What has only been assumed as a ranking signal in the past has now been confirmed through a report put together by SEO experts. Restaurants have a variety of ways they can upload their menu items onto their Google Business Profile, including through links, photos, and Google’s own menu transcription. Posting your menu online has always been considered a best practice with obvious non-SEO benefits, such as allowing users to preview the business while in their decision-making process, but reports now confirm the direct SEO benefits as well. In the most basic sense, if a restaurant has “Caesar Salad” on its menu without it being listed anywhere else on its online presence, it can rank for any queries that contain the “Caesar Salad” keyword.
Another recently confirmed ranking factor is popular times. As Google Maps and other GPS applications track user locations through their smartphones, Google Maps often provides a “popular times” metric for listed businesses. This is useful for users to know when businesses may be crowded, but Google has now confirmed that it also uses this data to adjust rankings based on the time of day. Busier locations receive a rankings boost compared to less crowded locations, and where your business will rank can fluctuate based on this traffic. One benefit of this is that lunch venues will rank better during midday hours compared to those which are primarily geared towards dinner. This creates a positive feedback loop for businesses with specialized hours while not promoting businesses outside of their planned peak operating times.
Finally, Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed that country code domain names are relevant to search results. This means that URLs ending in “.ca” will rank better for Canadian users, while “.de” will for Germans, regardless of the actual language used for the query. Top-level generic domains such as “.io” are unaffected.
The reason for specifying the country is that Google believes users will want to shop as locally as possible even when shopping online. Shipping from a Canadian retailer to an end-user within Canada will always be more convenient than ordering the same product from an American or other distant retailer. This also means that international retailers with shipping warehouses in various countries should invest in unique domains for each country they serve. If you are an international dealer with shopping depots in America, the UK, and Canada, a unique domain for each region should be considered.