What to Include in a Restaurant Website

In the current age, it’s common for clients to research restaurants’ websites when looking for a serene place to fill their stomachs.

That’s why having a restaurant website is important for the success of your business. Sadly, the restaurant field has been notorious for outdated and poor-quality websites. A high-quality restaurant website can make a difference between a new client and a missed opportunity.

Irrespective of how excellent your ambiance, food, and service are, a badly designed website will poorly reflect your business.

The majority of people assume the quality of a restaurant’s site is reflective of the quality of the restaurant itself.

Thus you need to make sure your restaurant website design is easy to navigate and in top shape.

You should consider your site as the face of your business’ brand. It is what creates potential clients’ first impression and sets a podium for their expectations.

You just perfected your menu, location, and customer service; now, you should make your restaurant website compliment that. Read on for more information about what to include on the restaurant website.

Contact Information

When it comes to designing a website for your restaurant, you must consider why visitors might be visiting your site. In this case, people will visit your website to check operation hours, location, and a phone number to make reservations. Apart from the contact page, your phone number, restaurant’s address, and house must be visible on all pages.

This makes it easy for visitors to become real clients.

Link your address to Google maps such that directions are a click away regardless of the visitors’ location. Include a clickable phone number that can be auto-dialed for mobile sites.

Menu

Apart from figuring out your phone number or restaurant location, another reason people visit your website is to check out the menu. Note that a responsive online menu is incredibly essential.

Avoid uploading a photo of your real menu since it will be hard for mobile users to navigate and it is hard for search engines to read

This also applies to PDF menus. It’s important to avoid any unnecessary steps to get your restaurant website visitors to the data they need.

Making people download a PDF menu rather than listing your menu list directly on the website can make the menu hard to read.  A PDF menu is great if you want to provide a downloadable or print version menu for your restaurant website but it is best to have the menu also viewable as pages on your website. The best thing is to link a PDF version of the menu that opens another tab for users. It loads fast and is easier to view.

Amazing Images of Your Food

Don’t underestimate the power of good images. Unfortunately, people can’t taste pictures.

Having beautiful images of the food on your site is essential to give clients an idea of what they should expect from the kitchen.

Nevertheless, unappetizing or low-quality images can have a negative impact.

One thing you must keep in mind when snapping pictures of your goods is that clients love seeing portion sizes. Try to be real with the portion indicated in the photos. Otherwise, your clients might be upset if they get smaller portions than they expected, depending on what they saw on the site.

Show off how delicious your restaurant food is with well-staged and high-resolution photos. You do not need photos of every meal on the menu.

While you don’t utilize every photo that gets taken on your site, these photos come in handy for your social media platforms or when you opt to redesign your menu.

Investing in top-quality images from a seasoned photographer is a worthwhile investment. One perfect image can gain you many clients. So, the smartphone images may not do the magic.

You can incorporate photos of the food directly on the menu such that people can see the corresponding image when reading about a specific meal. In case you don’t want images of the food on your physical menus, you might want to consider incorporating them into your online menu.

When potential clients read your menu online, you must entice them to come to your physical location. Incorporating images into the menu indicates you are willing to go a step further.

And a particularly tasty-looking meal will convince an individual who might have been reading through.

Online Ordering

It’s 2021, and that shows many restaurants, and fast food joints have turned to online ordering alternatives for delivery and take-outs.

The simplicity of online ordering is extremely tempting to clients, particularly over placing orders by smartphone.

The majority of people feel comfortable offering credit card details on a secure website than reading their card numbers over the phone. Even when you do not offer delivery services or offer take-out, offering mobile alternatives for placing catering orders or placing reservations can be beneficial to your restaurant. There are many options for setting up online ordering for your restaurant website.  This can be fully built into yoru website or you can use an external service such as one of the following:

• https://hungerrush.com/
• http://www.menudrive.com/
• http://www.ordertalk.com/
• https://www.chownow.com/
• https://www.ubereats.com

Images of Your Restaurant’s Interior

Apart from the photos of meals, restaurant websites should include images of the restaurant itself. These photos help in setting the scene for future clients, so they know what to expect whenever they visit your restaurant.

Preferably, your website should feature photos of both the exterior and interior of the restaurant.

A Theme that Matches Your Restaurant’s Style

As the restaurant owner, you must understand the significance of the atmosphere. Consider your site as the extension of your physical space. So, get restaurant web design services that can help you design a site that creates a virtual version of the similar atmosphere your restaurant offers.

Consistency is vital if you operate an upscale restaurant that serves wealthier clientele. Go for a simple restaurant web design for your site with a lot of white space. If your business is geared towards families, you can add some whimsical features.

The website is always the first thing people will see before they come to your restaurant. So, you want the first impression to be consistent with what they will find when they visit the restaurant.