As a pizzeria owner, you run a local business with a physical location, but that doesn’t mean you can disregard your online presence. Building and maintaining your digital presence is the key to more people discovering your pizzeria and more customers walking through your door. We want to help you succeed, so today, we are starting a brand-new article series, just for pizza restaurant owners, about building an online presence.
This blog post will explain why having an online business presence is important and how you can build it. In future articles, we’ll load you with practical tips on each element of online presence listed in this article. Get ready to build an online presence that will get your pizzeria noticed! We start today with the lesson below.
What Is Online Presence?
First, let us begin with a simple definition of an online presence.
Online presence is your business’s existence in the digital world—the sum of all your activity and content, which a person can find when they search for your business on the internet.
Others outside of your business can contribute to your online presence. For example, Google may list your business even though you haven’t claimed your listing, or people may post reviews of your pizzeria even though you are unaware of it. But for the most part, online presence is something you create yourself and, thus, something you should be intentional about. We’ll get to the ‘how’ in a bit, but first, let’s tackle the question of ‘why?’
Why Your Digital Presence Matters
You’ve got a restaurant with a physical location to worry about. You have orders to take, pizzas to make, and customers to satisfy. So why should you also spend time cultivating your online presence? Here are some of the many reasons.
1. Your customers are online.
Even though your customers do business with you in person, they often start their buying journey online. Recent research shows that 76 percent of consumers look for a company’s online presence before visiting in person. Further, nearly half of consumers are likely to visit the physical location after they find a strong online presence. Thus, developing your online presence is part of the adage to ‘go where your customers are.’
2. Your online presence educates prospective customers.
Customers want to know where you’re located. They want to learn about your menu. They’d love to see pictures of the inside of your restaurant and what the food looks like. Your online presence makes it easier for them to reach your business and understand what it’s like to purchase from you. Further, your online presence helps you tell your story and connect with customers, new and old.
3. No online presence is a red flag.
In this day and age, people expect that all businesses will be online. In fact, almost two-thirds of people won’t associate with a company if they can’t find information online. Having an online business presence helps boost your restaurant’s credibility, and lacking a digital presence creates distrust.
4. Your online presence helps with marketing.
A final reason to work on building your online presence is that it helps with your marketing efforts. Your online presence can create awareness about your restaurant, show off your menu, and quickly convert internet searchers to paying customers. As you build your online presence over time, you grow an empire of marketing materials working in the background for your pizzeria 24/7.
5 Ways to Build Your Online Business Presence
The point is clear – your digital presence matters! The next question you may have is, “So, what can I do to build my online presence?”
We have divided the many elements of online business presence into five main categories below. For each one, we have some basic information…but stay tuned because as we continue this series, we will create an article for each to share practical advice and guide your efforts in each area.
1. Your Website
When a person wants to learn more about your pizza restaurant, their natural inclination will be to visit your website. The beauty of having a website (beyond the fact that you can be listed in search results!) is that you control the conversation on your website. By using your logo, colors, and fonts, visitors can become familiar with your branding (which will aid in brand recognition later on). You can also tell your story using words, pictures, and videos to share important information and sway website visitors to choose your pizzeria.
2. Social Media
Your social media presence is another important element that makes up your digital presence. Once again, customers expect all businesses to be on social media, so it will appear odd to them if you’re missing. Social media is a more dynamic form of online presence because you can post updates instantly, anytime. This makes it a great way to build relationships with followers and fans and keep your community posted on changing events (such as coupons and specials, changes in restaurant hours, etc.).
3. SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a complex subject, but to simplify, it has to do with showing up in search results when a person searches for your pizzeria or a related term (for example, “pizza places near me”). So, what can you do to increase your chances of showing up on the first page of search results? We mentioned your website already, and two other options are to start a business blog for ongoing content and to claim your business listings on pages like Google Business, Yelp, etc.
4. List Building/Email Marketing
Another aspect of online presence is email marketing. Email marketing allows you to share information, deals, etc., digitally and one-on-one with customers. Email marketing begins with list building because you can’t send emails until you have email addresses to send them to! After you collect email addresses, you can use emails to digitally communicate with customers in their most personal digital space—their inbox.
5. Online Advertising
A final aspect of your online business presence to consider is your use of online advertising. The ‘organic’ forms of digital presence listed above can take a while to build, but with advertising, you can instantly boost visibility by showing up at the top of search results or in people’s social media feeds.
Building Your Online Presence One Element at a Time
In this article, we’ve shared an overview of our topic by explaining why an online business presence is important for pizza businesses and five ways to build your digital presence. Next, we’ll walk you through each of the five elements above, one by one, giving you practical tips and advice for how to build each aspect of your online presence. We have a lot to cover in the weeks ahead, so get ready for a fun and educational journey with us!
