Every Successful Restaurant Website Must Have 5 Key Ingredients
Every restaurant website has one main goal and that is to attract customers. Frequently, I see poorly designed restaurant websites which are missing the main element ingredients needed to successfully convert people to customers.
Do you know the key ingredients in a successful restaurant website? Here are the 5 items that every restaurant website will need to maximize its likelihood of converting web site traffic into paying customers.
1. Map and Directions
Don't make it difficult for people to find where your restaurant is located. Rather than only listing the address on your website, display an easy-to-read map and directions, which means that your customers can easily find your restaurant. The easiest and quickest way to display a map to your restaurant is by using Google Maps and embed it on your website.
2. An Accessible Restaurant Menu
If your restaurant website doesn't are the menu with the prices - do it! Your menu is the main marketing tool on your website and your possibility to make mouths water, so do not forget to include some enticing pictures of one's dishes.
The key thing here's to create your menu accessible. All too often I see restaurants take the lazy approach and upload a PDF copy of their menu. PDFs take an agonizingly, very long time to load, particularly if people are attempting to view your menu from their cell phones. PDFs provide no search engine optimisation (SEO) benefits for the website.
My advice is to take the extra time and energy to develop a dedicated menu page on your own website. Ensure that your menu page includes descriptions of the meals, any specials or promotions and appealing photos of your dishes.
3. A Photo Gallery of one's Restaurant and Food
People want to see what the restaurant looks like before they decide to eat there. This is why every restaurant website needs to have an image gallery. Hire a professional photographer to come during among your restaurant's busy times and capture the ambiance, decor and dishes that produce your restaurant unique. Then display the photos on your website in a simple photo gallery.
Pictures are worth a thousands words and great pictures are invaluable for convincing visitors to come to your restaurant.
4. A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE, Restaurant Homepage
Your homepage may be the most important page on your website since it makes the initial impression. Within seconds of arriving to your homepage, an individual will decide if it is worth their time and energy to look through the others of your site.
So how can you ensure that your homepage is engaging?
Firstly, Learn more must display a prominent photo of your restaurant. Pick a excellent picture of your restaurant or even a signature dish and make sure it is the first thing people see when they come to your site.
You also need to have some well-written copy to check your image. The copy should tell people what your restaurant is about and how it is different from other restaurant experiences. Make https://notes.io/qHzJq is short and compelling. If this content is too long, people only will not take time to read it.
Finally, beside your primary image or your marketing copy, you have to include a strong call to action. A call to action is a link or a button that encourages the person viewing your homepage to click to some other page. Examples of good calls to actions for a restaurant website would be:
View our delicious menu and weekly specials (links to your menu page)
Take a tour of our restaurant (links to your photo gallery page)
Make a reservation for your next event (links to your contact us page)
5. Reservation Information on Every Page
Every restaurant website needs a dedicated area for making reservations on each page of their website.
If you are able to install an online reservation system on your own restaurant website, that might be the perfect solution. Another way to accept reservations online is by using OpenTable.com which is free to use. However, unless you want to work with online reservations at the moment, just display a telephone number that people may use to create a reservation directly.
The main point here's to make the reservation information highly visible on every page. The very best place to put your reservation info is at the top of one's website, near your primary navigation. This makes the info easy to spot for your visitors and they will appreciate you for this.