An owner’s guide to restaurant website design

If you’re most at home kneading brioche dough or julienning peppers, it may seem like a chore to create a restaurant website. But a restaurant page is no longer just a nice-to-have: it’s a must. Sure, your mouthwatering Instagram pics will garner attention, but potential customers may lose interest when they discover you don’t have a website.

It’s time to move website creation to the top of the to-do list. We’ll walk you through the hows and whys of restaurant website design so you’re ready to tackle this task next time you’re waiting for the dough to rise.

What can a website do for your restaurant?

Saying a restaurant site is a must might sound like an exaggeration. But it’s crucial to establishing your restaurant as a serious player in the food world. Here are a few reasons restaurateurs should make getting online a priority:

• Stay booked: Unless you have the resources to station someone by the phone 24/7 to field reservation calls, you may be losing business. Your website can allow potential customers to book reservations online so the calendar can fill up without your staff dividing attention between answering calls and running food.
• Help people find you: A website puts your establishment on the map, literally and figuratively. It’s the perfect place to advertise your location so people know where to find you while giving you more visibility in a competitive industry. A contact page also makes it easy for customers to get in touch. If they can’t figure out who to call to get their questions answered, they may decide your restaurant isn’t worth their time.
• Be searchable: The internet is the first place most of us turn to for information. If a potential customer searches for the best pizza place, cocktail bar or sandwich shop in town, your restaurant is a lot less likely to pop up in a list of results if you don’t have a presence on the web.
• Be credible: Maybe someone heard your restaurant name mentioned in passing, but when they searched online for more info, the results came up empty. That person probably concluded your business had either closed or never existed in the first place. Having an online presence proves you’re real and open for business.

5 ingredients for cooking up a great restaurant website

The customer experience doesn’t start when guests get seated in your dining room. It begins at whatever point they first interact with you, which is often their initial visit to your website. Design your site with the goal of balancing aesthetics and functionality to offer the best user experience possible. Here’s what even the most basic sites should include:

• Reservation form: Make it easy for diners to book reservations online with a form or app integration that handles requests automatically. Include your phone number in case a customer has a special request or prefers the old-school reservation method.
• Social media links: Send website visitors to your Facebook, Instagram and other social accounts so they can see the great content you post. Social media is the perfect place to show off new menu items, offer promotions, engage with followers and invite customers to participate in calls-to-action (CTAs) by spreading the word about your restaurant.
• Online menu: These days, people choose where to go for dinner based on which menus sound the most enticing. Put a menu online so future customers can plan their order, ensure you can accommodate allergies or dietary restrictions, and check pricing to budget for the meal. If you’re set up with a delivery service, make life a little easier on everyone by adding an online ordering feature.
• A sense of (your) style: Your restaurant has a unique brand, and you can use your website to flaunt it. Include your logo, and design the site with fonts and colors that fit your branding. Write your web copy in the brand’s unique voice.
• Photos: There’s no better food sales tactic than posting irresistible images. Make sure to take high-quality shots that show off your food from its best angle. You don’t have to post pictures of your entire menu – just a gallery or slideshow of your most photo-worthy dishes is enough to get mouths watering.

How to drive traffic

While we’d love to say you can launch your website and call it a day, that’s not the way of the web. You’ll have to do some work, especially at first, to get customers through the virtual door. Here’s how:

• Link to your site on social media: Leverage the space in your social media bios to drive traffic to your site. Drop in a Linktree URL that redirects followers to your website homepage, other social media accounts and that stellar review your local food magazine just published about your restaurant.
• Partner up: Link up with bloggers and foodie influencers to spread the word about your spot. These voices often carry weight with your target audience, so their testimonials go a long way.
• Create an SEO-friendly site: When the internet reads, it looks for keywords – words and phrases people frequently query and terms that may be related to those keywords. Use SEO (search engine optimization) to your advantage by ensuring the text on your site contains the key terms someone might search for when looking for an establishment like yours. Plenty of third-party apps can help you determine which keywords to use.
• Ask your friends and family to help: Is Mom your biggest fan? No problem. Ask friends and family to share your posts on social media or a link to your website on their blogs. Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing, especially when it has the power and reach of technology behind it.

Get inspired to design a restaurant website

As a restaurant owner, you already have the number-one tool you’ll need to make a great site: passion. You know and care more about your company and cuisine than anyone else. All you have to do now is bring that passion to the digital page. If you want to see how others have taken on the challenge of restaurant website design, check out other food-industry sites for design inspiration.

Still not quite feeling up to the task? Make it easy on yourself with a restaurant website builder. Their user-friendly design tools and templates will give you a professional-looking site – and confidence in your creative abilities, inside the kitchen and out.