How to Pin Your Restaurant’s Location Precisely!
For restaurant businesses, which give importance to location and for which making it so that customers know the location is equally important, it probably won’t be very good if customers have to call asking for the directions to get to the restaurant. In addition, nowadays, using the traditional map is probably not consistent with consumer behavior. In an age where online marketing is very important, one thing a restaurant business needs is to set their location on mapping services, in other words, to pin their location.
Today, MHA is introducing how to pinpoint your restaurant’s location by using two online marketing tools that your target customer groups usually use to access information on your restaurant, namely, Google My Business and Facebook, because they are applications that can specify the restaurant’s location and customers tend to look up information on their smartphones on a regular basis.
Linking your location to searches with Google My Business.
Let’s start with Google My Business. First, you have to learn about Google Maps. Google Maps is a mapping and navigation service that’s linked to Google’s search engine. Everyone can pinpoint the locations they want on the map, whether it’s their home, workplace or frequently visited place, but the pins will be displayed only on the map of the logged in user. You could say each account has its own personal map.
Therefore, in order to make your restaurant’s pinned location available for viewing when the customers search or it in Google, you need to use Google My Business (GMB). GMB will add your restaurant’s information into its database and display it when the name of your registered restaurant is searched. The restaurant’s information, such as the directions, name and work hours, will also show up in Googles other products such as Google Maps and Google Search. Moreover, you can add promotions or additional information.
So, pinpointing your restaurant’s location on GMB will help customers who search for your restaurant on Google have a good chance at finding your restaurant. They might search for the restaurant directly or words related to the restaurant, the type of restaurant or the area they want. For example, they might search for “A coffee shop in Bang Len” or “A coffee shop near me”, etc.
If you’ve never pinned your restaurant’s location on Google My Business, try the following steps
Let’s start with Google My Business. If you don’t have a Gmail account, you’ll have to open one first to gain access to the GMB service. Go to the website or search for “Google My Business” on Google.
(In this article, we’re mainly going to focus on registering using a smartphone.)
First, log in using your Gmail account.
If you don’t have an account, create one with Google first by clicking on “Create an Account”.)
- Search your restaurant’s name. Maybe you’ve registered, been mentioned or pinned your restaurant in another service before. Your restaurant’s name might show up. However, if you can’t find it, click on “Add your business to Google” to add your restaurant.
4. What’s the name of your business? The name can’t contain any profanity. The name should also clearly indicate the type of your restaurant, for example, “(Restaurant Name) Short Order Restaurant”, “Steak in Front of the University”, “Pa Yao’s Desserts”, etc., because it makes it easy to understand and search for than just entering your restaurant’s name.
5. Choose the category that fits your business best. Here, you can’t specify your restaurant’s type yourself. They have you choose the category that most closely describes your restaurant. Or, if none of the options match, just choose “Restaurant”.
6. This is important: The system will ask, “Do you want to add a location customers can visit, like a store or office?” If your restaurant has a storefront or a dine-in service, choose “Yes”. If you don’t choose “Yes”, you won’t be able to pin your location.
7. Then, the system will have you specify the details of your restaurant’s location, such as the alley, village and road, in detail.
8. The system will bring up the Google Maps. We recommend you change the view to satellite view by clicking on “Satellite” and then zoom in on the map to find your restaurant.
How to find your restaurant’s location.
Usually, if the location was entered clearly, the map will automatically pin the location. If you find that the pin is not on your restaurant, you move it and re-pin it. Try looking at the nearby locations such as malls, public parks, intersections, roads and alleyways. If your restaurant is in a building, we recommend that place the pin at the building’s entrance.
Tip
- Don’t forget that each mobile phone’s location system might not have the same accuracy, so the pin might be misplaced, for example, you placed the pin at the center of the restaurant, but the map shows the pin at the back of the restaurant. Therefore, you have to consider convenient routes for the customers.
- If your restaurant is next to a road, you should pin the front of the restaurant. If you’re near an intersection or an alleyway, try pinning the location near the main road first.
- Before clicking on “Next”, check once more to make sure the pin is actually on your restaurant.
Once you’ve successfully pinned your location on Google, the system will ask you to verify that the business is really yours by sending you the verification code to your address by mail, which can take a while.
While you’re waiting, you can add information such as when your restaurant opens and closes and on what days as well as restaurant details, such as pictures of the menu and promotions, until the verification code arrives and you can enter the code to verify yourself.
That’s it! Once you have the verification code from Google, you can use all the features of Google My Business and the location you pinned will come up when customers search for it. However, if you don’t reply to any of the reviews or don’t update the status of the restaurant for a long time, your restaurant will stop showing up on searches.
If you want to change the location of the restaurant, you should only do it after receiving the confirmation. If you want to change the location of your restaurant to be more accurate or if you made a mistake when pinning the location, try the following steps:
- From the logged-in GMB page, go to the menu and click “Info”
- Click on the address field to enter the editing process and then change the location or move the pin to where you want it to be. Then, click “Apply” at the top right corner.
Google My Business has many other functions. You can learn more about them from their website.
Setting the location on Facebook.
From the 45 million Facebook users in 2019, you can’t deny that Facebook is just as equally interesting as Google My Business. Nowadays, almost every shop needs a Facebook page and a favorite feature for shops is the check-in feature. Although you don’t need to go to the restaurant to check in, having the location can help bring customers to the restaurant.
Concerning your Facebook page, usually customers can access your page via several channels. If they Google your restaurant and your restaurant has a page, the page will come up in the search. The customers can go to your Facebook page first to check the info such as the location and other details as well as reviews on the page. Or, another channel is when a customer who’s already using Facebook sees your ad (if you promote or buy ads) or your restaurant’s reviews on any review page or even a check-in by their own Facebook friend.
To set your location on a Facebook page, try the following steps (When setting the location on Facebook, we recommend that you use a computer because Facebook’s interface is rather small an inconvenient, although you could create a page on your mobile phone first):
Once you have a Facebook page for your restaurant, go to your page and click “Edit Page Info”. (You need authorization to edit or you need to be the page’s administrator).
Once you’re on the Info page, scroll down until you find the Location section. (As for the Info section, we recommend that you add as many details as you can into as many spaces as you can because it’s great for informing customers).
Customers visit my business at my street address with the “In the Location” section, enter the address of your restaurant in detail and choose the town followed by the postal code. Then, drag the pin onto the location of your restaurant and then click to check the box.
Your restaurant’s page will now have a map in the About section. Customers can click to access the section and link them to Google Maps for their travelling convenience. They can also check in at the restaurant.
Tip: Pinning your location in Facebook can be rather difficult and it’s usually inaccurate. However, you should test it by opening the map again and try to position it as accurately as possible.
It’s probably not too difficult to pinpoint your restaurant’s location on Google My Business and Facebook page. It might be a bit of a hassle in the beginning but, we guarantee it’ll be a useful marketing strategy for your restaurant. See you again in the more interesting articles by MHA.
Image credits: Je-im Pueakhima
Hyakhaw Café
Facebook Page
Google My Business
