A Restaurant Website must have these basic components in order to fulfill its purpose. Almost 50% of potential customers go online and check the restaurant’s website first before deciding to come or not. That’s why it is crucial for every restaurant business owner to have a user-friendly website in order to avoid losing out customers.
It is no doubt that we’re living in the Digital Era, and in order to adapt to the ever changing trends and demands of the customers, every Restaurant Business is now expected to deliver their services digitally. We feature the components you need to include if you want to use your website in its maximum potential.
Components of a Successful Restaurant Website :
- Website Design
Your website design is part of your marketing, it’ll be the first thing your potential customers will see, that’s why it is very crucial to make your customers feel that they’re already connecting with your restaurant brand just with your website. The palette used should also match your brand and concept.
If you don’t have the capacity to hire a professional website designer, there are website building sites available in which you can provide a template and simply work your way around with it. Just make sure that it still aligns with your brand.
Make the first impression of your customers, regarding your restaurant, be good. Provide a responsive design and user-friendly interface. Customers tend to trust the restaurant business more if its website gives a good user experience and if it’s visually pleasant. Be consistent in your design, as you are with your branding.
- Mobile Friendly
A good restaurant website should be navigated well through smartphones. Make sure your restaurant website is functioning and responding well with the use of smartphones. Customers nowadays search things through their smartphones and one of them is where they should eat. Take this opportunity to work out for your restaurant business.
Note : Mobile receptivity helps with SEO ranking.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
As we’ve mentioned above, there’s a thing called SEO ranking. This ranking is based on how far up your website would rank/appear if a certain search is being made by a potential customer. Having your SEO checked and monitor is a huge help for your restaurant website. A restaurant website, no matter how good it is, if it is not present on top 3 of the customers’ searches, won’t be able to fulfill its purpose. For example, customers usually search “What’s the best restaurant in the UK?”, even though you think your restaurant is the best, no one would know because your restaurant website or name doesn’t appear on the top search results.
In order to gain more presence in search engines, you should be able to get backlinks. Backlinks are published articles or blogs from credible sources that’s linking your website. You may start to talk and build relationships with PR journalists, bloggers, and media in your local community for this component.
It is also advisable to use a different domain instead of the common .com. It would make your restaurant website easy to stand out, be remembered, and have a sense of community and exclusivity.
- Key Information
Every potential customer, upon checking the website, looks for the essential information of the restaurant. A restaurant website must place these information where it’s easy to see and locate. No matter how good your design is, if you’re giving the customers a hard time to see how they can contact you or locate you for your services, it’ll be no use because they’ll leave your restaurant website feeling frustrated.
Make sure your restaurant website gives your restaurant’s location (you may include a map here as well), contact information, email address, and operating hours.
Tip : Provide a link of your Social Media Accounts on this tab as well. This would help your restaurant brand to increase customer engagement from your social media accounts.
- Menu
It is imperative to every restaurant website to provide the potential customers a high-resolution responsive menu. Customers may have a hard time checking a menu if it’s on image or PDF form. Presenting a menu is letting your potential customers know what you can offer.
That’s why it is important for a menu to be simple, comprehensible, and has description of your menu items. Make sure to use a language that would be understood by your guests, a typography for better reading, and the price of every item.
Your restaurant website should have an updated menu, this will help you to manage your customers expectations for you to deliver the customer experience you want.
- High-quality Photos
Hiring a professional to produce this component would make the trick. This may look more of an investment rather than a component, but trust us when we say this, legitimate and appealing photos will drive potential customers right at your door.
The saying “People eat with their eyes” wouldn’t be so popular if this has no basis. Having a quality photo on your restaurant website is a plus as customers are more enticed if they’re given an image on which they can associate your restaurant and your menu.
Take quality photos of your menu items, ambiance, and interior. Make them want to experience the things they are seeing. You can also add short videos about your restaurant, what the basic process is, or how the kitchen flow is usually. This would boost engagement for your restaurant brand.
Tip : Treat your photos as an extension of your physical restaurant.
- Story
A must have but often taken for granted component of restaurant website is a story. The ‘About Us’ section leaves a huge impact on potential customers and this may affect their decision on whether to choose your restaurant or not.
You have provided them a top-notch website, it is just obvious that they would be interested more in your restaurant. They would like to know more about the history of your restaurant, what’s your inspiration with your concept, and what are the values being carried by the restaurant business.
Restaurant owners could also use this component in letting your customers know what else you can offer, utilize this to inform your potential customers.
- Social Proof
Another component to look out for if you want your restaurant website to look legit. These are the comments, reviews, and testimonials from other customers. Potential customers would likely listen more to existing and past customers rather than your own take about your restaurant.
This is also an opportunity to convert cold customers to paying costumes. Make sure to include reviews from different sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google to enhance the authenticity of this component.
You may also opt to add feedback forms and sign up forms for your customers. This gives them the impression of being valued and it also lets you see where are the things you could improve with your system.
- Online Order Feature
Before the pandemic, there’s been a huge demand for Online Ordering service, now imagine the number of customers your restaurant business is losing daily if your website doesn’t offer online ordering until now. With the effects of the recent events, customers are likely to comply with the safety protocols and guidelines thus leaving the dine-in concept in edge.
Online Ordering system on your restaurant website is crucial because it could be the main driver of your restaurant in the future. You have to provide your customers and potential ones an option where they can still enjoy your service without compromising their safety.
There might be 3rd party apps you can check for this component, but just imagine how much you can save if you would manage your own online ordering and delivery system.
- Website Analytics
The first nine is about what you could provide for your customers to see in your restaurant website, now this is a component not presented to your customers. Having website analytics could help you check and monitor the performance of your website in an organized way. It provides you data that contains the answers to your questions like ‘what devices are usually used while checking your website’, ‘what are the keywords used when searching for your restaurant’, ‘where’s the top are your restaurant being searched’, and other questions that could help you improve your restaurant website’s services.
We now live in a world where almost everything can be searched through the internet. The dependency that the people have with online services is growing at a fast speed, and it is your responsibility as a restaurant owner on how you’ll use such a factor into an opportunity to grow your restaurant business.
