Eight keyword phrases that anchor your site in local search.

A diner in your neighborhood opens Google and types something. The restaurant that wins their next dinner is the one whose site uses the same words they typed. That's local SEO, full stop.

What "local SEO" actually means for restaurants

Local SEO has three components for restaurants — and only three matter at launch time.

• Your GBP listing is correct. Done in Lesson 11 — name, address, phone, hours, description, categories.
• Your website uses the same words diners type. Eight neighborhood + cuisine phrases on the home page, repeated naturally in your menu page descriptions. This lesson.
• Schema.org markup tells Google what kind of business you are. The L14 generator handles this for you — Restaurant type, address, hours, menu, all wired automatically.

That's the whole list. SEO consultants will sell you twenty more things, most of which matter for hotels or e-commerce stores, none of which move the needle for a 60-seat neighborhood restaurant. Stay on these three.

How a diner types their search

Diners don't search "best restaurant near me." They search specific combinations of cuisine + neighborhood + intent. Memorize these four formulas — they cover almost every restaurant search.

• Cuisine + neighborhood"mexican restaurant silver spring"
• Dish + neighborhood"carnitas silver spring"
• Occasion + neighborhood"date night silver spring downtown"
• Intent + cuisine + neighborhood"vegetarian mexican silver spring"

Note what's not in any of them: "Joe's Taqueria." When a diner already knows your name, they type your name and land on your GBP. The search phrases above are for the diners who don't know you yet — the ones you need to win.

Draft your eight phrases

Write eight phrases using the formulas above, anchored to your actual cuisine and neighborhood. Use the customer paragraph from Lesson 4 as source material — the words you wrote there (what they look for, where they come from, what times of day matter to them) are usually the same words that customer types into Google.

Now open Google and type each one. Look at what comes back. If a phrase shows restaurants like yours, keep it. If it shows hotels, retail stores, or restaurants in a different city, rewrite it. The diner is searching what shows up, not what should show up.

What radius are you trying to rank in?

Local SEO doesn't reach forever. Google's local rankings weigh proximity — your restaurant is competing primarily with other restaurants within the area diners typically search for. Drag the slider to set the radius you're trying to be visible in. This narrows your keyword strategy: "italian restaurant near me" matters within ~1 mile; "best italian in " matters across the wider area.

The setting flows through to the L14 generator's schema markup — the larger radius signals to Google that you serve a wider area, which matters for delivery + takeout positioning. The smaller radius signals you serve a walkable neighborhood, which matters for "near me" intent searches.

Where these eight phrases live

The L14 generator places your phrases automatically in five places — you never edit any of these by hand.

• Page title (the text in the browser tab). Format: "Restaurant Name · Cuisine + Neighborhood".
• Meta description (the snippet under the title in Google results). 155 characters; the generator builds from your one-promise + cuisine + neighborhood.
• H1 on the home page. Your restaurant name; the cuisine + neighborhood lives in the H2.
• Schema.org markup in the page head. Restaurant type, address, hours, served cuisines — Google reads this directly.
• Menu page descriptions. Each dish's name + a short description that includes the cuisine word naturally ("Carnitas — slow-braised pork shoulder, on rice and beans").

The five places combined give Google enough signal to match your site to the phrases you wrote. No keyword stuffing, no awkward repetition — the generator places them where they belong and stops.

One free tool to grade what you wrote

• Muntin SEO GraderFree, no signup. Scores your local SEO on phrase variety, neighborhood specificity, schema completeness, and NAP consistency with your GBP.Open the SEO Grader →

If the grader flags "neighborhood not specific enough" or "phrases don't appear in your meta description," that's the generator's job at Lesson 14, not yours to fix manually. Your job in this lesson is writing the eight phrases.

What this changes downstream

Lesson 13 (reviews) asks operators to gently surface the same phrases in review-request templates — when a regular writes a review, getting them to mention the cuisine and the neighborhood is worth more than the star rating itself. Lesson 14 (the generator) reads your eight phrases and places them in the five spots above. Lesson 16 (rhythm) folds quarterly keyword review into the calendar — neighborhoods change, what diners search shifts, your phrases should drift with them.