Restaurant Job Board Blog

With the web going social over the last few years how does a Restaurant business know where to spend their efforts online…? How do you get your restaurant to be involved in these online ‘cafe-shaped conversations‘? Where do you find what real restaurant connoisseurs are discussing about your local dinning scene?

Obviously, there are acres and acres of people who are living and moving around locally in proximity to your business. They use the internet to search for credible word of mouth opinions of restaurants. (Who has time to try every fad business that springs up?) With the modern convenience of search engines accessed from handheld phones and Wi-Fi available in establishments that invite any laptop users in makes your online presence even more important (as print media takes a nosedive). The new tool used by millions of consumers are the plethora of restaurant reviews sites.

There is no doubt that when used wisely by a business, online restaurant review sites bring 3rd party credibility which translates to CONVERSATION, which usually will bring in new customers. Isn’t that really the goal? To bring new customers, right? So how does a restaurant biz use these online reviews sites to their advantage?

The first thing you need to do is determine which ones are showing up in the first few pages of the SERP’s. With so many review sites now business can handle monitoring them all, but you want to be sure to know which ones are being found by searchers online.

So we did a little research. Hopefully this will point you in the right direction and save you a little time or at least get your “marketing/brand management” creative juices moving.

What I’m about to share with you is just the result of a little poking around and putting everything in a spreadsheet to make connections and see relevance. You can decide what you want to do with this info.

I used Google (there’s no arguing why right?), and typed in “Top Restaurant Review Sites”, and then “Top 10 Restaurant Review Sites” and took notes on all 1st page search results. Then using these two keyword phrases added modifiers to the end like: “New York”, “Miami”, “San Francisco”, “Los Angeles”, “Montreal”, “Toronto” and “Vancouver”. Noted all results in a spreadsheet to see which ones root url’s kept showing up on the first page results. Then went to alexa.com and quancast.com for traffic statistics of each site in this final list.

Here are the TOP 11 RESTAURANT REVIEW SITES in North America. (Why 11? Because I am tired of “Top 10” Lists They are listed in the order of how frequent they showed up on all search results for my searches.

SIDENOTE: This could be totally different for your searches – especially since many localize search results today are showing different results depending on your IP address.

Beside each website, I’ve noted their approximate monthly unique visitors in the United States – No pity party against Alexa and Quantcast for missing Canadian stats. We Canadians are always forgotten

Anyways, DRUM ROLL PLEEEZE…

1. Gayot.com (115 000/mth)
2. TripAdvisor.com (4.7 million/mth)
3. Yelp.com (4.8 million/mth)
4. Zagat.com (217 000/mth)
5. Epicurious.com (2.1 million/mth)
6. Chowhound.Chow.com (1.1 million/mth)
7. About.com (43.3million/mth)
8. 10Best.com (368 000/mth)
9. SanDiegoRestaurants.com
10. RestaurantSpy.com
11. RealEats.com

What I suggest you do is the same for your local area using your local modifiers (location) and even (type of restaurant). Find what review sites keep showing up in the first page results and then make a plan of action to get your business involved in those online conversations.

One business I know invested in a laptop and Wi-Fi for their restaurant and had their servers at the end of the service ask how their table found everything…? If they seemed like they enjoyed themselves they let them know that if they were willing to add a review to a “such and such” site on the laptop before they left that the restaurant that they would give them a $25 gift card which they could use during their next visit.

Huge win-win! This idea contains Robert Cialdini’s “reciprocal agreement” strategy and gives the customer an ethical bribe, secures future business…all I can say is “Wow!”.

The customer is most likely going to give it a great review. They will secure a return visit through the gift card. What a brilliant way to make getting tons of positive online reviews from your customers before even leaving the premises. Totally awesome idea!

At minimum you want to monitor these review sites and whenever someone reviews your business (good or bad) be sure to add a comment, thanking them for their review. This alone can swing many new customers to your restaurant over others. Also, learn how to handle yourself if you happen to get a negative review by reading “How NOT to Handle an Online Reputation Management Crisis“.

That’s my 2cents for today!

Let us know what you think below…? How do you manage your brand online? How are you dealing with local online reviews of your restaurant? Do have any tips that are working for you that could help another restaurant…? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Bartending 101 is don’t do this:

If you want to be a flair bartender, be sure that you know what you are doing and practice, practice, practice before bringing it to work.

Most restaurants these days have a website to try and drive more business,
but few have the strategy right.

The issue is clear.

Most restaurants get their websites built, not by internet marketers, but by web designers. The end result is that the strategies for driving more visitors to their websites are often not appropriate for businesses with a local client base. Many restaurants the allow their web presences to die since they only get a tiny trickle of visitors when they depend on google.

