Search engines bring you hungry customers

 

Before making dining decisions, today's consumers research their choices on the Internet. And they're not just going to their favorite chain's Web site. They're using Google, Yahoo and MSN to search for menu items they crave.

 

According to July Nielson Ratings data, Americans use Internet search engines 5.6 billion times a month, with Google owning 49.2 percent of the market share followed by Yahoo at 23.8 percent and MSN at 9.6 percent.

 

So, how many times has this search-happy population conducted an online search for your operation? Well, unless you're Starbucks (400,000) or Panera Bread (100,000), chances are you've not received many searches.

 

For the year, the phrase "fast casual restaurant" was searched a little more than 1,000 times. That's mostly because "fast-casual restaurant" is not relevant to the consumer base and when it comes to food, people typically search for a brand or menu segment.

 

Brands like Fuddruckers, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Qdoba receive decent search-engine traffic — all three are in the 30,000 search rage — but they also enjoy highly searched menu items. According to KeywordDiscovery.com's 2006 statistics, "hamburger" garnered 84,000 searches, "organic" received more than 250,000 searches and "chipotle" terms had some 90,000 searches.

 

Then there's "pizza." That term was searched more than 700,000 times. And the majority of those who searched "pizza" clicked on the Web sites of Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza or Papa John's. Since several pizza brands are using online ordering, search engines may become as important as the telephone book for selling pizzas.

 

"If I were in Papa John's marketing department, I'd put somebody out there to track and see what people are searching for ... it doesn't matter if they're not ordering off their Web sites," said restaurant marketing expert Kamron Karington.  "The big guys don't want to fall into the 20th or 30th page of the search."

 

 

Paid-for search is best described as a search-engine marketing model in which Web sites pay a search engine company to guarantee their sites will pop up in various keyword searches. It guarantees that a Web site will be indexed and ensures that a search engine's crawler software visits the site more frequently.

 

"The growth of search engine marketing has brought rising keyword costs, and increasing complexity has made it more difficult for advertisers to profitably scale their efforts," said Greg Drew, chief executive of WebTrends, a Web software company.

 

Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy predicts search-engine revenue will hit $13.5 billion next year, $16.2 billion in 2008 and a whopping $23 billion by 2010. That's the big picture.

 

When it comes to analyzing a specific industry, per se, like the fast-casual segment, you can tell a lot about a company's initiatives just by observing their paid-for searches. "Paid search comes into play for temporary activities or when you're first launching a product," said Sara Holoubek, a search expert and board member of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO).

 

Every time a person searches "fast casual franchise" in Google, Quiznos and Lenny's Subs are prominently displayed on the right-hand side of the page. Non-food Web sites pop up, too, like "UPS Franchise" because the marketers purchased the term "franchise."

 

As far as restaurants go, the pizza boys spend more dough on paid-for search than other segment because so many of the pizza brands push online ordering. A July Google search for pizza generated these two ads:

 

Papa John's Google pizza keyword ad: "Order Papa John's Pizza Online & Play 100 Sizzlin' Days of Summer."

Pizza Hut's Google pizza keyword ad: "Online ordering, menu and nutrition."

 

The search term "pizza" costs about a $1 a click, which is mighty expensive by cost-per-click (CPC) standards. There are some keywords available for only five cents per click. Holoubek said these keyword derivatives are good, low cost and targeted options for marketers.

 

"If the goal is to have long-term results, it's best to make your Web site more spider friendly, so your site ranks high on natural or organic search ranking," Holoubek said. (The term "spider" refers to automated programs that search or "crawl" Web sites.)

 

A spider or Web crawler is a program that browses the World Wide Web in search of keywords. Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines employ them to find relevant words per billions of searches. Holoubek said the page title is the first words crawled. Some sites that use Flash keep spiders from reading text, she said.

 

"If the spider can't jump in there and search the site, your site won't appear on Google's or Yahoo's searches," she said. "The first thing spiders see is the top of the page ... this is like a welcome mat."

 

 

It's important the first words are relevant to the target audience. For example, a quick-service hamburger chain that claims it serves the world's best hamburger may not want to place "Best QSR burger" in the main page. The chain would be better off simply calling the menu item "good burger," which was searched 5,000 times last month.  

 

"I always tell people to use consumer speak, not industry speak," Holoubek said. "You want to use words that real people use."

 

The fabric of a Web site is much more than good technical or copywriting, links or search engine submission. It's an an intricate blend of more than a hundred variables that influence the way search engines work. One slogan used by BruceClay.com, a search engine optimization company, says it well: "Search engine optimization never rests, much like your competition."

 

Holoubek recommends restaurateurs include nutritional information, coupon and food-related words, all of which are highly searched terms.

 

If you want your menu crawled by spiders, post it in an HTML format instead of PDF documents, which often are missed by the spiders.

 

She said content on new products, nutritional information, promotions, contests, charitable efforts and employment all are fair game. But how does a two-store independent operator in Jones, Okla., know what keywords to use?

 

"Search truly is pull marketing; we must first observe search patterns and build content around the users' needs," Holoubek said.