Your catering marketing plan needs to take full advantage of the tools that Google makes readily available to you. Not only can Google help you attract catering customers, but their suite of free marketing tools can help you optimize and scale your campaigns, resulting in business growth.

Google is the number one source of website traffic. Sure, there are other options out there, but 9 out of 10 people are going to turn to Google when they are in need of a local catering company. It’s been this way for several years and it will continue to remain this way for the foreseeable future.

Google is where you will pull the majority of your organic search traffic from and their pay-per-click advertising platform provides you with one of the biggest paid traffic opportunities available online. Your catering marketing plan needs to revolve around Google — it’s the number one source of traffic.

Aside from search engine optimization and catering PPC, Google has several other marketing tools that you can take advantage of that cost your business nothing, yet provide massive growth opportunities.

Knowing what is available and how they can help your business grow can play an instrumental role in the overall success of your catering company’s marketing effort. Let’s focus on the four most impactful Google marketing tools you need to master in order to experience exponential business growth.

Google My Business

In order to attract relevant traffic to your website it requires a well-designed catering SEO strategy, with a focus on high visibility in the local Google Maps results. These are the prominent local search results that place local businesses on a map right below the paid ads and above the organic results.

As a local business you want to be listed here, and the higher up in the results the more website traffic opportunities you have. Google’s algorithm pulls data and information from Google My Business profiles for the map results.

Your catering business can set up a Google My Business profile for free. They key is to optimize it correctly in order to show up in Google’s organic results — and more specifically, the Google Maps section.

Our catering SEO service includes full optimization of your Google My Business profile, and it’s an ongoing process to improve your ranking position — even when the top spot is achieved it’s an ongoing process to strengthen that position in order to maintain it.

Google Analytics

Having a clear understanding of where your website traffic is coming from and what traffic is converting into catering leads and catering customers is the only way to optimize and scale a search engine marketing campaign.

Google Analytics is a free tool that you can use to monitor, track and analyze all of your website traffic. All you have to do is install code on your website or use a plugin and input your unique Tracking ID. If this all seems overwhelming don’t worry — we can help you get your Google Analytics installed and tracking properly for you.

With tracking set up correctly it allows us to see what traffic sources produce the best results in terms of converting leads, which we can then dive into in order to determine what lead source converts into paying customers.

With access to this data we can then increase the search engine marketing across the traffic sources that produce the best results, while eliminating the traffic sources that are not producing measurable results.

Google Ads

Your catering marketing plan is going to include SEO — organic traffic hitting your website around the clock is a beautiful thing, but search engine optimization needs to be done right to achieve long-term results, which takes time.

You want local catering customers now — not later. This is where Google Ads comes to the rescue. With its several ad formats and offerings, you are able to secure real estate at the top of the search results for keywords and search terms specific to the location of your catering company, and then continue to market to those interested prospects until they convert into a customer.

There are three Google Ads products that when combined together create a highly effective catering paid media strategy. I’ll explain each below.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

These are the text-based ads that appear at the very top and bottom of the search results. You bid on specific keywords and search terms, and the amount you are willing to bid for each click determines what position your ads show up in for each term.

When your ads are clicked on, the visitor is re-directed to the website URL that you have specified for each ad. You want to make sure you are sending traffic to relevant landing pages, with a definitive CTA (call-to-action) that is designed to convert that consumer into a lead.

Each keyword and search phrase in your catering PPC campaign will require a bidding strategy according to its competition and search volume. You will want to have a bidding strategy that gives you the most visibility while also keeping your lead acquisition cost within budget.

It takes a lot of testing and optimizing in order to fine-tune your PPC. Achieving the desired CPA and lead volume is something we specialize in, which is why we are the industry leaders when it comes to catering PPC lead generation.

GDN

The Google Display Network (GDN) allows you to place display ads across all of the websites within the network. This includes millions of websites, from major media outlets to smaller niche-specific blogs.

The most effective way to leverage the GDN is by using it as a second-touch approach. You can run a re-marketing campaign that will only display your banner ads (dynamic or static) to people who have previously visited your website.

You would be shooting in the dark if you ran displays ads to a random audience — the chances of them being in the market for a caterer in your local market would be very slim. But, by re-marketing you are placing your offer in front of an audience that has recently shown interest in your catering services. This eliminates wasted ad spend and results in a much higher conversion rate and lower lead acquisition cost.

Local Service Ads

Google local service ads are similar to standard PPC ads, but rather than being re-directed to your website when clicked on, the individual is given two options — complete a request for more information or connect with your business immediately on the phone.

This ad format is a great way to target mobile users that have an immediate need for a local catering company. When you receive calls and leads via local service ads it’s typically a high quality lead that converts at a higher rate than standard PPC and display ads.

These ads also offer consumers the peace of mind of Google Guaranteed — a program that guarantees the service up to the total cost. This insurance instills consumer trust and results in more leads and sales.

You field, respond to and manage all calls and leads from your Google local service ads through an app. It’s easy to use and extremely convenient, allowing you to be 100 percent mobile.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is something we encourage all catering business owners to become familiar with, even if we handle the entire digital marketing effort. It’s a Google marketing tool that allows you to monitor the overall health of your website and see how the SEO effort is impacting traffic.

Creating a catering advertising campaign that delivers amazing results and business growth takes a lot of strategic planning. The data within Google Search Console allows us to see where traffic is coming from, what keywords and search terms are causing your catering website to receive impressions organically, and what the click-through rates are for all of those keywords and search terms.

We are able to use this information to adjust the PPC campaign as well as optimize the catering SEO effort. Often times we can uncover low competition keywords and search queries that we were not previously targeting.

While the search volume may be lower than most competitive terms, if we constantly identify little opportunities the amount of extra organic traffic we can pull in monthly exponentially increases.

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