Monte Mar is a beloved restaurant brand in Portugal, celebrated for its authentic cuisine, premium seafood, and picturesque seaside locations. Despite its strong reputation offline, Monte Mar faced a significant challenge online — their digital visibility didn’t reflect the brand’s true prestige.
Their website struggled to rank for key local search terms such as “seafood restaurant in Lisbon” or “best dining in Cascais”, meaning many potential customers couldn’t find them when searching online. This disconnect between their offline success and online visibility was limiting their ability to attract new audiences and tourists discovering Portugal’s best dining spots through Google.
Crafting a Customised SEO Strategy
WonderAds began by conducting an in-depth SEO audit of Monte Mar’s digital presence. This included analysing website performance, keyword rankings, content relevance, backlink profile, and user experience.
We quickly identified several technical and structural issues — slow loading speeds, weak internal linking, and missing metadata — all of which made it harder for search engines to crawl and index the website effectively. Our technical SEO team resolved these backend problems to ensure the site became faster, more responsive, and fully optimised for both users and search engines.
Next, our content specialists focused on content optimisation and localisation. We rewrote and enhanced the website’s copy to target keywords that potential diners were actively searching for, including terms tailored to each location where Monte Mar operates. We also created dedicated local landing pages for each city — such as Lisbon, Cascais, and Lagos — ensuring that customers searching for nearby dining options could easily discover Monte Mar.
To reinforce authority and trust, WonderAds implemented a strategic link-building campaign, securing backlinks from reputable food blogs, travel websites, and local lifestyle magazines (such as Reddit, TripAdvisor and other local news). These high-quality mentions signaled to Google that Monte Mar was not only a recognised restaurant but also a trusted brand in Portugal.
Strengthening Brand Presence with Wikipedia
As part of our holistic digital visibility strategy, we extended our efforts beyond traditional SEO. WonderAds talked with the parent company — Onyria Group — and establish a verified and well-researched presence on Wikipedia.
We developed the Onyria Group Wikipedia page, ensuring it accurately represented the company’s history, achievements, and influence in the Portuguese hospitality and tourism industry. This page not only added credibility to the group’s online ecosystem but also reinforced the digital footprint of all associated brands, including Monte Mar.
Having a Wikipedia entry significantly strengthened Onyria Group’s brand authority, increased search visibility, and improved the brand’s representation across search engines and knowledge panels. It also served as a reference point for journalists, bloggers, and online readers looking for reliable information about the company.
Remarkable Results: Organic Growth and Brand Recognition
Within just a few months of implementing our SEO and content strategies, Monte Mar began seeing substantial improvements across key performance indicators:
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- Organic website traffic more than doubled, with a sharp increase in visitors coming directly from Google search results.
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- Local keyword rankings surged, with numerous high-value keywords reaching the first page, and several moving into top three positions — including competitive phrases like “seafood restaurant Lisbon” and “dining by the sea Cascais”.
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- User engagement metrics improved, with longer session durations and lower bounce rates, indicating visitors were finding relevant and appealing content.
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- The newly created Wikipedia page for Onyria Group helped strengthen brand credibility and search visibility across all related entities, positioning the group as a leader in the luxury dining and hospitality industry in Portugal.
These improvements not only enhanced Monte Mar’s online visibility but also led to an increase in reservations and foot traffic across their restaurant locations.
Delivering Meaningful SEO Success
Monte Mar’s journey showcases how a thoughtful, data-driven, and creative SEO approach can redefine a brand’s online presence. At WonderAds, we don’t believe in one-size-fits-all strategies — we focus on building long-term, sustainable growth through tailored solutions that highlight each client’s strengths and values.
By blending technical SEO, content strategy, local optimisation, and digital brand building, we helped Monte Mar transform their online visibility into real-world results.
If your business is ready to grow digitally, attract more customers, and strengthen its online authority, WonderAds is here to make that happen — just like we did for Monte Mar and Onyria Group.
Client Video Testimonial
“So far, it’s been really great. We’ve noticed major improvements, especially in our restaurant business. We’ve seen a significant evolution in our Google rankings and also realised that we’ve become much more visible to the public.”
Said João Pinto Coelho, Commercial Director of the ONYRIA Group, in an interview with WonderAds for YouTube.
