Creating a website for your restaurant might seem like a simple task at first if you’ve been looking into DIY website platforms, like Wix and Weebly. These websites allow anyone to create a basic website in a drag-and-drop environment and you don’t need to know any HTML or programming languages. While you can definitely create a simple website, the downside is that you might actually need more than just a few basic pages.
If you’re trying to build a website for your restaurant or food service establishment, you need a website that represents your company and serves your customers’ needs. Whether your business is dine-in, takeout, or delivery, here are some of the most important things to consider.
It’s crucial to hire a professional website developer if you want a successful website. Doing it yourself just won’t cut it if you want to stand out from your competitors. To get an edge in your industry, you’ll need someone with experience to create your site because developing a successful website requires more than just loading pages with content. It takes strategy, and that’s where a professional developer can help.
If you try to make your own site, it might look neat, but that doesn’t mean it will support your business. You’ll be limited to using a pre-made template, and you won’t be able to customize it to meet your specific needs.
On the other hand, a professional web developer can customize the structure of any template to get optimal results. They’ll plan out exactly how your website will be designed, and strategically place all the elements. For example, where you put your email signup form matters, and you need to make your phone number and address visible on every page in the header to make it easy for customers to find your location. This might not be possible if you build your own site using a premade template, but a professional designer will make it happen.
If you haven’t already created an account with an email marketing application, you’ll want to look into this right away. The longer you wait to start collecting email subscribers, the more contacts you’ll miss out on having in your database. If you’ve already considered it, but were deterred by the price of email marketing services, start small and only upgrade your plan as your subscriber count increases.
Email marketing is a long-term strategy, and is by far one of the most effective ways to generate sales because you’re marketing to a captive audience. The people on your list have already signed up for, and have agreed to receive your marketing messages, which makes them more receptive. Besides, when you send emails to your list, you’ll be promoting specials, providing discounts, and offering other deals to people who already love your establishment. It’s a great way to capture new patrons, generate repeat business, and get people to come in more often.
As a bonus, when you work with a digital marketing agency, they can help you optimize your open rates to get even more people to read your emails.
When people look at your restaurant’s website, they want to see nice photos of all the food you serve. Only use high-quality, high resolution images to ensure you don’t disappoint your potential customers or misrepresent your food.
In addition to using only high resolution photos, make sure you hire a professional photographer to take photos of your offerings. Sometimes bad photos can make even the most delicious meals look unappetizing.
When you use quality images, especially those taken by a pro photographer, you’ll capture more interest from people who have yet to try your food, and that will help you grow your customer base.
The colors you use on your website should match your overall brand image, especially if you use specific colors or patterns inside your restaurant. The goal is to create a seamless, consistent experience across every platform so your customers always feel like they’re in the right place. The stronger your branding, the easier that is to accomplish.
Although you should be using your unique color scheme, it needs to make sense on your website. For example, if your colors are red, blue, and yellow, you don’t want a red background with blue text, or any variation thereof. All three of those colors should be used as accents, and you should stick with black text on a neutral colored background. Use your brand’s colors strategically while following basic design principles.
If you haven’t already branded your restaurant uniquely, consider professional branding services. It’s a small expense to pay for something that can set you apart from your competitors and make your patrons feel more at home when they visit your establishment.
Your patrons will want to check you out on social media sites, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X. Include links to all of your social media accounts either in the header or footer of your site. If you don’t have any social media accounts, you should at least consider getting on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook will make it easy to connect with your fans and run paid ads that convert well, and Instagram is ideal for posting photos to get people excited about your food.
If your goal is to grow your customer base, social media is essential. Customers want to engage with their favorite brands online, and that requires a social media presence. Connecting with customers is now considered part of the customer experience, and it can go a long way to help you generate loyalty.
Once you have a website, your next step will be to get it discovered in the search engines, like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. This is achieved through local SEO, and you really need to hire a professional for the job. If you can’t gain visibility in the search engines, people won’t be able to find you, and you’ll need to rely on paid ads for all of your traffic, and that will get expensive. While paid ads should always be part of your marketing strategy, generating organic traffic from search engines is a more sustainable way to get a steady flow of visitors to your website who will turn into paying customers.
A professional SEO company will optimize your content and site structure to make sure everything can be read and picked up by search engines. They’ll also develop a plan for targeting keywords and phrases that your potential patrons might use to find your establishment. For example, if you own an Italian restaurant, people might type, “best Italian restaurant near me,” or “Italian restaurant with authentic dishes.” An SEO company will help you rank for these (and other) relevant search phrases so that your website comes up in the search results for people located in your general area.
You might have the most beautiful website in the world, but if you don’t market your business, you won’t get many visitors or new patrons. Digital marketing services will help you reach your goals, whether you want more email subscribers, patrons, social media followers, or all of the above.
A digital marketing partner will ensure your website is optimized for search and your visitors, and will help you create content that will aid in your SEO efforts. Content marketing happens to be one of the most important aspects of SEO, but it’s also part of digital marketing. Today’s businesses need to publish regular content to stay relevant in the search engines, and a digital marketing partner will make it easy.
If you offer a dine-in experience with reservations, consider allowing your guests to make reservations online. Sometimes people don’t want to make a phone call, and would rather just book a reservation through a website.
There are third-party apps that facilitate online reservations, like OpenTable, but forcing people to use another website might disrupt your brand experience. The ideal solution is to hire a developer to create a custom reservation app that seamlessly integrates into your existing website. With a custom app, your guests never have to leave your website.
Similar to providing online reservations, you might want to offer online ordering. This service is becoming more popular by the day, and many food establishments are starting to offer it to their customers. It doesn’t matter if you sell fast food, are a dine-in only restaurant, or just a drive-thru. Customers like being able to order online, and the convenience can help you get more sales.
This is a particularly important consideration. Research has shown that most people don’t want to create an account just to make a purchase, and that includes forcing people to sign up to make a reservation or order online. Granted, there is a greater chance of receiving accidental or prank orders, but this can be avoided by requiring customers to confirm their order via email or text before it will be processed through your system.
If you’re looking for a website developer who understands what restaurants need, we’d love to work with you. Our team of experienced developers will create a stunning website that will impress your guests, and build out any software customizations you need. We can build you a custom online ordering or reservation system, a rewards program, or anything else you desire. Contact us today and tell us about your business – we’d love to build a site you and your customers will love.