This is true because search volumes for locally based businesses are low. They are low because their customers already know where they are and often don’t need a search engine to find them. Search as the only strategy for locally based businesses is a recipe for web failure….but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Unfortunately, at web design school, web designers were not taught about marketing, and locally based businesses like restaurants suffer from this as a “one size fits all” web marketing strategy is applied to most web designers clients.

Restaurants need to change the focus of their websites from…telling people about how great their restaurant is…to capturing and following up with people who find their site either through inhouse promotions, current advertising campaigns, joint ventures or through search engines.

This single change in the purpose of the website enables a restaurant to build a customer database to which it can send its messages over and over again. What most restaurants need isn’t a “brochure” type website describing their business, but a “lead capture” type website which helps them to build their network and leverage the networks of their customers.

When restaurant owners build a database of their customers, they get several great benefits.

Here are the top 10:

1. They can communicate directly with their customers through email quickly, cheaply and frequently
2. They can better measure the effectiveness of other advertising methods
3. They build a growing asset for their business
4. Messages can be optimized over time as responses are completely see through, unlike newspapers
5. Market research on the fly becomes a breeze
6. It becomes easy to measure and split test offers
7. It becomes easy to turbo charge referrals using the web
8. They can easily get their messages into the electronic networks of their customers to take advantage of booming social media and information sharing trends
9. They move away from dying media like newspapers and onto new, booming media like mobile web, social networks and text messaging
10. Its more fun!

If you liked this, please stop by http://socialbuzz.co.uk and download the Maverick Marketing Mastery Report to take your business to the next level.

To a better future!

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Barry Walls currently lives in Ireland and is a man with one mission. After marketing online for several years, he was shocked to find the quality of the web marketing strategies which local businesses had in place. His goal is to show businesses how to use the new emergent opportunities on the internet to boost profits. You can follow Barry on Twitter @Barry_Walls or at his website: http://socialbuzz.co.uk

This is a quick reference guide to how to get hired as a bartender and/or server in the restaurant industry.

In this quick reference guide you will learn:

• How to easily find the Restaurant job you want!
• How to ace your interview!
• How to get bigger tips once you score your dream restaurant job!
• And much, much more!

Applying

For those that have not worked in the restaurant industry before. NEVER and I mean NEVER apply for a restaurant job during peak restaurant hours. Do not submit your resume in during lunch and dinner hours. Managers are way too busy during these times and this shows your inexperience right away. Your resume will go straight to the trash can if you do this.

The best time to apply for a restaurant job is between the hours of 2:30pm and 4:30pm.

Who to give your resume to.

Number 1 mistake that many restaurant job seekers make is giving their resume to the wrong person.

ONLY EVER GIVE YOUR RESUME TO THE MANAGER.

Employees have different motivations than the manager. You never know, maybe the employee knows they are on thin ice and they see your resume as a threat. Or may it’s someone who has the Barback position and this person has been waiting all year to get the opportunity to tend bar, and they see you as another person to keep them from that position. If your resume goes to anyone but the Manager then you might as well have just put into the trash can. You get the message.

Resumes

Let’s talk resumes real quick. Your resume should be 1 page and only have related experience to the hospitality industry. Most manager and/or restaurant owners don’t care if you were the number 1 sales person at your local retail location or if you have a degree in business or whatever.

Most want to be able to scan your resume and quickly identify your restaurant experience. Also, have references available. Make it easy for the manager to want to give that job. Having a references is real bonus. This way they can verify your work habits with from another place of business.

If you have no restaurant experience you will want to get some or maybe back down your expectations of job position to start. Maybe apply for a bus person position or a food runner over applying for a server/bartender position.

It is very common to be quickly promoted in a restaurant if you are good worker. Someone who works hard and learns the job can go from bus person to head server in just a couple months. Taking a server and/or bartender course is always a great idea if you have zero experience. (Although there is nothing better then having ‘real life’ experience)

Here is a list of server/bartending schools:
http://budurl.com/BartenderSchools

Now if you want super fast training that is great and you can download right now… then check out:

http://budurl.com/MakeMoneyBartending

SIDENOTE: Sometimes having no experience can be a benefit. I know several managers who preferred to hire newbies than trying to undo bad habits from an experienced bartender/server.

Interviews

How to ACE your interview.

If you have zero experience and keep being turned down due to this. Offer to work a night for FREE. Offer to prove that you are the individual they are looking for. Often if the management takes you up on this offer you’ll usually still get paid and you’ll score yourself a job, assuming you worked hard.

TIPS

Now that you have some great tips to help you score that dream restaurant job, be sure to read how to increase your tips.

Let us know what you think of this quick reference guide to getting hired in the restaurant industry in the comment section below.