Restaurateurs are experts at creating innovative business concepts, serving tasty food, and creating memorable guest experiences. Digital is becoming an increasingly important part of the customer experience. Your company’s new front door is your website.

When your restaurant improves its digital ordering, takeout, and delivery choices, it’s essential than ever for customers to find your restaurant online and find exactly what they’re looking for. The key to your restaurant marketing strategy is your website. Restaurant owners have a rare opportunity to customize their guests’ experiences online and offline to promote loyalty and convert frequent visitors into regulars.

Your website is the platform for your guests’ first contact with your company, with 89 percent of diners researching restaurants online before visiting in place. An essential feature of creating a successful restaurant website design, whether you’re designing it yourself or hiring someone to do it for you, effectively conveys vital information while also enhancing customer experience.

Let’s look at the more effective restaurant website design features that you can have on your site to ensure that your audience has a good experience and that you can achieve your goals today!

• Use high-resolution photographs of your restaurant and food:When selecting a restaurant, people make sentimental choices, and you can benefit them by using high-quality photos on your website. High-quality images not only show your restaurant’s reputation as a high-end establishment but also help tell your restaurant’s storyline before the food arrives. High-quality photos for restaurant websites website recommendations for restaurants you can only hire a professional for one part of your website, hire one to provide an essential collection of photographs, such as your food, employees, and general setting. You can also share food and events on social media, in addition to high-quality photos. You don’t need expensive equipment to make social media videos, but you can make sure that each image has proper lighting.
• Directly connect to social media:Creating a good branding experience across all channels online, in public, by email, and on social media is essential to your marketing efforts. You will want to make it as easy as possible for visitors to access you, and connecting your social media accounts to your website is an easy way to do so. Regardless of the channel, keep your social media pages accurate to your brand, menu, and community. Your social media strategy as a whole will make sense, but you can also fine-tune the content to fit the platform. Use Instagram to share updates, build or promote events; use Facebook to share updates and create and promote events.
• Highlight Your Menu:Ninety-three percent of customers would look at a restaurant’s menu before choosing where to eat. Of course, you need your menu to be available on your website. However, there is a specific way to make it as open to your visitors as possible. Visitors to your website, especially those using smartphones, want to access your menu quickly and easily. Menus should be listed in an easy-to-find (and share) web page that can be found both on your website’s homepage and in Google results. Also, make sure it’s not a PDF or a gif, but rather an HTML document for easy searching.
• Increase the efficiency of online ordering:Approximately 82 percent of guests prefer to order directly from a restaurant’s website. That’s a success for you, but you should make it simple for visitors to make purchases with you once they arrive at your homepage. Show off your menu and direct visitors to essential details when integrating your website with technologies such as online ordering and reservation tools. Many Toast restaurants have found success with a large “Order Online” button featured prominently on their homepage, connecting customers to their online ordering page.
• Provide Gift cards and merchandise:Gift cards and merchandise are also simple revenue generators. They’re also simple ways for your regular customers to express their appreciation for your restaurant. Gift cards are effectively a micro-loan for restaurants that need instant cash flow — and you can count on that customer returning. To make it even easier for their guests to find both gift cards and online shopping, make sure to promote gift cards front and center on your website.
• Create The Website’s Most Important Content:Since most restaurants would not want to rank nationally, restaurant websites design differently from other industries. On the other hand, if you own a local restaurant, you’ll need your website to rank well in search engines for your city and area. Content for your restaurant’s website should help people quickly find answers, boost your site’s search engine ranking, and put your restaurant as the best dining option in your area.
• Tell Your Story:It is a beautiful way to learn more about your restaurant or what you stand for. Your restaurant’s personality and background can display on your website. Do you buy produce from nearby farms? Is your mother’s name on the menu? In an “About Us” or “Our Story” section of your website, tell your visitors about it.
• Add reviews for your website:With 60% of users reading reviews before visiting a restaurant, the restaurant’s online reputation is essential in determining whether or not customers can return. Nearly a third of restaurants refuse to visit a restaurant with a rating of fewer than four stars. Users are more inspired to visit a restaurant that the others enjoyed and an example of their service. If your restaurant has stellar reviews, consider inserting those reviews on your website for transfer purposes.

Conclusion:

Running a restaurant is complicated, and you must juggle a lot of duties as a restaurant owner. On the other hand, building a restaurant website should not be one of your worries during the day.

Your restaurant needs a great website to improve results, whether you want to develop your social media following or drive traffic to special events. You can use the tips above to raise your restaurant’s profit while also growing your online presence!