There are now over 1.58 billion active websites online. Only 64% of small businesses have a website, though. If you want to attract more hungry customers to your restaurant, you need a website that stands out.
Otherwise, you’ll fade into the background. You might struggle to attract hungry patrons or book reservations as a result.
Not sure how to make a successful website for your restaurant business? Here are the nine tips you need to succeed! With these tips, you can make sure your site stands out from the crowd.
Get started with these nine essential elements you need to create the best restaurant website!
1. Maintain Brand Consistency
Before you start building your restaurant, take a moment to consider your goals. Do you want to:
- Generate brand awareness
- Increase brand recognition
- Improve brand trust and loyalty
- Increase traffic to your website
- Improve your search engine ranking
- Become a go-to thought leader in your industry
- Book more reservations
- Encourage more phone calls
- Sell dishes online
- Increase delivery requests
Different website elements can help you accomplish these goals. For example, do you want to generate more brand awareness and recognition? The next time someone’s hungry, they’ll remember seeing the delicious dishes on your website.
Then, they’ll book a reservation or order your dishes online.
In order to build brand awareness and recognition, you need an eye-catching, distinctive brand. Otherwise, people will fail to recognize your restaurant among the rest.
Your brand should include your:
- Font styles
- Logo
- Imagery and photography style
- Color palette
- Vision
- Mission
- Personality
- Tone
- Voice
What kind of atmosphere are you creating? Do you want to offer a fine-dining experience or one that’s family-friendly? Keep that in mind as you develop your brand.
As you use these restaurant website tips, make sure every page of your website maintains brand consistency. An inconsistent brand could confuse visitors. They might think they’ve traveled to a completely different website.
Look at your competitors’ websites. What elements of their brand do you like? What elements does everyone seem to use?
Make sure your brand is distinctive. If it’s not unique, you’ll fade into the background.
2. Share Your Story
Consumers now expect brands to remain authentic, honest, and transparent. Otherwise, they might struggle to trust you. If consumers can’t trust your brand, they might not visit your restaurant.
With COVID-19, restaurants are becoming more transparent about their cleanliness guidelines. How are you protecting your patrons?
Create a pop-up on your website to let people know your restaurants are clean and safe.
Otherwise, tell your story! Let people know the story behind your restaurant. What inspired your recipes?
A story can make it easier for people to connect with your brand. They’ll remember your story and want to experience a piece of it firsthand. Your story can impact your brand and the atmosphere at your restaurant, too.
3. Organize Your Navigation
Want to learn how to make a successful website for your restaurant business? Look at your site from the customer’s point of view. Where will they go to find information?
Make sure the most important pages are at the top of your navigation bar. For example, people will likely want to see your menu and reservation pages.
What action do you want people to complete? Do you want them to book a reservation, place an online order, or call you? Turn that call-to-action (CTA) into an eye-catching button.
Then, place that button at the top left corner of your navigation bar.
Organizing your navigation will improve your clickthrough rate. People will continue clicking around and exploring your website. They’ll see your stunning dishes and realize how hungry they are!
4. Consider UX Design Trends
As you learn how to make a successful website for your restaurant business, consider the user experience (UX). UX web design will ensure your website is easy to use. Consumers will have an easier time finding the information they need.
Consider working with a web design and development agency that’s familiar with UX design. They can help you improve your website by:
- Maintaining brand consistency
- Improving the navigation
- Ensuring forms are easy to use
- Using short sentences and paragraphs
- Organizing content with headers and subheadings
- Ensuring your website is fast
- Ensuring your site is mobile-optimized
You can check your website speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. If your site is slow, people will leave without clicking around. Your bounce rate will rise as a result.
A high bounce rate can hurt your ranking on search engines. Hungry consumers might not find your restaurant website online.
5. Add an Instagram Feed
Do you post a lot of delicious, mouth-watering images on your Instagram feed? Share your content! Add an Instagram feed to your website.
An Instagram feed will ensure your site always displays fresh content. Otherwise, your website can look stale and outdated. People won’t return to your website to see new content.
Make sure your Instagram photos are worth showing off. Use high-quality, eye-catching images to attract people to your restaurant.
6. Build Your Blog
Adding blog content is another great way to keep your content fresh.
You can use a blog to show off your chefs, dishes, skills, and community outreach. Blogging is a great way to improve your transparency, too.
Try to cover different topics on your blog to appeal to a range of readers.
7. Make Contacting Easy
Is it easy for people to contact you? Make sure your website form is short, sweet, and to the point. If you book online reservations, make sure it’s easy to use.
8. Stay Search Engine Optimized
Search engine optimization (SEO) can make it easier for people to find you online. You can optimize your restaurant website based on the keywords people use in a Google search. Work with a web design company that has experience with SEO.
Over 50% of all website traffic starts on a search engine. With SEO, you can attract more people to your site and website.
9. Go Mobile
More people are checking their phones to find the information they need. Make sure your website is mobile-optimized. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check.
If you’re not optimized, you might miss a chance to reach out-and-about customers.
A Wow-Worthy Website: How to Make a Successful Website for Your Restaurant Business
Now that you know how to make a successful website for your restaurant business, get to it! With these tips, you can wow your restaurant patrons. You can attract more people to your website and book more reservations.
Need help with your restaurant website? We’re happy to lend a hand.
Contact us today to get started!
