Every restaurant wants better placement on delivery apps, but few understand what actually drives their restaurant ranking on delivery apps.
If you're a POS reseller, a restaurant group, or a company building restaurant tech solutions, here's what you need to know: success on Grubhub isn't just about food quality, it’s about operations, automation, and data.
Below are ways to build long-term Grubhub optimization into your process, and a few things to absolutely avoid.
1. Sync Your Menu Automatically
Menus change. If yours doesn’t update in real time, customers get frustrated and your Grubhub optimization efforts take a hit. Manually editing menus across multiple platforms is a recipe for human error.
Automating updates with delivery order automation keeps things accurate and scalable.
2. Streamline Delivery Prep
Speed matters. Grubhub considers prep and delivery time when adjusting your restaurant ranking on delivery apps. That means late handoffs and long waits drag you down.
Use systems that track order timestamps and flag bottlenecks before they become recurring issues.
3. Add Professional Food Photos
Restaurants with real, high-quality images consistently increase Grubhub ranking.
Photos impact click-through rate, and that influences how often your listing is shown.
Avoid uploading generic or outdated pictures, they hurt trust and conversion.
4. Enable Order Tracking
Customers want to know where their food is. Enabling real-time tracking through POS integration Grubhub tools improves customer experience and shortens support chains.
Tracking also reduces the number of canceled or duplicate orders, which positively impacts your metrics.
5. Use Targeted Promotions
Offering discounts through Grubhub boosts short-term visibility, but more importantly, it helps you increase Grubhub ranking by increasing order volume during slow periods.
Test simple offers like “Free delivery over $20” or “10% off first-time orders.”
6. Accept or Reject Orders Quickly
Slow response times hurt more than just customers, they tell the algorithm you might not be reliable. Auto-accepting orders during peak times is a smart way to improve Grubhub visibility without increasing workload.
If you’re using restaurant tech solutions, make sure they support flexible order management.
7. Keep Consistent Pricing
If your Grubhub menu is priced higher than your in-store or website menus, customers notice, and so does the algorithm. Consistency is part of Grubhub optimization, and it builds long-term trust.
Use tools that sync prices from your POS across all channels.
8. Stay Open During High-Demand Hours
This one’s simple. If you're not online when people are hungry, you miss orders and rankings. Restaurants that stay consistently active during lunch, dinner, and weekends tend to have better Grubhub visibility.
A good restaurant order management system can help manage staffing and scheduling for this.
9. Integrate Your POS
Manual entry is a risk. With POS integration Grubhub, orders are synced, menus stay updated, and availability reflects reality. It also makes reporting and refunds much easier.
This is essential for scaling across locations or marketplaces.
10. Avoid High Cancellation Rates
Every canceled order is a red flag. It doesn’t matter if the customer changed their mind or if the item was out of stock – too many cancellations signal operational instability.
Delivery order automation helps prevent this by flagging low inventory before it causes trouble.
11. Use Descriptive Item Titles
Instead of naming your dish “Salad,” try “Crispy Kale Caesar Salad with Garlic Dressing.” Search-based platforms rely on keywords, and good item titles help with Grubhub visibility.
This is especially important if you’re not running ads, organic discovery matters.
12. Run Platform-Specific Deals
Repeat visibility depends on momentum. Launching limited-time or weekday-only deals helps you climb without needing paid placement.
It’s a low-cost strategy that pairs well with tools built for restaurant tech solutions.
13. Keep Your Restaurant Online
Even short outages impact placement. If your store goes offline for an hour mid-rush, you could lose a full day of reach. Use a restaurant order management system with auto-reopen features to avoid downtime.
Think of uptime as a competitive edge.
14. Monitor Your Metrics Weekly
Your performance dashboard is your best friend. Use it to track acceptance rate, prep time, cancellations, and more. Staying on top of your numbers is a simple way to support your POS integration Grubhub strategy.
Combine it with customer feedback to see the full picture.
If you're serious about building long-term delivery growth, we’re here for it. KitchenHub helps restaurants, POS resellers, and developers connect to Grubhub and other marketplaces using real-time delivery order automation and centralized controls.
With KitchenHub Grubhub integration, you can manage menus, sync availability, and scale to multiple locations, no chaos, no downtime.
Check how KitchenHub can help your restaurant with menu management and order aggregation.
It’s free!
