From Kebab Shop to Category Leader: How EPIKebabs Won Google Maps, Google Search and AI Search Across 5 Singapore Outlets
EPIKebabs came to Epicware wanting more orders, more calls, and rankings on kebab keywords that bigger brands had locked up for years. Six months in, they own the #1 spot for their highest-intent search terms, get cited by name in Google’s AI Overviews, and take 100+ direct online orders a day.
- Client
- EPIKebabs — epikebabs.com
- Industry
- F&B / Quick Service Restaurant (Halal, MUIS-certified)
- Locations
- 5 outlets: Sunshine Plaza, Aperia Mall, CIMB Plaza, East Village, Galaxis
- Engagement
- March 2026 – ongoing
- Services
- Local SEO · GBP Optimisation · Review & Reputation Management · Bad Review Removal · AI Search Visibility (GEO) · Content · CRO · Social Distribution
- Headline result
- #1 rankings on core commercial keywords, AI Overview citations, +30% direct online orders
The Client
EPIKebabs has been serving Singapore since 2012 — halal-certified doner kebabs, big portions, and a menu of inventions you won’t find anywhere else, from the Indomeeat™ to the Kilo Kebab™. Five outlets across the island, a loyal following of over 1,000 recommendations across Google, Facebook, Instagram, Grab and Tripadvisor, and a delivery operation that runs islandwide.
Strong brand. Strong product. But strong product doesn’t automatically mean strong search visibility — and in Singapore’s F&B market, if you’re not in the Map Pack when someone searches “kebab near me” at 8pm, you don’t exist.
The Challenge
EPIKebabs came to Epicware in March 2026 with four clear goals:
- 1
Rank for high-difficulty kebab keywords. Terms like "best kebab in Singapore", "halal kebab Singapore" and "kebab delivery Singapore" are among the most competitive F&B queries in the market — dominated by listicles, Tripadvisor, Reddit threads and food blogs, not restaurant websites.
- 2
Grow calls, orders and footfall — not just impressions. Rankings that don't convert into phone calls, direction requests and online orders are a vanity metric.
- 3
Get found in AI search. Customers no longer just type into Google. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews where to eat. EPIKebabs needed to be the answer, not a competitor.
- 4
Fix the reputation layer. Five outlets meant five Google Business Profiles, five review streams, and a growing pile of negative reviews — including reviews that violated Google's own policies but were still costing the business customers every day they stayed up.
Add to that a multi-outlet structure where each location competes in a different catchment, and the same keyword can rank #1 in Kallang and be invisible in Raffles Place.
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The Strategy
Epicware ran EPIKebabs through the full local growth workflow — the same five-stage system we use for every multi-outlet SMB.
Google Business Profile Foundation
Every one of the five outlets went through our 19-point GBP audit: categories, services, attributes, hours, descriptions, photos and conversion actions. Each profile was then given its own keyword identity so the outlets stopped competing with each other — Sunshine Plaza positioned on “Best Kebab in Singapore”, Aperia Mall on “Healthy Kebab Near Singapore”, and so on.
Then we kept feeding them. Fresh GBP posts scheduled twice weekly per outlet, each built around a target keyword, with real product photography and a natural call to action.
Review Growth & Reputation Management
We put a structured review management system in place across all five outlets — automated review requests via WhatsApp and email, happy customers guided to Google, unhappy customers routed to private feedback first so the team could recover the relationship before it became a public one-star.
Alongside that, we audited every existing negative review for policy violations and ran formal removal requests through Google’s channels using our Bad Review Removal service. We also identified and handled negative SEO activity targeting the brand.
Result: 5+ negative reviews removed per outlet, and an average rating lift of +0.5 stars across the portfolio — with ratings now sitting at 4.8★ (CIMB Plaza), 4.7★ (Aperia Mall) and 4.6★ (Sunshine Plaza, across 760 reviews).
Local SEO Visibility Mapping
Using EpicMap grid tracking, we mapped where each outlet was actually visible on Google Maps — by keyword, by competitor, by scan zone. That told us which keywords were quick wins, which were long fights, and which competitors were eating specific catchments.
