photo seo food delivery

The market for food delivery online, or also what is being called the “Food Tech” is booming. Order food for breakfast, a basket of organic veggies, a meal created by neighbors, or a home chef, everything is possible now thanks to the internet. Below is a short analysis of the keywords used in the restaurant food delivery service.

Allo Resto (now JustEat), a  main player in the French market, effectively marketed during the Euro 2016 championships, offering deliveries whenever a goal was scoredHowever,  Allo Resto and it’s 15,000 delivery scooter drivers, are facing a new strong competition : the cyclists.

Since the increase in the internet ordering/delivery business, newcomers have indeed appeared in France, or, at least in Paris, with some of these even coming from abroad.  Delivery bikers, working as freelancers (AKA auto-entrepreneurs), sometimes for more than one company, are creating the link between the restaurants and home, through  web platforms and apps.  Thus, providing a form of “Uberization” to the home food delivery process.

The main players in the home food delivery market:

  • Allo Resto: established in 1998 – 80% owned by Just Eat UK: 4,000 Restaurants, 105 million meals delivered worldwide.
  • Resto-In : established in: 2007 -150 to 200 restaurants in Paris.
  • Deliveroo: established in 2013 in the UK – 1000 restaurants, 1 million meals served in France.
  • Take Eat Easy: Belgium, in France since 2014 (now closed)
  • Foodora: established in 2014 Germany (Munich) 
  • UberEats: Paris is the first city served outside the United States

Digital strategy: the most Food Delivery Googled brands and keywords

Allo Resto enjoys the reputation of its brand and its seniority in the French market with 450k queries per month.  Deliveroo is next and appears as the best-known new entrant, followed by Take Eat Easy  and Foodora. Data from SEMrush.

searches brand home delivery meals

Share of awareness in Paris : Allo Resto and Deliveroo are ahead of the competition.

Brand awareness in Paris for delivery services

share monthly queries home delivery meal paris

Impact of awareness on digital strategy : differences in organic traffic

Alloresto and Resto In take advantage of their history and previous investment to stay ahead in terms of organic traffic, as organic traffic includes brand keywords (SEMrush data).

organic traffic france home meal delivery 2016

Take Eat Easy seems to be getting more non brand traffic than its competitors.

Take Eat Easy : challenging the awareness race ?

Allo Resto and Deliveroo are ahead in terms of awareness, which is easy to understand : if you live in Paris you can see a lot of advertising, outdoor or in the metro. But Take Eat Easy has obviously been investing in SEO, maybe in order to spend less in awareness than it’s competitors ?

The home delivery market for meals in France:

  • A delivery market that now commands a billion dollars in a restaurant market totaling 8 billion in France.
  • Restaurants are now open on Sunday night, just for food delivery, a night that has been traditionally neglected for restaurant dinners.
  • This market continues to grow, as online orders presently account for 30% of total orders, versus 70% for telephone orders.
  • Paris, with its density and large number of restaurants, appears to be the testing ground for this evolving marketplace..
  • The sector is expanding and now extends to breakfast at home on the weekend, as well as meals delivered to  businesses during the week.
  • The sites have now developed sales teams to help advise restaurateurs on their menus, packaging as well as help to provide product descriptions and  professional photos of their dishes.
  • This effort can be profitable: home delivery can make up to 40% of all sales for a restaurant.

Keywords analysis for ordering  food online in France:

keyword delivery service include pizza

Pizza wins the most  votes, though mostly because of its history as the most considered home meal  reference.  Pizza manufacturers and pizzerias have long built networks via scooter delivery.  Sushi has followed this idea, but on a smaller scale. Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Allo and Allo Sushi also carry strong brand notoriety.

keyword except pizza

When you remove “pizza” from the keywords, you can see expressions such as “order to eat ” (commander a manger), or the strength of expressions such  as “Indian restaurant paris” and “meal delivery” (livraison repas : monthly 2900 requests).

Keywords for the meal delivery sector, therefore, revolve around different cuisines (pizza / sushi / Indian), the “delivery” words (deliveries / order /to order home), coupled with geographic information (Paris, 1st arrondissement, Lille) .

Deliveroo does well working off the backs on the names of the restaurants (Big Fermand (40,000 monthly queries or Mme. Shawn) they service.  It  also ranks second on the term “livraison repas” (delivery meals).

Foodora and Ubereats are a little behind mainly because they have just started their businesses in Paris, January 2016  and May 2016, respectively.

Keyword analysis for TakeEatEasy

TakeEatEasy is the big winner in terms of organic traffic excluding brand names :

  • They rank better than Deliveroo on “Big Fernand”
  • They are ranking first on on “Paris delivery”
  • And they are very good at local ranking in smaller French towns.

When looking at their site more closely, you can see that they put a lot of effort and creativity in their content:

screen copy take eat easy

Among the most important targeted keywords :

keywords take eat easy

Their current ranking must make their competitors envious ! Only time will tell if SEO can compensate for the lack of awareness in this market 😉

August 2016 update : since the 26th of July, Take Eat Easy has filed for bankruptcy.  So despite their solid online performance, they went bust. Perhaps this was a result of too many players, too many new markets and, of course, no more cash. What will happen now in the meal delivery market? We will continue to follow the news, see who might acquire Take Eat Easy, and then watch what they’ll do with the Take Eat Easy website.

14 April 2019 update : justEast bought the French TakeEatEasy domain name and redirected it… Well done to them! Wonder how much it cost?

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