Is it enough to serve tasty food to call yourself a successful restaurant? Not for the 21st century. Nowadays the competition in the restaurant is so fierce that only 1 in 5 restaurant owners are certain they can survive within the year, according to Independent Restaurant Coalition. The only way to survive today is to make your restaurant knowledgeable, and here online promotion helps. The recognition can be achieved in different ways, but making a dedicated website is the first thing to start with.
Recent surveys show almost 90 percent of guests research a restaurant before dining — more than any other business type by the way. Moreover, 57 percent of those guests view restaurant websites before selecting where to dine. The first thing you should pay attention to is the menu. However, at this stage many restaurant owners make two opposite but most common mistakes. Some consider it sufficient just to name the dish and add random photos taken in a hurry before serving; while others, on the contrary, pay attention to long descriptions and forget that their customers are hungry.
In order to create a good menu, it is worth remembering about human psychology. By visiting the restaurant's website, customers already imagine how they eat certain dishes, looking at their appearance. Therefore, first of all, you should take 1-2 professional appetizing photos of each dish. Then you should add a short description to each one, from which your client can learn about the incoming ingredients and the method of preparation.
It's no secret the total check also includes the cost of the restaurant's atmosphere, that’s why it’s necessary to add photos with the appearance of the restaurant itself. This action will not only help to attract customers, but also convince them they can want to pay for the dishes in your restaurant only.
After the client has decided on the menu, make sure he has access to such important information as your contact phone number, address and working hours. Essentials: working hours. No one wants to come to a long-awaited dinner and see the closed doors. In general, make sure your site not only contains all the necessary information, but also reflects the overall style of your restaurant. Do not miss such important features as creating a memorable logo and domain.
So, is it possible to finish creating a website at this stage? Well, yes and no! All the features mentioned above can be considered basic. Due to the large selection in the food industry today, some customers are becoming more fastidious. They want to feel special when choosing a certain place to eat-out. In order to win over the client more on the restaurant's website, you can add a special section dedicated to the exciting history of your restaurant, the idea of its creation, or, for example, slightly reveal the secret cooking technology that is unique to you. After reading this section, your customers will feel not only the taste of the dishes, but also the rich history behind them.
Once the design of the site is finished, you should think about its promotion. In order for more people to learn about the existence of your restaurant, you’d better use diverse SEO tools. Having your website linked on other authoritative websites will help give your business a search engine boost. Pay attention to local SEO, which is becoming increasingly important as more and more people use mobile devices for search. These days, 57% of all searches are performed from tablets and smartphones, and half of those searches have local intent.
Encourage your customers to leave reviews of your website. Near 33 percent view other guests’ reviews prior to dining. According to research, previous customer reviews are a key factor influencing the attitude of potential customers toward your restaurant. Moreover, if you take the time to comment on the reviews left, you will show how important the opinion of each client is to you and thereby win over yourself. And finally, constantly follow the trends of your industry. Implement an online ordering system in your website, develop a delivery system and make your website mobile-friendly. After you have correctly built your website and developed a system for your promotion, all you have to do is regularly make sure all the information is up to date.