The keyword strategy split into three tiers: high-intent transactional terms (“order kebab”, “kebab delivery Singapore”), local discovery terms (“kebab near me”, “halal food near me Singapore”), and category-defining terms (“best kebab in Singapore”, “halal shawarma Singapore”).
Website + AI Visibility Engine
A full GEO and SEO audit identified gaps in site architecture, schema, internal linking and AI crawlability. From there we rebuilt the page structure, wrote citation-ready content designed to be quoted by AI engines, and published blog articles targeting long-tail commercial queries — including a Halal Snack Pack article and a Chicken Shawarma guide that now rank on page one on their own merit.
We also ran conversion rate optimisation across the ordering journey, tightening the path from search result to completed order.
Social Content Distribution & Brand Amplification
The same keyword insights were turned into social content across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube using EpicSocial — plus brand mention and listing placements across 100+ third-party platforms and directories to build the entity signals that both Google and AI models use to decide who’s credible.
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The Results
Measurement window: March 2026 – August 2026, compared against the preceding six months.
Search Visibility
| Total organic clicks (6 months) | 13.6K |
| Total search impressions (6 months) | 280K |
| Average CTR | 4.8% |
| Average position | 8.4 |
Traffic Growth
| Channel | Growth vs. prev. 6 mo. |
|---|---|
| Organic search users | +24.1% |
| Organic social users | +69.31% |
| Total users | +20.91% |
| New users | +17.35% |
| Returning users | +17.45% |
| Total engagement events | +15.36% |
AI Search Visibility
17.3K impressions from Google’s generative AI features in six months — with daily impressions climbing from roughly 100 a day in May to over 400 a day by late August.
EPIKebabs is now cited by name in Google AI Overviews for its core category queries:
- “best kebab in singapore”— EPIKebabs is named in the AI Overview as one of the best kebab spots in Singapore, and listed first under “Top Kebab Spots in Singapore” with all four outlets referenced.
- “healthy kebab in singapore”— EPIKebabs is the first brand cited in the AI Overview, listed first under “Top Healthy Kebab Spots”.
This is the visibility layer most F&B brands haven’t even started competing in yet.
Keyword Rankings
| Keyword | Position | Where |
|---|---|---|
| “order kebab” | #1 | Organic |
| “halal snack pack singapore” | #1 | Organic (blog) + Business Profile panel |
| “big loaded kebabs” | #1 & #2 | Local Map Pack (CIMB Plaza + Aperia Mall) |
| “best kebab in singapore” | Cited | AI Overview + Top Kebab Spots |
| “healthy kebab in singapore” | Cited | AI Overview (first listed) |
| “kebab near me” | #4 | Organic |
| “shawarma in singapore” | #6 | Organic (blog) |
Two of the five outlets now hold the top two positions in the local Map Pack for “big loaded kebabs” — pushing established competitors below the fold.
Google Business Profile Performance
Sample outlet data over the same period:
- Aperia Mall: 1,515 Business Profile interactions (Mar–Jul 2026), with monthly interactions rising steadily month over month
- Aperia Mall: 277 website clicks direct from the Business Profile
- Sunshine Plaza: 93 calls generated directly from the Business Profile (Mar–Aug 2026), trending upward
Business Impact
Direct online orders matter more than they look. Every order that comes through EPIKebabs’ own channel instead of a third-party aggregator is an order that keeps its margin, its customer data, and its repeat-purchase relationship.
These are real numbers from a real Singapore SMB.
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Why It Worked
We treated five outlets as five businesses, not one.
Each profile got its own keyword identity, its own catchment strategy and its own posting cadence. That's why two EPIKebabs outlets can hold #1 and #2 in the same Map Pack instead of cannibalising each other.
We optimised for AI engines from day one.
While most agencies were still reporting on blue links, we were building the entity signals, structured content and brand mentions that get a business quoted inside an AI Overview. That's now delivering 17.3K impressions on a curve that's still climbing.
We fixed reputation before we scaled visibility.
Ranking #1 with a 4.1 rating just sends more people to a bad first impression. Removing policy-violating reviews and systematically growing genuine 5-star reviews came first.
We closed the loop on conversion.
Traffic and rankings were only half the job. CRO work on the ordering journey turned that visibility into a 30% lift in direct orders.
Common Questions
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