Search engines are emphasizing information that users would find valuable, so providing resources for customers will also help SEO efforts.

Search engines aren’t just becoming more sophisticated in terms of the results they display on results pages. As Brafton reported, Bing started to offer tax help in the form of widgets and pop-ups to users who search for relevant terms. These efforts make sure information can be accessed quickly, and businesses need to optimize their sites for them when they impact content marketing campaigns.

Today’s specials: Information and data

Google is behind the latest integration between company websites and search results. According to an official Google+ post, the search engine is now analyzing web pages to display partial and full menus on SERPs when internet users are looking up restaurants. It’s still not clear where the actual data is coming from, although it’s likely the menu listings are being scraped from restaurant websites and menu aggregators, such as Allmenus.com.

What most businesses are probably wondering is: How can I make sure my information appears on Google search results? The faster searchers get the information they need about a business, the more quickly they’ll make purchase decisions and potentially become customers. However, the best advice at this point is the same for any business creating an SEO strategy on the modern web: Provide as much information as possible.

The best thing companies can do is make all data they have readily available and accessible to Google.

Build the future now

Brafton has reported that even Google doesn’t know exactly what information it’s going to use to build search results months or years down the road. As such, the best thing companies can do is make all data they have readily available and accessible. Google appears to be scraping information users would find useful and putting it front and center in SERPs, so do the same. Add menus to your site using HTML code and apply schema markup to notify search crawlers they’re looking at food and drink offerings. This could be more effective than scanning and uploading PDF versions of the actual menus, which can’t be crawled by Googlebots.  

Other information, such as physical addresses, relevant blog posts and customer reviews aren’t just important because they help Google populate Knowledge Graphs with information. They also contribute to the overall usability and value of a website. Menus are just one kind of asset both users and search engines look for, so take a page out of restaurants’ playbooks and share the info wealth.

Alex Butzbach is a Marketing Writer at Brafton. He studied Communications at Boston College, and after a brief stint teaching English in Japan, he entered the world of content marketing. When he isn't writing and researching, he can be found on a bike somewhere in Metro Boston.