Make your restaurant visible on Google

Your Google Business Profile

The Google Business Profile is what appears in Google Maps and to the right of the results when someone searches for your restaurant. It is often a customer’s first contact with you.

• Claim and verify your profile. Without verification, you cannot edit it or reply to reviews. If it already exists, request management of it from Google Maps.
• Choose the right main category. “Burger restaurant” or “Pâtisserie” rather than “Restaurant”: it is what makes you appear in searches by cuisine.
• Exact opening hours, exceptions included. Bank holidays, school breaks, one-off closures: a customer who finds a closed door does not come back, and sometimes leaves a review.
• Phone, website, menu, ordering. Add the link to your menu and to your delivery platforms if you use any.
• Attributes. Dine-in, takeaway, outdoor seating, accessibility, vegetarian options: they serve precise searches.
• A short, concrete description. What you serve, your speciality, your neighbourhood. No list of keywords.

Reviews: getting them and replying to them

Reviews reassure the customer who is hesitating. Google also says it takes the number of reviews and the rating into account to estimate how well known a business is in its local results.

Getting more

• Ask at the right moment: at the end of the meal, when the customer tells you it was good, or a few hours after their visit.
• Make it easy: a QR code that leads to your review page, near the till or on the receipt.
• Never a reward in exchange. Offering a discount or a product for a review is against the rules of Google and of review platforms. Asking, yes; paying, no.

Replying

• Reply to every review, positive and negative, in a few lines.
• On a negative review: say thank you, acknowledge the problem if it is real, explain what is changing, and offer to talk in person. Future customers read your reply as much as the review.
• Do not reply in the heat of the moment. A calm reply the next day beats an offended reply within the hour.

Photos that make people hungry, and that are real

• Your dishes as they are served, in natural light, close up. A retouched dish disappoints on arrival.
• The shopfront, so your restaurant is recognised from the street, and the dining room, so people know whether to come as a family, on a date or with friends.
• Recent photos: with each change of menu, decor or season, add a few.
• Vertical format for everything that goes on social networks and in apps: it is the phone’s format.

Customers also add their own photos to your listing: they are often the most viewed. A well-plated dish at every service produces them naturally.

Your listings on other sites, YumSpot included

Google does not only look at your Google profile. Guide, review, delivery and restaurant discovery sites each have a page about your restaurant, and those pages can also appear when someone searches for your cuisine in your town.

• The same name, address and phone number everywhere. An old address or an outdated number on one site sows doubt, for Google and for the customer alike.
• Claim the listings that already exist rather than creating new ones: you can then correct the opening hours and add your photos.
• Check them twice a year, and after every change of opening hours or menu.

Your listing on YumSpot

On YumSpot, every restaurant has a public page on yumspot.app: address, opening hours, rating, reviews and delivery links. It is a web page that Google can show when someone searches for where to eat, in addition to your Google profile. From 6 to 22 October 2026, YumSpot listings were shown more than 100,000 times in Google. These are displays in the results, all listings combined, not a promise for any particular restaurant.

Your listing may already exist: claim it or ask for your restaurant to be added so the information stays up to date.

TikTok and Reels videos: show the dish

A video shows in a few seconds what a photo cannot: the crunch, the portion, the atmosphere. No need for a film shoot: a phone and a dish coming out of the kitchen are enough.

• Show the dish in the first few seconds: the cross-section of a burger, the crunch of a piece of chicken, the glaze on a pastry.
• Give the useful information in the video or the caption: the restaurant’s name, the neighbourhood, the dish, and add the location.
• Post regularly rather than a lot at once: a new dish, an offer, behind the scenes at service.
• Welcome food creators: a video shot by a creator who liked your restaurant reaches people who do not know you yet. Stay transparent: social networks require a video made in exchange for a free meal to be flagged as a partnership.

On YumSpot, your restaurant’s videos run in the app’s feed, in front of people looking for where to eat around them, and lead to your listing. You then see how many customers came through YumSpot.

Measuring what works

• Your Google profile statistics: the searches that found you, calls, direction requests, clicks to your website.
• The question at the counter: “How did you find out about the restaurant?” A week of noted answers says a lot.
• Return visits: a new customer who does not come back is expensive to win. A loyalty card shows you how many return; the guide Digital loyalty card for restaurants explains how to launch one.

The 10-point checklist

1. My Google profile is claimed and verified.
2. The main category describes my cuisine.
3. Opening hours are exact, exceptions included.
4. Phone, website, menu and ordering links are filled in.
5. I have recent photos of my dishes, the shopfront and the dining room.
6. I ask for reviews without offering anything in exchange, and I reply to all of them.
7. Name, address and phone number are identical on every site.
8. My YumSpot listing is claimed and up to date.
9. I post videos of my dishes, with the location tagged.
10. I measure where my customers come from, and how many return.