Restaurant WordPress sites and Google: the seven most common problems
The same seven problems keep restaurants' WordPress sites from being found on Google and in AI search. Here is how to fix them.
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Many restaurants have built their site on WordPress. It usually looks fine to guests, but Google and AI search see it differently. The same seven problems come up from one site to the next, and most take a few minutes to fix.
1. Pages have no search description
Google shows a short description under the title in search results. If a page has none, Google picks text from the page itself. On restaurant sites that is often a menu line with its price, or the cookie notice.
Write a 120 to 160 character description for every important page: what is on the page and where the restaurant is. Yoast and Rank Math have fields for it on the page's edit screen.
2. The same title on several pages
A private room page, for example, often carries a search title copied from the groups page. Google then can't tell which page answers "private room for 24" and easily shows the wrong one.
Give every page its own title of about 50 to 60 characters that says what and where: "Private room for 24 in Kamppi | Restaurant name".
3. The site language is wrong
WordPress has a setting many people skip (Settings → General → Site Language). If a Finnish restaurant's site is set to English, it tells search engines the pages are in English. Many plugins also follow that setting.
4. The key information is in an image
A menu as a JPG, opening hours in a banner and a home page made only of pictures look good, but search engines and AI search can't read them reliably. A guest using a screen reader gets nothing from them either.
Put the essentials in text: what the restaurant serves, where it is and how to book a table. Images can support the text.
5. Old and broken pages
Old event pages pile up over the years. Sometimes old posts don't even open and show "There has been a critical error", while the sitemap still offers them to Google.
Remove outdated pages or redirect them to a new address. Open your sitemap (usually /wp-sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml) and check that its pages open.
6. Prices typed by hand in several places
When the same list is kept on several pages, the prices drift apart, and the same dish can cost a different amount on different pages. Guests and AI search easily pick the wrong one.
Keep prices in one place. That works best when the menu comes to the site straight from the till.
7. Public pages that were never meant for guests
An image bank, WordPress's "Sample Page" and a helper page made for footer details show up on Google just like the menu. WordPress's own sitemap can also list users and reveal administrators' login names.
Remove pages you don't need or hide them from search. Most SEO plugins do it with one setting.
Where to start
Fiest makes these fixes on a restaurant's existing WordPress site, and nothing needs to move. New text is written only from facts the restaurant has confirmed, and a Fiest person approves every change before it appears on the site.
