So you have created a meal prep and food delivery service, you have poured your self into creating the best menu with the freshest ingredients with the most optimized delivery plan. You’ve added in all the ingredients to make a successful online business, but now you need orders and some SEO. This guide contains actionable SEO for a meal prep service or meal delivery service.
Zulu Shack Creative has worked with many meal prep and delivery businesses and we use these tips to help them reach more customers online. These tips are for beginners, owners or marketing managers who don’t have a lot of experience providing SEO for a meal delivery service or SEO in general.
Before We Continue
To be clear, these tips are for SEO which standards for search engine optimization. These tips will help you find hungry customers organically. This is not PPC or paid, or ads. This will help you rank naturally, or organically in Google search results and hopefully rank in front of the right clients.
ALSO
Remember that you should understand how your customers think and what they are searching for online. That is something we won’t cover here but you can read our blogs on customer focus to understand how to think and search like your target audience.
[1] GEO Target Everything
GEO target is a fancy SEO way of saying location specific. So, your keywords should be location specific, the content on your pages should be location specific, your page titles should be location specific, you should have locations on your contact us page. Locations everywhere! Location hashtags as well. Any opportunity!
Take every opportunity you can to get specific. Build out pages for each location you service and add those pages to your site contact us page.
Then, take a few hours, on a Sunday night if you must, if have an intern do it if you can, and register your business on every website that supports local listings. Use HubSpot’s list of 57 local business directories to get started.
[2] Gotta Get Social
SEO for a meal prep service is completely reliant on social media. The best social media for a meal prep service in order is Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. You have to understand social media so brush up on your Instagram for business, Pinterest for businesses and Facebook for business.
Here are some quick tips for success on social media.
- Images
Get good at taking pictures! Learn about framing, about lighting and about editing. If you can’t do it, then hire a social media expert to do it for you. Meal prep services should take compelling images of the food you prepare.
- Engage – Do NOT Set & Forget
Engage with your audience and with the community. Reply to comments, and comment on other pages within your niche. You don’t have to engage with competitors, but you do have to engage with local business and pages that your audience is interested in as well.
Do not just set it and forget it. This is worse than doing nothing!
- Have Some Personality
You know what sucks? When someone does nothing but talk about themselves. You’ve probably got friends on Instagram, or Facebook or Twitter that just talk about themselves o post selfies with the same pose in every picture. They suck. If you only post about your business or products you are just like them. Obnoxious, self-involved and boring.
Post about diets, post about your experiences at the farmers market, post about your employees, about your customers. Get personal and have personality.
- Reuse What Works
Have you noticed that some of your posts get more attention, more engagement than others? Use that information! Pay attention to the analytics and insights!
Post time, post type, hashtags, the post itself. Remember what works and replicate it.
Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
Your Google My Business listing is so important. If you haven’t created one, or you haven’t claimed your Google My Business listing, do it right away!
In your dashboard you will see lots of great little features. Here’s what you should focus on:
- Information
Make sure all your information if correct and up to date. This includes address, phone numbers, business hours etc.
- Your Business Description
You can optimize your business description and add in lots of great keywords. Discuss the diets you cater towards, your business mission, and why you are the best meal prep and delivery business in the area!
- Posts
Google Posts is a relatively new feature. Each post will appear towards the bottom of your Google My Business listing and will be visible for one week. Use this space to post your latest blog, talk about an event or even add a special or coupon.
Update Your Blog Consistently
This is one of the more tedious aspects of SEO for a meal delivery service, but it will set you apart from competitors. Especially meal prep services that don’t see the value.
Create blogs about your recipes, about the diets you cater for, about the events you attend. You can turn your staff meetings into blog posts, you can turn your best customer interactions into blog posts. There is so much opportunity!
Blogs are the easiest, quickest and most assured way to organically rank for your industry keywords. If you don’t have the time, then contact an SEO company to do it for you. The few hundred you invest every month will pay off in large dividends in the months and years to come!
Make Sure Your Site is Fast & Mobile Friendly
Finally, ensure your site is mobile friendly and fast! These days, there really isn’t a choice in the matter. If your meal prep and delivery service website is slow, you will lose customers and ranking.
Use the Google Mobile Friendliness Test and Mobile Speed and Performance Test to know where you stand.
Any questions? Contact an SEO pro, a web developer or digital matketing expert at Zulu Shack for more information!