Thinking about having a new website made for your restaurant or food business? Below are some tips from our restaurant web design company. Want some more tips? Ready to get started on your project? Just give us a call or send us an email today.
1. Make Sure your Menus are Up to Date and are Download Ready
Almost every restaurant website has menus. That is an obvious. Unfortunately, the menus are sometimes old, outdated, or feature branding that does not match that of the menus a customer would get should they dine in at your location. Make sure the menus you put up are accurate and appear the same. PDF menus that can be downloaded and printed serve restaurants wonderfully.
2. Use Professional Photos Whenever Possible
If you are trying to attract people in the doors the food needs to look delicious. Low quality photos taken with cell phone cameras and bad lighting just won't cut it. Even though our team is here to assist with high quality photo editing, it can only end up looking so good. We always suggest that you take the time to handle pictures the right way or even bring in a professional photographer to snap photos of not only some of the food dishes but of your restaurant's location in general. Your website will only look as good as your content so remember to put some time into the images which will be on it.
3. Treat the Website Like an Investment
Forget about those do-it-yourself tools and the one-size-fits-all restaurant site solutions offered by some. If you are serious about being successful online than you need a professional solution. It may cost a bit more but remember the website is not an expense, it is an investment. If handled correctly your new website will better service existing customers and help bring new ones in the door.
4. Be Mobile Friendly
Our restaurant web design solutions almost always involve either a mobile website or a responsive design that allows the website to look great on a smartphone or tablet. More and more people search for restaurants from their phone. Having your site set up so that someone can just click the phone number to call you or press a button to quickly view a menu makes their experience all that much better. Be sure your website is built in a way that serves these customers too.
5. Understand the Basics about Search Engine Optimization
Your website should have some content on it that states who you are, where you are, and what you offer. For example, "NY Strips is a New York City steakhouse that offers amazing tasting strip steaks and more". Not having content that actually cites what you do can make it a lot harder for you to show up well in the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing when people do searches. Our team helps make sure you are set up correctly and every restaurant web design solution we put together involves some level of SEO.
6. Go Beyond your Website's Domain Name
While all of the marketing you do may be based around getting the visitor to your website, make sure you spend the time to have your other outlets well handled as well. Yelp, Facebook, and other food review websites with social abilities are often times used for people to make decisions about whether or not to go somewhere. You need to have high quality profiles with accurate information.
7. Be Careful about the Big Name Coupon Websites
Groupon.com, Restaurant.com, LivingSocial.com and others are all great ideas if you are trying to get your restaurant some exposure however you need to go in with the right expectations. Often times these websites charge fees (your earnings) which result in little to no end profit by the time the customer is done eating. What's more is that people often become coupon trained and only go to your location because of the offer. These types of marketing choices are great for new locations looking to do a one-time push however they may not be the best solution for any type of ongoing marketing effort. Just understand the process and make a sound decision.
Have additional questions? Want more tips? Contact DreamCo Design today. We are confident our team can offer you the exact restaurant website design solution you are looking for as our team is here to help you reach your goals.
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