Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid in Your Food and Drink Business
I audited three artisan food and drink websites that all made them
(And then I saw bigger brands are making the same SEO mistakes too)
This week, I looked at the websites of three artisan food and drink through a basic, onpage SEO lens - so a bit less than I would for my SEO services. It took me less than ten minutes to assess each one from just the front end (ooh err), and I could see right away that with some basic optimisation, they could be on the road to better discoverability – and they’re not the only ones.
I looked at a bakery, a chocolatier, and a brewery, and then checked how each one stacked up against a much bigger competitor in the same space. The results were pretty interesting. The big, well-known brands were often making the exact same SEO mistakes as the small, independent businesses. Which means smaller producers have a totally achievable shot at outranking them for some specific search phrases — just by getting the basics right.
Here's the pattern I found, the common culprits, and how you can avoid the same mistakes too.
SEO Audit 1: The Bakery (gluten-free, vegan)
A beautifully photographed site with a real gap between how it looks and how it's built. The homepage's H1 tag was completely empty, and the actual visible heading was coded as an H2 instead. The meta title was just the business name — no mention of "gluten-free" or "vegan," the exact words a customer would type into Google. And there was no meta description at all.
I compared it to a bigger, more established bakery competitor who produce gluten-free products as one of their offerings on its own dedicated page. That business page had a proper H1 ("vegan and gluten friendly cakes") and a decent description — and that alone was likely enough to beat the smaller bakery in search, even before considering brand size.
SEO Audit 2: The Chocolatier
Lovely product, lovely branding — but no H1 anywhere on the homepage. Instead, a scrolling banner of many taglines ("wildly good," "seriously nice," "100% organic" kinda thing) sat where the heading should be. No meta description either. Product pages jumped straight to H3s with nothing structuring the page above them.
I then checked a much bigger, nationally known chocolate brand. Its homepage had two H1 tags — and both were just embedded images, not real text at all. Its heading hierarchy actually improved further down the page, but the top of the site was doing almost nothing for search.
SEO Audit 3: The Brewery
Same story again: the H1 was the site's logo, and a second heading tag was left empty. The meta title repeated the brand name unnecessarily, though the meta description itself was strong. The shop was oddly placed halfway down the homepage, competing dozens of product types against each other on a single page instead of letting individual pages rank for their own terms (gluten-free beer, vegan beer, gift sets, and so on) – and their other pages were similarly lacking in any indication to Google about their content through strong H1s and H2s. The niche phrases that each page could rank for are crucial if drinks brands want seriously good SEO - it’s a competitive market.
Compared to one of the biggest names in craft beer, the pattern held: that homepage also had no useful headings, plus a tagline ("Wings Wednesday") that meant nothing to a first-time visitor or to Google.
The Common SEO Mistakes across all three sites
Missing, empty, or misused H1 tags — logos, cookie banners, and scrolling taglines were coded as headings instead of clear, keyword-rich text.
Meta titles wasted on the brand name — leaving out the actual words people search for (gluten-free, vegan, craft beer, gift boxes).
Missing or weak meta descriptions — free opportunity in search results to make the reader click, left blank.
Broken heading hierarchy — no H1, straight to H3s, no structure guiding the reader (or Google) through the page.
Homepages trying to do everything at once — instead of a broad homepage and specific, optimised pages beneath it.
Gifting and long-tail search underused — none of the sites were fully leaning into higher-intent, lower-competition phrases like "gluten-free cake gifts" or "craft beer for trade", which is where the smaller brands can really do well.
How to stop making these SEO mistakes now
Remember this: people rarely land on your homepage first. They land on whatever page matches their search — a product page, a gift page, a trade page.
So…
Every single page needs its own clear heading, meta title, and description that makes sense on its own, not just the homepage.
Every single page needs one dedicated search phrase that sits in both your H1 and meta title so Google can see they match and that you’re legit about what you do.
Your meta descriptions are there to describe more about yourself so they confirms to the reader that you’re their dream brand and they click on your site.
And the most unbelievable finding is that a lot of the big brands aren't doing this very well either.
If you're a smaller or independent food and drink business, this is very good news for you, my friend.
The race is on. And you’ve just been handed a baton.
Learn how to do the SEO basics yourself
You can totally do this. I can give you 1:1 SEO training for one hour while looking at your website (not some generic lessons) and tell you about the changes you can make yourself today, then follow up with a page of recommendations. It could be easier than you think.