Understanding how consumers are searching for restaurants

Armed with insights from the latest restaurant Google trend data, this blog reveals seasonal swings, regional hotspots, and actionable strategies to optimize your Google, Apple, and Bing profiles. Elevate your local ad game, pinpoint high-demand areas, and watch your customer base flourish.

Restaurants search trends

Restaurants search terms and keywords

While some dining search terms remain steady, recent global events and evolving consumer preferences have influenced how customers search for restaurants. Key trends include:

• Near me and Near 'location' is king: Studies indicate that searches for restaurants with "near me" have grown 150% faster than those without a location qualifier. This highlights the increasingly crucial role of local intent in restaurant discovery.
• Takeaway and delivery services: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered consumer behavior, leading to a surge in searches related to takeaway and delivery services. This trend highlights the growing demand for convenient dining options and contactless delivery.
• Outdoor dining: With health and safety concerns, there's been an increase in searches for restaurants offering outdoor dining options. Since late 2021, the term "outdoor dining near me" has seen a notable rise.
• Health-conscious menus: Reflecting a heightened focus on wellbeing, there's been a steady increase in searches for health-conscious dining options, including vegan, gluten-free, and organic choices. Google Trends shows a consistent yearly growth for terms like "healthy restaurants."
• Local and artisanal foods: Consumers are increasingly interested in locally sourced and artisanal food experiences. Restaurants specializing in these areas should enhance their online visibility to attract a niche but growing market segment.

Restaurants search volume and seasonality

It’s important to note that dining search trends also show seasonality. Peaks often occur during holidays, festivals, and summer months, aligning with times when people are more likely to eat out. For instance, searches for "best ice cream near me" typically spike during summer.

Ice cream near me search volume has been consistent but is seasonal.

Restaurants search regionality

Search interest in dining options varies by region. Areas with higher tourism or larger urban populations may see more frequent searches for dining options. States like South Carolina, Nevada, and Florida are perfect examples of this. These states are renowned tourist destinations, attracting millions of visitors annually. Tourists tend to dine out more frequently than locals, contributing significantly to restaurant search volume. Restaurants in these areas should leverage this by tailoring their digital marketing strategies to these high-traffic regions.

Next steps 

Taking action on restaurant search terms: local listings

Providers of restaurants can take advantage of these trends by using them to optimize their local listings. 

• Google Business Profiles: GBPs are a great place to incorporate the terms that customers are searching for. GBP attributes like owner descriptions, posts, reviews, Q&As, service descriptions, and more should be optimized with key terms.
  
• Apple Business Connect: Apple Business Connect is the new player in town, but it brings a high-income audience. Attract upscale patients with Apple Business Connect. By claiming and optimizing your ABC account, you can better control how consumers see your business on Apple Maps and CarPlay.
  
• Bing Places: While Bing Places isn’t as well known as Google Business Profiles, it is still critical that restaurants account for them.
  

Taking action on restaurant search terms: local ads

• Google Performance Max: Google’s new multichannel ad campaigns can be optimized with the terms and seasonality reelected in this analysis. Reach patients across Google Search, YouTube, Gmail and more.
  
• Google Local Service Ads: Google LSAs are absolutely mandatory for restaurants.
  
• Microsoft Local Service Ads: Microsoft LSAs are often overlooked but provide the same LSA experience as Google, just to a different audience.
  
  

dbaPlatform has been helping restaurants win with local search for six years. Please reach out below to see how we can help.