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The restaurant business is tough for many reasons, and marketing your restaurant is a particular challenge: patrons decide quickly whether they like where they’re eating or whether they won’t come back a second time. People (especially out-of-towners) make decisions even more quickly when they’re first deciding where to eat: they look in the Google local rankings and pick one restaurant out of seven. You know the higher you rank the more people will walk through your door, but the question is how to rank higher than your competitors. These 5 solutions will likely get you the edge you are looking for:

1. Make sure your restaurant is listed on big directory sites, especially Citysearch, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and InsiderPages. If you’re already listed there, just make sure each site has the exact same info that the others do (example: make sure they all have you listed under the same telephone number). Being found in these directories also helps you because customers can go there to write reviews of you, which helps you in the local Google rankings.

2. Get rated by the Zagat Survey. It’s not free, but many people use the site to find good local restaurants (particularly when traveling), and its a great way to market your restaurant to people who are looking for you. It’s also useful because of my next suggestion, which is that you should….

3. Upload photos of any awards or ratings your restaurant has received. For instance, if Zagat rates you, they give you a sticker to put on your front door or window. Take a /picture of this restaurant rating (Dutch Google translation: restaurant beoordelingen) and upload it to your local listing. If you’ve been voted “Best of Citysearch 2009″ (for example, take a picture of the award and upload it. A picture of a blue ribbon or medal packs a similar punch. The idea is that you’re showing potential customers some extra proof that your restaurant is good.

4. Get customer reviews, lots of them. Obviously, restaurant-goers care about reviews even more than other types of customers; they want to know whether others enjoy the food, service, atmosphere, and the rest. Google will also often rank you according to how many reviews you have and how positive they are. You may be in the woods if you currently don’t have many reviews, but there’s also a high payoff if you can rack them up. Customers can sign into their Google accounts to write you one, or they can write through a directory (like Cityseach or Yelp). I can’t go into how to do it here, but as a restaurant owner, there are a number of ways to get your happy customers to give you reviews.

5. When naming your listing in Google local listing builder, be specific. It’s good to specify “Italian Restaurant” or “Chinese Restaurant,” and you could even use the word “cuisine”–just include something more descriptive beyond just your restaurant name. The benefit is you’ll still be just as visible when a hungry diner types into Google something generic like “Palo Alto restaurant,” but you’ll be highly visible when someone looks specifically for, say, “Palo Alto Indian restaurant.”

There are other things you can do to get visible in local Google, but you’re already ahead of the game: you now know key steps that most restaurant owners never know about, but which you can do this afternoon.