How to improve your TripAdvisor ranking

TripAdvisor has become a must for any restaurant owner who wants to promote their restaurant online. Many restaurant owners have registered on the site since its creation in 2000. To get the most out of the site and improve your restaurant's ranking on TripAdvisor against the competition, we've come up with four tips to help you stand out.

What will you gain by listing your restaurant on TripAdvisor? How do you create an account? How does the algorithm rank your restaurant? Let’s find out.

Why create a TripAdvisor page for your restaurant? 

How can improving your restaurant's ranking on TripAdvisor impact your sales?

TripAdvisor (a consumer review site) has 200 million users searching for a restaurant every month. They search for new restaurants and look at the reviews and ratings from other users to get an idea of what the experience will be like before they even walk through the doors of any restaurant.

Benefits 

• Being listed on TripAdvisor is a direct gain in visibility, and an excellent opportunity to increase your clientele. According to this survey, 90% of respondents use TripAdvisor to search for a restaurant (whether at home or when travelling), ahead of Google and Facebook.

• Improve your e-reputation. TripAdvisor centralises customer reviews of your restaurant. Just like your Google My Business account, your TripAdvisor page will define your online reputation, i.e. the image that Internet users have of your restaurant.

• Their site encourages the discovery of new restaurants. Like delivery platforms where users are more likely to be influenced to order from an establishment they already know, TripAdvisor is used more to discover new businesses. 

Disadvantages

• You are competing with many restaurants on the platform, so you have to work hard to stand out.

• Any negative experience can turn into a comment that can affect your reputation in the long term. It is also an opportunity to get honest feedback and show that you are listening to criticism.

How to create a TripAdvisor restaurant page

To improve your restaurant's ranking on TripAdvisor, you need to start by taking control of your page. Here are the steps to follow, to create your page, or to certify that you are the representative of a restaurant already online. 

Get your restaurant listed on TripAdvisor

1. Be logged into your TripAdvisor account (with Google, or Facebook, etc) 

2. Go to this page.

3. Fill in the form with all the relevant information for your restaurant.

4. Add a profile picture for the restaurant in question.

5. Once your page has been reviewed by TripAdvisor (within 5 days), your restaurant will be listed on the site.

Claiming a restaurant already listed on TripAdvisor

If you find that your restaurant is already on TripAdvisor, (which can happen if someone else has added you to the site), take control of your page.

1. Go to this page.

2. Enter the name of your restaurant.

3. Take control of your page.

4. Check the last two boxes (to certify that you are a representative and accept the privacy policy).

5. Click on "Next" and you will only have to confirm your identity.

Please note: when confirming by phone, you must give the number of your restaurant, not your personal number.

How does the TripAdvisor ranking algorithm work?

Like Uber Eats, or Google, you can tame the TripAdvisor algorithm.

How do you do this? By understanding how it works and the criteria that are taken into account when deciding on your positioning.

This was proven by Oobah Butler, who managed to get his fake restaurant to the top 1 on TripAdvisor UK in 2017.

TripAdvisor works with a popularity index. This indicator is used to rank restaurants. Calculated daily, it takes into account 3 criteria:

• Quality of ratings

If your restaurant scores between 4 and 5/5, it will get a higher ranking.

• Quantity of customer reviews

TripAdvisor users are more likely to go to a restaurant with many reviews. 

Why is that? Because a lot of reviews means a lot of people have tried the restaurant before, and therefore a balanced opinion is more likely. 

Please note: having many reviews does not automatically mean a higher ranking.

• Date of publication of the notices 

Recent reviews are the most valuable. In other words, don't worry if you got a few negative reviews at the beginning of your business. They are still visible to other users, but do not influence your ranking.

4 tips to improve your restaurant's ranking on TripAdvisor

1. Improve your "Opinions" section

Positive reviews of a restaurant influence the choice of 90%* of French people on TripAdvisor.

Our tips for improving this section and getting more positive feedback: 

Always respond

The importance of responding to customer reviews: Around 90% of people are encouraged to try a restaurant when the manager has taken the time to respond to reviews.

Warning: do not offer any compensation in exchange for positive comments, as this is against the rules of Tripadvisor.

Do not delete negative reviews 

(If you have received a review that you believe to be abusive or false, the proper course of action is to report it).

In your account, click on "Reviews" and then "Report a review". It will be deleted if it violates the site's rules.

Encourage your customers to write new reviews

7 out of 10 customers will leave a review if you ask them to. The first step in building up positive reviews is to ask guests to leave them. 

How do you remind your customers to leave a review?

In delivery, Click & Collect: put "Your opinion matters" flyers in the bags, (or send a notification with a link to your TripAdvisor page).

On your website: take advantage of digital branding, or the "write a review" widget to show your customers that you are on TripAdvisor.

On site: put a sign or sticker in front of your restaurant.

On social networks: in the description of your Facebook or Instagram account, put a link to your Tripadvisor page.

2. Reviewing your service 

Before you ask your customers to leave a review, make sure you offer the best experience (both on-site and on delivery). To improve your ratings, listen to your customers.

3. Add as many photos as possible

Having enough photos (of the dishes, of the restaurant's atmosphere) influences the choice of around 60% of consumers.

On TripAdvisor, photos should not exceed 10 MB, should be in jpg, gif, bmp or png format, and preferably in landscape (horizontal) mode.

4. Standardise all online information

Inconsistency between a restaurant's online information is a disqualifying criterion in a search.

If the algorithm detects an inconsistency between the times you list on your listing, your website, your TripAdvisor page, it will penalise your restaurant. In other words, your TripAdvisor page will not appear in the first results on Google (they will have to search longer to put a review on your restaurant).