There are an estimated 643,000 searches for “brewery near me” & another 456K searches for “breweries near me,” and this trend is only increasing. People are consistently looking for local breweries to visit or pick-up and try new beer.
If you are not optimizing your brewery for the “near me” searches, you should consider reading on and seeing how easy it can be to attract more people into your taproom. We’ll explain the importance of Local SEO for a Brewery, how to optimize for “near me” related searches for desktop & mobile, and voice-activated local optimization.
How to Optimize for “Breweries Near Me” Google Searches
Optimizing your microbrewery for “near me” searches is crucial to increasing your brewery’s presence in local search, like Google maps, Google search & other voice-activated directions like Alexa.
Here are some ways how to add a brewery to google breweries near me:
1. Add or Claim your Brewery or Brewpub on Google Maps & Optimize it.
To get your brewery to show up at the top of a “brewery near me” search, you’ll need to rank your Brewery’s Google My Business on the local map pack on the results page, like the example below:
Fire Maker Brewing Company is ranking on top of the local search results when searched with the search query “breweries near me,” but how?
In order to rank your brewery or taproom in the local map pack results, you need to open a profile on Google My Business (AKA Google Business Profile). Click “Start now” and follow the instructions to add your brewery on Google Maps.
It’s very important to follow the instructions listed below to optimize your brewery listing in the Google Map Pack search results:
- Enter your complete brewery name and address.
- Add the complete direction to reach your business address using Google Maps.
- Add your taproom hours and contact details like website, email, and phone number.
- Include your business in the correct brewery category and be as specific as possible.
- Add your favorite photos of your beer & taproom or bar.
- Make sure your brewery’s NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) remains consistent on each of your profile listing scattered around the internet, including social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
- Ensure your brewery information is up-to-date and accurate and as comprehensive as possible.
- You want to add all the attributes and amenities your brewery & restaurant offer, like WiFi.
- Ask people to leave reviews on your Google Listing. Google prefers to list the best breweries with the most reviews on top. If you want to improve your rank to the top of the map pack results then getting a ton of positive reviews for your brewery is key.
Last, monitor and respond to reviews and answer users’ questions. For example, take a look at the screenshot at a brewery answering a FAQ (Interaction with customers is key!):
2. Create Location Pages & Optimize Them for Each Brewery
If your brewery serves several taprooms or distributes to different markets then you need to create different pages for different targeted locations. For example, if your brewery business distributes to different cities including Milwaukee, Madison, and Sheboygan, then you are going to want to create three different location landing pages serving each of these different locations.
The following tactics will help you optimize your location for those “brewery near me” searches:
- Optimize your brewery title tags and meta tags for your targeted brewery keyword keywords.
- Keep the URL structure user-friendly to make it easier to read and remember. For example, if you’re advertising your brewery in Los Angeles, then name your page “www.mysite.com/los-angeles-brewery”.
- Add proper alt tags and title tags to the images used on your brewery website. It’s better if you provide an image of your brewery or beer and use your local SEO brewery keywords in the alt and title tags of the image.
- Add a suitable description to your brewery and include taproom hours, your beer menu, food menu (if you have one), store directions, and other amenities offered at the brewpub.
- Include a video of your brewery with a transcription with it. This way, you’ll be able to increase the relevancy of your location pages with respect to the specific location your brewery is serving.
- Lastly, use internal linking on your brewery’s website wisely. You can link to different specific location pages in the footer of your site with the anchor text “near me” in them.
For instance, have a look at the below footer from TripAdvisor, which links to location-specific pages and also uses the words “near me” in the anchor:
3. Implement Proper Schema Markup for Your Brewery.
Schema markup is a great way to help your brewery stand out from other brewery competition in the local search results. Schema is data that helps search engines learn more information related to your brewery and present them in the form of rich snippets, which are meant to help the user.
Add schema markup to every location page that the brewery serves. The schema markup date should have the brewery address, hours of operation, and contact information.
Additionally, add the homepage schema markup to allow your brewery to show up in the Knowledge Graph and help ensure brewery info is accurate. Take a look below at the Goose Island knowledge pannel example of an organizational schema markup can be displayed:
4. Build a Backlink Profile for your Brewery Website
Backlinks (aka “anchor text” or “inbound links”) are links from another website to a page on your brewery’s website. Search Engines like Google use backlinks kind of like “votes” for webpages and websites. Sites and webpages with a high number of backlinks tend to have more “authority” and drive higher organic rankings on Google.
Gain Geographic Anchor Text Backlinks.
Gaining backlinks works to increase your taproom’s website rankings on Google Local Search. In order to increase your brewery’s rankings for “near me” Google searches, you need to collect backlinks from high authority and relevant websites with geo-focused anchor text.
For example, if you want to rank for “near me” searches for the city “Seattle” and for the category “brewery”, then you need to use location-rich variations of anchor text like “best brewery in Seattle”, “brewery in Seattle”, “Seattle taproom 10th street”, “Seattle brewpub 10th street”, “microbrewery on 10th street Seattle”, “beer brewed in Seattle”, etc.
Utilize a Blog, Event, & News to Gain Local Backlinks.
Creating and maintaining a blog and an events page is an effective way to acquire local backlinks. A blog lets you share articles on a regular basis, which allows your customers to stay up to date about what’s on tap and what is happening at the brewery.
A blog is a good way to earn local links — and, additionally, it can create customer loyalty to customers that try your beers and might be at the “I want to know” phase of their journey.
You can conduct interviews with local events and influencers related to the brewery industry and post them on your site’s blog. Other businesses and influencers create a backlink to your site, which will help you gain backlinks.
Another campaign is PR, you can reach out to local papers and publications regularly to update them on the events at the brewery. This is an excellent way to gain local backlinks.
“Near me” Smart Device Searches On Alexa and Google Home
The use of smart devices in homes is rising considerably. — according to The Business Research Company, 69% of all US households have a smart device.
It should not be a surprise people love to ask more simple requests to smart devices, and a ton of those requests will be the “near me” phrase. Some example queries are:
“Alexa, what breweries are near me?”
“Alexa, what Oktoberfest events are near me?”
“What’s a good beer place near me?”
“Alexa, what taprooms are near me?”
“Okay Google, find a german beer hall near me”
“Okay Google, find a brewery with pizza near me”
“Okay Google, is there a brewer near me open now?”
“Where are good beers near me?”
You’ll need to prepare a list of questions that people are going to ask their smart devices like Amazon Echo, Alexa or Google Home. Then, start by optimizing your GMB (Google Business Profile) by using the strategies above to start increasing your brewery’s rank on the top Google results for your voice-related queries.
Breweries that get in early by optimizing their website for “near me” searches, and voice search, will be able to beat competitors in the near future. Both Amazon Echo and Google Home have started showing customers how convenient voice commands are, so brewery owners need to find a way to get their brewery recommended by these smart devices.
Conclusion on “Brewery Near Me” Optimization
If your brewery has started optimizing your website for voice search and “near me” Google searches, then you are ahead of the curve and there is still opportunity out there. Remember, the businesses that think ahead of other breweries and take efforts to keep reaching their customers and making them happy are able going to maximize their digital reach. Use the trusted strategies above in this to optimize your brewery for “near me” searches and connect with customers, both old barflies and new ones.
