Food & Drink SEO
£1.18m more revenue in a single week. That's what organic looks like when it works at Domino's scale.
In one representative week at Domino's Pizza UK & Ireland, where I was contract Head of Digital Marketing, organic sessions ran 23.22% up year on year and revenue was £1.18m up on the same week the previous year. That's the commercial end of food and drink SEO - and it's a sector that splits into two very different briefs.
A multi-site delivery brand needs to win at branch level - the local pack, in every market, when someone searches "pizza delivery near me". A consumer FMCG brand on supermarket shelves has the opposite problem: the retailer sits between them and the customer at every organic entry point. The answer for one doesn't work for the other. I've worked both - in-house at Domino's, and agency-side with global chocolate, bakery and premium spirits brands.
Revenue up year on year in a single representative week
Domino's weekly reporting, Aug 2022Weekly organic sessions year on year
Domino's - 2022-23Franchise branches in the local search operation
Domino's UK & IrelandOrganic uplift in one European market from resolving a global chocolate brand's hreflang structure
Via ZenithRestaurant and delivery: local search is the revenue
Someone searching "pizza delivery [town]" is minutes from placing an order. Being in the local pack at branch level, across hundreds or thousands of locations, is the organic equivalent of a prime high street slot in every market you operate in.
The challenge at scale is consistency: NAP data varying between locations, thin duplicate local landing pages, unclaimed Business Profiles, wildly varying review quality. At Domino's I introduced Brightedge for branch-level local rank tracking - the business's first clear picture of which branches underperformed the national benchmark - ran the YEXT review process, and drove a pipeline of improvements to city and local landing pages across 1,300 franchises.
FMCG: own what the retailers can't
Tesco, Ocado and Amazon will outrank a food brand for most product searches, and that won't change through SEO alone. The brands that win organic own the territory retailers can't: recipe content, ingredient education, meal inspiration. Real volume, clear intent, and a natural home on the brand's own site.
The international FMCG brief adds its own layer. For a global chocolate brand, via Zenith, I ran technical audits across four key markets - and resolving the hreflang structure alone delivered a 20% organic traffic uplift in one European market. A chocolate brand operating across the UK and mainland Europe has market-specific product lines, regulatory differences and near-duplicate pages that only correct language targeting can untangle.
The portfolio
Domino's Pizza UK & Ireland - Contract Head of Digital Marketing, 2022-23. Team of 6, £10m campaign budget. A global chocolate brand - technical audits across 4 markets, hreflang resolution, IA and Core Web Vitals work (via Zenith). A global bakery chain - technical audit and SEO strategy via CTI Digital. A premium spirits group - international SEO via Zenith. A national nutrition charity - SEO strategy via CTI Digital.
If the retailers outrank you for your own products, the growth is in the searches they can't own. And if you run a delivery operation, every branch missing from the local pack is a high street site with the lights off. Both are fixable - but they're different jobs, and the first step is knowing which one yours is.