Your Website and Google Business Profile

For most local food businesses, Google Business Profile (GBP) sees more traffic than the actual website. When someone Googles your restaurant name, your area plus a cuisine ("Thai food Hackney"), or any "near me" query, GBP is what they land on. The map result, the hours, the photos, the reviews, the call button, and — critically — the order link all sit inside that single Google panel. Most people never click through to your website at all.

If you have not claimed your listing, do that today. Search your business name on Google, find the panel on the right, and click "Own this business?" or "Claim this business". Verification usually involves a postcard, a phone call, or a video call. It takes a few days at most. Until you have claimed it, you have no control over what people see — and Google will sometimes display links to delivery aggregators on your panel by default, sending your customers straight to the people charging you commission.

Once you have claimed it, the rest of this section takes about thirty minutes.

Once claimed, work through the following in order. Each one closes a small revenue leak, and the effect compounds.

• Set the order link to your ordering page. In the GBP dashboard, go to Edit profile → More → Order ahead links. Add your TypeMenu ordering URL. If Google has populated the field with a Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats link, remove it and add yours — Google will let you set the primary link, and it should be yours.
• Add your website URL. Even if your website is light, this matters for SEO trust and for the small percentage of customers who do click through. Make sure the link works on mobile.
• Get your hours right, including holidays. The number-one reason for negative reviews on local food businesses is "I drove there and they were closed." Set your regular hours, then go in monthly and add bank holiday hours. A wrong-hours listing actively costs you orders — customers who get a "closed" result will not retry.
• Upload 15-30 photos. Food photos taken on a recent phone in natural light beat professional shoots from five years ago. Include three or four shots of the venue interior, a couple of the exterior and signage, and a strong mix of your most popular dishes. Listings with more than 20 photos consistently outperform sparse ones in Google's local rankings.
• Write a description with the words customers actually search. "Independent Thai kitchen in Hackney. Direct ordering for collection and delivery across E8 and E9." Include your area, cuisine, and the words "direct ordering" or "order online" — these are the queries customers type.
• Reply to every review. Especially the negative ones, briefly and without defensiveness. Google's algorithm rewards engaged listings, and prospective customers read your replies as a signal of how you handle problems. A polite, specific reply to a one-star review can be more reassuring than the original complaint was damaging.
• Post weekly. GBP Posts (in the dashboard's "Add update" section) are short updates that appear on your listing for seven days. A weekly post — new menu item, opening change, a special — keeps your listing active and gives Google a steady signal that your business is alive. Always include the order link.

Your website does less traffic than your GBP, but the visitors who do arrive there are higher intent — they have specifically searched you out. The mistake most independents make is treating the website as a brochure: pretty hero image, "Our Story", a long menu PDF, and the order link buried in the footer. Customers who came to order leave because the route is unclear.

The fix is structural, not cosmetic. Treat ordering as the primary action on every page, and design around it.

• "Order Online" button in the header, on every page. Sticky on mobile so it stays visible as the customer scrolls. This single change moves the needle more than any other tweak — many websites bury it in a sub-menu or only show it on the homepage.
• Hero section CTA that says "Order Online" or "Order for Collection". Not "View Menu", which sends customers to a PDF that does not let them order. The hero is the most-seen part of your site — point it at the action that makes you money.
• Replace your menu PDF with a link to your ordering page. If a customer wants to see your menu, send them somewhere they can also order. PDFs are friction — slow to load on mobile, awkward to navigate, and they end the journey on Adobe Reader, not your basket.
• Add the ordering link to your contact page, your about page, and your footer. Anywhere a customer might land on second-thought, the order route should be one click away.
• Remove aggregator badges and links from your own homepage. Every "Order on Deliveroo" badge on your site is you actively paying commission to send your own visitors away. If you still use aggregators, that is fine — but do not give them your own front-page real estate.

If your website is on Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, or WordPress, all of the above takes a single afternoon. If you do not have a website at all yet, your GBP plus your TypeMenu ordering page covers 90% of what most independents need — do not let "we need a website first" stop you from getting the rest of this playbook live.

Pick a single ordering URL and use it consistently across every surface — your GBP, your website, your social profiles, your email signatures, your QR codes, your flyers. Inconsistency creates friction (a customer who recognises a link from one place is more likely to trust it on another) and makes measuring lift impossible.

Your TypeMenu URL works perfectly for this. If you have a custom domain pointed at it, even better — but you do not need one. The goal is not branded vanity; it is having one route to ordering that you can paint everywhere customers might see you.