How to Grow Your Café on Google: 7 Strategies for Coffee Shops

Even in today's AI world, 97% of consumers use search to find local businesses. So you might be putting a lot of time and energy into social media or to running in store promotions, which are all great, but you're probably neglecting Google a little bit. So if you run a coffee shop or a restaurant, this is the video for you. We're going to show you how to make Google your top growth channel. Let's start with reviews because nothing drives traffic like a strong star rating. Whether it's people searching for coffee near me or lunch near me. It's if you have a 4.5 rating versus like a 3.8, that's obviously going to make a huge difference. Now the key here is to prompt people at the right time, right? You see all those stores where they have review us on like every table and that might not be the right time. And honestly, it's probably like cheapening your brand a little bit by doing that. There are a lot more elegant ways to do this. So once people download your app, we actually, after they place an order with you, we will populate a message there saying, hey, leave us a review on Google. So that's the perfect time because they've already placed their order with you. They're kind of in that limbo in between placing the order and picking it up. And it's a great time to leave a review. They've probably already been at your store so they know all about you and then boom, they're going to have a photo of their drink in a little bit. So photos are great to have as well. So that's a quick one, two punch. Just by having a mobile app and being able to prompt people at the right time. The second thing you're going to want to do with your Google business listing is to optimize it. So you should be uploading fresh pictures of your drinks and of the interior of your space and even the exterior of your space. Make sure your hours are accurate at all your locations and just in general that the information is correct, that you have a good summary there. That's really important. I think later on you're also going to want to optimize either your menu page or your ordering page to make sure that a you don't have like paid listings. Like you shouldn't have your doordash or your ubereats there. You should have your first party ordering system. So for per diem it would be your app or your online ordering through per diem and you would have that as the preferred option under the ordering or you can put your app landing page from per diem under your menu section. We have a lot of coffee shops and restaurants that do this and they get a ton of app downloads. Think about everyone that wants to see your menu. Now they're going to download your app and now they're going to be locked in and have that experience. The next thing you're going to want to do is rank in Google's three pack. So these are the three listings when you search for like cappuccino, best cappuccino in Union Square or you know, best breakfast burrito in Fort Greene. So these are the things that you'll want on your website, on Yelp, on Google Maps. You want on your business listing to make sure like these things that are important to you are listed there and you're consistent with with it. And like let's say on your website you want that on your locations page, something that Google's going to read. And so this is a way to really like stand out for certain things. Especially if you're near some sort of landmark. You know, if you're in a city, near a subway station or something like that, those are things that people search for, hey, I have a meeting at this place, I need coffee near, you know, again Union Station. And then boom, you're going to be in that three pack. That's how you can drive a lot of organic traffic. Fourth thing you want to optimize is your Google Maps SEO listing. So on your listing you're going to want to make sure that you know your pin is in the accurate position that your categories are correct, whether it's coffee shop or cafe. And again, encourage people with those reviews to upload photos. The best way to do this is to have, you know, great looking drinks and food that people are going to want to put on social. People want to be associated with those cool things. So anything you can do, whether it's on your cups or anything like that, to make you really stand out in terms of imagery images, get 2x the click rate that a typical review would get. The fifth thing you want to do is to post and respond regularly. So Google will really reward you for posting on using Google posts. So this is stuff that you're posting on social anyhow. Hey, seasonal specials like a pumpkin spice latte, you know, whatever it is, you're running out a new happy hour post about that, add an image that helps out. As I mentioned before, images get 2x to click, click through rates. And so that's one way to do Things Also, you want to respond to these reviews that people are leaving for you, good or bad. You're responding to a bad review and doing it in like a respectful manner. You know, it can be a little hard at times and even if it's kind of unwarranted, but those can really help help to turn critics into loyal customers. The sixth way that you can be optimizing your Google business listing is by answering questions in Google's Q and A. This is another underutilized feature. Everything from, do we have wifi? Are there public restrooms to like, you know, do you guys carry oat milk? Stuff like that. That'll be really helpful after I find you and I need this one piece of information. Is this a good place to meet for a business meeting? You know, stuff like that, you know, so you'll be generating on those questions, you know, more SEO that'll help Google find you even further. So you should really be leaning into this. And, you know, it'll save your staff time as well. So they're not going to have to answer a lot more questions that they probably don't want to. So the seventh way to increase your optimization on Google is to leverage Google's business insights. This, you can see how people are finding you. Like, if you see a spike all of a sudden in iced, you know, lattes near me, then that's a great queue for you. Maybe that's a promo that you want to run the near future. You, you can then take these insights and we help you. And Square helps you build out marketing groups around these. So then you can market specifically to people that, let's say, you know, loved iced lattes. And so you can put different promotions in the app in terms of, like, banner ads. You can send out push notifications to this specific group, whatever it is. But the more segmentation you do and the more you understand your customers, the more you'll be able to deliver something that they'll actually want. So that's a wrap for today's show. To summarize, social media is amazing for getting the word out there and generating awareness about your brand and your store. But the reality is in that consideration phase where I'm making the decision prior to going somewhere, that's where Google really trumps everyone. I'm going to Google, hey, best coffee near me, best place to meet for lunch, stuff like that. And that's where you really can start using different, you know, strategies basically to optimize your listing so you can rank higher there. And so per diem helps you do this because again, after every order, we're going to be populating this message. Hey, leave us a review on Google. The more reviews you get, there'll be more positive reviews in there. Don't worry about the negative ones. The positive ones always outweigh those. And so just drive people there. I think that's the key thing, doing it at the right time and then making sure just your listing looks good, it's fresh, it has all those images, everything that you're already doing on social media. Just make sure to do that as well on Google, and then you'll be already 10 steps ahead of everyone else. Good luck.