• April 13, 2022
• by fsadvertising

As we know, a website is of utmost importance for a business to thrive in the modern digital world. The restaurant business is no different. In fact, there may be some businesses that can still go without or with a very basic website, but for a business like that a restaurant, rest assured your website holds at least 50 per cent of your business’ success.

Let’s have a look at some of the design tips that can take your restaurant business a notch higher.

TIPS TO DESIGN AN EFFECTIVE RESTAURANT WEBSITE

1. Design to cater to people’s need for information:

Before you begin, think about why someone is on your website? Either the person is a new resident in your city or a new local patron. There can be customers returning back after being satisfied at your restaurant. When you are building your online presence, these needs of the people are required to be considered.

Make sure to display the restaurant's name, address, and phone number prominently all the time.  It's always a better idea to link the address to google maps and add the phone number to a special tel link so that the users can call or get directions in just a single click.

Also, see that your website is responsive and mobile-friendly which allows people to browse your website, check seat availability, menu, reviews, etc. easily on their mobile phones. The faster you serve the information, the more chances of turning them into customers.

2. Design to provide the near-real look and feel of the physical restaurant:

Having clean tables, perfect lighting and a serene ambience act as an important atmosphere in a restaurant's physical location.  Treat your restaurant website as the same when someone is going through it, they are visiting your virtual space and judge the quality of your food, location and service based on the presentations on your website.  

Your website is going to be the first impression of a customer so make sure you do everything to make it look perfect.  

3. Make use of high-quality pictures:

Using high-quality photography is an important tool to level up your digital marketing policy. A good photo speaks about your restaurant's atmosphere, food, staff, price range and style. Don't forget to put a big photo as the background image of the introduction on your website. 

Highlight the USP of your restaurant in photographs. Be it a cute storefront, elegant interiors, lip-smacking food or sharing behind the scene titbits of your friendly staff and well-organised kitchen, make sure to attract your customers instantly. You can also share short videos of how the food is prepared, glimpses of your interiors etc. 

Even if you don't like using photos in your physical menu, do use them online. When customers dine in at your restaurant physically, intentionally or not they will look at other people's plates to check if the food looks good before ordering.  Your online images of food along with the menu offer the same real-world process when a user goes through your website to order food. 

4. Write engaging content 

It is not really recommended to use plenty of text content on your restaurant website. As stated in the previous point, let your pictures talk about your restaurant. However, you do have to write something to introduce yourself. Make sure that your text content includes proper keywords to make it easy to find in the search engine. Also, make sure to write your content as vividly as possible. As a general rule of thumb, write to show and not to tell.

5. Tell your story:

Authenticity is of utmost importance and for a good reason. Put up information to your customers about how your restaurant took baby steps and what makes it unique and special. You can write about when you were founded, where your food comes from, how it is prepared, your inspiration or role models, some notes about your chefs, core teams etc. to keep your customers engrossed with your journey. 

6. A good menu is responsive:

Your restaurant menu is the second most important part of your website. A good menu is usable, enticing and responsive. But the usability of a menu is critical.  Here's why:

• You must never upload your physical menu as an image or file.   

It will not only alienate the mobile users to drag around to reading a document but also damage the search engine rankings if the text is not readable by crawler robots. Make sure to always re-type your menu on the website so that the text can scale, move, resize and can bEd paused by the search engines.

• Remember, you must never try to separate parts of your menu in tabs or keep pieces of it behind a click. 

For example, if a user wants to see the main course, they should not have to start from the appetisers first. The entire menu should be visible on one page without any additional clicks except scrolling. 

7. Track your visitor behaviour:

Always ensure to implement Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to keep track of your bounce rate, time on site and click-through rate determining the sales proceed through online orders.  If the users are mostly clicking through from your homepage to your menu by placing high-value keywords, it can help you refine your message to reach out to more potential customers.  For example, if people search for Indian Cuisine instead of Mughlai food, then refining your content to align with “Indian Cuisine” will help you rank higher and eventually generate more traffic and increase more business.

Hiring a professional web designing agency will help you handle all of the above-stated factors. Be it taking professional photos of your space and food to build an appealing website that attracts and wins new customers.  A website is known as the most vital component of any modern marketing campaign, so you must ensure it's done right, right from the beginning.