We built a Local SEO strategy across three independent Italian restaurants in London’s Soho, covering Google Business Profile management, 150+ local citations, and a differentiated content programme. One restaurant hit position 3 for “Italian restaurants Soho” while another grew organic sessions by 142% month on month.
About the Client
An independent Italian restaurant group in Soho
The client operates three Italian restaurants in London’s Soho. Each trades under its own identity with a separate website and Google Business Profile — a strength from a brand perspective, but a specific challenge for search: three sites targeting the same area, the same cuisine, and many of the same customers.
Problem
Visible but not found
Soho is one of the most competitive restaurant markets in the UK, with the first page of Google dominated by aggregators, national review sites, and long-established venues. When Didgeheads came on board in autumn 2025, all three sites were sitting well outside page one for their most commercially important keywords. The Google Business Profiles were either inaccessible, unverified, or underperforming, and there was no structured content programme in place.
The additional complication was managing three competing domains. Any content strategy had to be carefully differentiated – publishing similar content across all three would risk cannibalising rankings rather than building them.
Solution
The first priority was getting the sites into a state where good work could take hold. Across all three restaurants, navigation was restructured, title tags were rewritten to lead with location and intent signals, and missing pages were built – wine lists, cocktail menus, About sections, review pages. Booking CTAs were made more prominent with action-led copy. These aren’t glamorous tasks, but a site that isn’t technically sound won’t rank consistently regardless of how good the content is.
Fifty local citations were built for each restaurant across directories, mapping platforms, and local listing sites – 150 in total – on a rolling monthly schedule to produce steady upward movement rather than a single spike.
A minimum of six pieces of blog and landing page content went live across the three sites each month. Near-me landing pages were created for pasta and pizza searches. Seasonal pages covered January, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Christmas. Each restaurant was positioned around a distinct search angle – one led on pasta and affordability, another on Soho dining and proximity to West End theatres, and the third on authenticity and handmade pasta – so the three sites built authority in adjacent areas rather than competing head-to-head.
Google Business Profile management ran throughout, with review responses kept current and regular posts going live for seasonal content. One profile had a prolonged Google verification issue; the team engaged with Google Support and the GMB community group weekly while continuing to optimise everything else in the meantime.
Results
Five months of consistent growth
By February 2026, one restaurant was ranking in position 3 for “italian restaurants soho” (700 monthly searches) and position 4 for “soho italian restaurant” (400 searches), having moved from outside the top ten to the top five across a range of competitive terms.
A second restaurant saw organic sessions up 142% and clicks up 169% month-on-month in February. Its ranking for “italian soho” improved from position 17 to 10, and “best pizza soho” moved from 61 to 43.
The third broke into high-volume pasta keywords it had not previously appeared for. “Pasta london” (800 monthly searches) entered at position 17. “Pasta restaurants london” (500 searches) moved from 81 to 29 — a 52-place improvement.
On Google Business Profile, one restaurant recorded 178 calls in December 2025, a 44.7% increase month-on-month, and was generating over 22,000 mobile search views and 47,000 Google Maps mobile views per month by February 2026. Another saw direction requests grow by 17.1% and website clicks from its profile rise by 10.3%.
Over 100 keyword improvements were recorded across the three sites in five months, with dozens of new keywords entering the rankings for the first time.
Key results:
100+ keyword improvements across the five-month campaign
+169% clicks month-on-month (February 2026)
+142% organic sessions month-on-month (February 2026)
+44.7% calls month-on-month from Google Business Profile (December 2025)
Position 3 for “italian restaurants soho” (700 monthly searches)
Position 17 for “pasta london” (800 monthly searches, new entry)
52-place improvement for “pasta restaurants london”
150 local citations built across all three restaurants