What does you restaurant’s website need?
A no-nonsense guide for restaurant and cafe owners
Menu and Specials
Make your menu the front page of your website. Let the customers see what food you serve right away, the first moment they open your web page.
This is the #1 reason why people look for your restaurant on Google. They want to know if you serve what they like. Make it easy to get this info, and you’ll get not just lots of new customers, you’ll get lots of happy, “your kind of guy” customers. Everyone wins.
Hire a good photographer to make pictures of actual meals you cook, get those pictures on your website – and you’ve got an outstanding web presence that informs, entertains and entices at the same time. This is so obvious, yet so few people do it.
Same goes for specials – if you serve breakfast or lunch, crowds of people from nearby offices will google for a place to eat at before heading for lunch, and if you have up-to-date info about today’s special menu easily accessible, you’ll stand out from the crowd!
So, make your menu the front page of your site. You’ll instantly become 10 times better than most restaurant websites out there.
Address with a Google Map
I am your customer, and I am spoiled. If you don’t let me see the route from my place to yours in two clicks, I’m gone. But for some odd reason, many restaurant sites do not want to tell me how to get there. As with Menus and Specials, the website has to be a useful tool for your customers. This goes hand-in-hand with Google Places – as a customer, I want to be able to both find your site through Google Maps, and find a map through your site. As a business owner, you want all paths to lead to you.
Hours of operation, parking and contact info
Yes, they need to know how to call you and when you are open. It is unbelievable how many of the restaurant sites either tuck this information into some far corner, or do not have it at all. Instead, they have mission statements and letters from the owner, which nobody ever reads.
Let’s face it: your site is a tool with a specific goal. The goal is to bring you more business. Anything that does not bring you new customers should not be on your site (or at least, should not take up the space on the front page). The things that are the best at this task, like an easy-to-use, attractive menu and specials, must be the most prominent.
Online reservation system that works
This may be the best or the worst part of your customers’ online experience, depending how you approach it. The key part here is “that works”. Many restaurant sites have some sort of reservations page, but if the phone reservations, greetings table, and online reservations do not work as a single coordinated system, there’s no point to confuse the customer.
So, there are two sensible options here: just provide a phone they can call and reserve a table, or go the whole way and adapt your entire reservation process so that phone, online and walk-in all work in a coordinated manner.
Small Things
Your restaurant is a local business, so it helps a lot to register it on Google Places for Business and local directories.
Design Practica helps local businesses in Vancouver area to create and improve their web presence. We can make you a new website or give the old one a new life. Contact Design Practica for a free consultation about your restaurant’s website.