People usually visit restaurant and cafe websites for various reasons like to check out the menu, the right place for a first date, to book a table for Sunday evening or for small party arrangements. Your restaurant website is the first online space that the potential customers interact with. Chances are that they will make a decision to become your customer on the first impression they obtain from your website.
Therefore, it is crucial to have your restaurant website designed in a way to serve online visitors, engage them and most importantly, turn them into loyal customers. Below are some requisites each café or restaurant website needs to hold.
Consideration From Customer’s Point Of View
Just like how you take care of customer requests in the dining hall, ponder on what they wish for while visiting your website, and then design accordingly.
Logistic information
Basic information like address, email address, and contact number are commonly paced in the ‘About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ web page. It is recommended to display this easy to read logistic information on your homepage as well as anchor it in a fixed spot on` each page for visitors to see basics in a glance. Moreover, add your location with an embedded Google Map, making it easier for visitors to get to your restaurant.
Menu
Menu needs to be placed in prominent place on the website. Menu page needs to be detailed. Adding items directly on the menu page takes some time when compared to uploading a PDF or scanned version. However, the payoff is worthy because menu can be easily adjusted, design is consistent all through the website, and keywords in your menu items can help to enhance Google SEO ranking. For example, you could check out the Red Lobster dinner menu, and get a much clear idea.
Real food images
Visitors on your website will like to see the kind of food your restaurant serves. Stock images don’t reflect your restaurant style. Invest in a photographer and have them capture your culinary art, the food you really offer. Similarly, your interiors are also important. Display real images of the restaurant interiors, so that visitors get an idea of what to expect, when they enter the restaurant door.
Responsive website for better experience
With the increase in usage of Smartphone, people don’t need to be curbed to their desktop for browsing the web. Today, they visit restaurant website on-the-go [while in between task or in transit] looking for where to lunch or dine. Therefore, make sure to create a responsive website that are compatible on mobile devices automatically. Your website should be easily accessible on a tablet, mobile phone as well as on desktop large screens.
Online reservations
Add a reservation app to your website for consumers ease and convenience. This will allow consumers to make reservations directly from your site. Thus, make sure that your website has smooth navigation through other pages.
Friendly navigation
Navigation menu need to help visitors quickly find what they are searching for and where to go. Avoid overly lengthy drop downs or heavy icon option, because they take more time to load. The fonts should be readable and clear even on small devices.
Consider SEO
SEO [search engine optimization] is all about making it easy for the search engines to find your website as per the relevant search terms. For restaurant websites, the big SEO driver is its menu, so post menus as HTML text instead of uploading PDF, which search engines cannot read.
For example, when someone in your area looks for ‘Costco Sandwich Platter’, the search engine ‘perceives’ your delicious platter posted on your website and shows it on top of result page.
Other good SEO friendly drivers are ‘About the team’ page with bios of chef and staff. The ‘Press’ web page that highlights write-ups and positive reviews.
The above restaurant website essentials can make it a potent marketing tool!
