Relevance Signals

Relevance is Google's judgement of how well your business matches what the searcher actually asked for. If the query is "vegan pizza", Google needs to decide which nearby pizzerias are credibly vegan and which just happen to have a vegan slice on the menu.

The strongest relevance signal is your primary GBP category. Pick the most specific category that genuinely fits — "Vegan Restaurant" is far stronger than "Restaurant" for vegan-intent queries. Secondary categories add coverage without diluting the primary.

After category, Google reads the GBP business name, business description, menu (when uploaded as structured data), posts, reviews, and the linked website. Every place where the words "vegan" and "pizza" appear naturally adds relevance for that query.

Your website matters too. Schema markup for Menu and MenuItem, an actual menu page with item names and descriptions, dish-level photos with alt text — all of it helps Google decide you are a real candidate for specific food queries, not just a generic "pizza" listing.

Most restaurants under-invest in relevance. They use a generic primary category, write a vague description, and upload no menu. As a result they rank for 'pizza' but miss the higher-intent searches like 'gluten-free pizza' or 'wood-fired pizza' where they would actually convert.