is no reason for anyone to visit a restaurant website any longer.
In addition, Google keeps adding cool new features in this space such as the ability to sort Restaurants by what time they are open. Another handy convenience feature that users will love.
So why do we need restaurant websites?
I tried to think of every reason I could come up with for why someone would go to a restaurant website:
Hours of operation
Driving directions
Location
Phone number
Reviews
Menu
The game is pretty much over, it is all available on any given SERP.
Sure, the majority of websites still don’t have menus indexed yet but it is definitely improving by the day.
There are also extenuating circumstances such as online ordering and other functions that still exist, but overall Google is owning the restaurant game.
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Hello I'm Patrick Coombe and I'm the CEO and Founder of Elite Strategies, an agency I started in 2009. One of the main reasons I love blogging about SEO is the research it takes to come up with the posts. It allows me to not only write about what I love, but to learn more about the industry in the process. I hope you enjoyed this post, if you did consider sharing it or even better linking to it!
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