How to handle competition
The gastro-industry has always been a highly competitive market, but the advancing digitization provides us with all the tools to quickly gain an advantage over our competitors. The times in which a gastronomy business could increase its popularity mainly through word of mouth are long gone. Nowadays, almost everyone has a smartphone and immediately starts searching for services on the spot. If you appear higher up in the search results than your competition, the likelihood that customers will choose your link increases dramatically. Considering this, it is also immensely important to have a perfectly working mobile version of your website so that your customers can find you on their smartphones.
Good SEO is still the basis!
Good SEO applies to all websites, but even more so to websites of companies belonging to the gastro-industry. Nowadays, most people search online for restaurants, bars, hotels, etc., especially if they are looking for interesting places to go out or stay overnight in a foreign city. With your website being optimized for search engines, you have the opportunity to show Google & Co. as well as your potential customers and visitors that you are right for them. During the on-page optimization, we suggest that you integrate your most important keywords, such as "best", "burger" and "New York", into the core of your website. A well-optimized website has a much better chance of ranking higher in the search results for the corresponding keywords, which leads to more visibility and more customers.
Digitization as an opportunity
The ever-progressive digitization provides many new possibilities to increase your customer loyalty. As mentioned above, in the past the opinion of a friend or acquaintance was the only available information when choosing the right restaurant or hotel. Today you can access hundreds of detailed reviews from different customers and visitors within seconds, which of course lowers the meaning of a few personal recommendations. There are a variety of rating platforms and it is very important to keep an eye on them, responding quickly to good ratings and even quicker to bad ones. This strengthens your position in the online world and also the loyalty of your customers.
In another blog article, we explain how to deal with bad reviews.
Local directories
In addition to evaluation platforms, there are a large number of online directories in which you can leave your company data, such as address and directions, in order to be found easily in the local search. Since most of these directories are well known and are already being used by thousands of users and the creation of a company entry is usually done very quickly, it would be irresponsible not to take full advantage of this opportunity. Foursquare and Tripadvisor are very good examples of directories that are particularly interesting for companies in this specific industry. But attention: TripAdvisor is nowadays one of the most important influencers on the market. A bad rating there can really get you into trouble, so always keep an eye on your reviews and always react to them immediately. However, Tripadvisor also awards seals of recommendation, which can then be used on websites as well as in the establishment, immediately giving guests a sense of comfort and assurance.
Globalization as a business opportunity
In the past, it was almost impossible to promote a restaurant or hotel efficiently beyond regional borders. The Internet and the various channels of online marketing now offer everyone whole new possibilities to reach guests abroad and tourists even before they start their journey. The first and most obvious step is to offer the website in several languages, but at least have an English version. Depending on the region and the average demography of the tourist groups, it is advisable to create website versions in the corresponding languages. For example, if you operate a hotel in the south of Germany, you must of course also offer your website in Italian. Local directories, as mentioned in previous sections, are also available in most common languages and are used internationally. This gives you the chance to reach thousands of people, which was unfathomable 10 years ago.
We have now seen that a successful company in this highly competitive market can't avoid modernizing its online presence and using every opportunity to set itself apart from the competition.
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