The must-haves
- A menu as text on a web page, with prices. Not only a PDF or a photo of the paper menu. Text loads fast, can be zoomed, is read by Google and AI assistants, and is accessible to screen readers.
- Today’s hours, accurate, including holidays and the off-season. Matching your Google Business Profile exactly.
- Address with a map link, and parking if it’s not obvious.
- A tap-to-call number that rings the host stand, not the office.
- Reservations or ordering, one tap from the home page, if you take them.
- Real photos of the food and the room.
Mistakes that cost tables
- A menu that’s two seasons out of date, with dishes and prices you no longer serve.
- Specials and events from last year still on the home page. See expired offers on your website.
- A slow site on a phone because of huge photos or video.
- Online ordering through a third-party link that takes a large cut, when a direct option would do.
- Hours on the website that disagree with Google.
How Google uses it
Google reads your menu, cuisine, price range and hours from your website and your Business Profile, and uses them to match searches like “seafood Murrells Inlet” or “breakfast open now”. Structured data for restaurants, with the menu linked, makes that unambiguous. Keeping the menu as text is the biggest single win.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.