At Bitcookie, we design websites for all types of industries. We combine traditional advertising principles with good experimental technique, applied psychology and behavioral analysis to identify the best methods to achieve business goals online. Here we share some of our insights into how to increase sales on restaurant and coffee shop websites.
Reading: How to create a great restaurant website
1. Understand why someone is on your site
Before you start, think about why someone is on your site. They typically fall into one of three categories:
- New outside patrons
- New local patrons
- Returning customers
Keep the needs of these groups in mind as you build your online presence.
First-time customers search for a restaurant in advance. They compare your website to other restaurant websites in town. If you’re a tourist, you’re likely to be in a hotel room on a mobile device, which means a responsive (mobile-friendly) website is crucial to earning your business; the best looking website with the greatest appeal will win their visit. If they visit and enjoy your restaurant, you’ve just won repeat business or a referral. Therefore, it is obvious that your website is an important part of your overall marketing strategy, just like your location or street presence.
A returning customer will probably be looking for the quickest route to one menu, directions or a phone number to place a takeout order or make a reservation – make sure the information is quickly accessible and not hidden behind multiple clicks.
2. Imagine the website user actually visiting a physical space
Restaurant owners know how important the atmosphere is at their physical location: clean tables, nice lighting and a welcoming atmosphere. The site is no different. When someone visits your website, they visit your virtual space and will judge the quality of your food, your location and your service based on the presentation of your website.
Your website is the first impression of a customer from your entire company – make sure it’s perfect! While no book should be judged by its cover, accepting and working with this phenomenon gives you a competitive edge.
3. Use high-quality photography
High-quality photography is the best tool in your digital marketing arsenal. It can say so much about your atmosphere, your food, your staff, your price range, and your style. Place a large photo in the front, ideally as the background image of your intro (see BattleCat Coffee Bar for an example).
If you have a cute storefront in a nice area of town, don’t be afraid to show it off . If your restaurant looks best from the inside, use an interior shot. If your space isn’t the best but your food is nice, lead with it instead. If you have charming staff and a nice kitchen, show behind-the-scenes footage.
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If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, use a video background of your food being prepared. But don’t have a video just to have a video! Go for the highest quality images that create the best possible appeal. See 4Rivers for an example.
Put the strongest images first, then continue with more images further down the page. The best restaurant website will emphasize multiple themes (street level, interior, plates, chefs) as each appeals to different types of customers.
Taking professional food photos doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. You can build a lightbox out of cardboard and tissue paper. Place food in the lightbox before taking pictures with a smartphone camera for incredible results.
4. Write a clear message about your food
A clear message is important for search engines, but it also lets people know about your restaurant’s mission and food. Different people respond to different types of information. While high-quality images will appeal to most visitors, don’t neglect readers. Both visual and textual information will engage both sides of the brain and make the strongest impression.
State clearly what type of restaurant you are – don’t let your visitors play detective. If you’re a Thai place, write Authentic Thai Food in a giant font right above your intro image. It sounds remarkably simple, but it’s often overlooked. You have less than 5 seconds to grab a user’s attention.If you can get them to see a nice picture and read We Make Tacos, your website will increase sales. An example is Biscuit Head.
5. Use multiple types of complaints
In the main part of the home page (below the intro) you can learn more about your facility. Follow the advertising principle of multiple types of appeal:
- Appeal to Utility – Some people are most likely to respond to the speed of service or the price of a meal
- Emotions – is your food ethical or locally sourced?
Ideally, you should use multiple types of views within the body of the site to appeal to different personalities. For more information on the attractiveness of advertising, read this essay.
6. show your human side
Authenticity is extremely valuable in advertising, and with good reason. It’s a reactionary movement responding to all the fake, shallow brand identities of the last 10 years. Show users how you came about and what makes your restaurant special.
You don’t have to start this with a celebrity “What makes us different” or “our story”. These are awkward and difficult to write. Instead, talk about things like:
- When you were founded
- Where your food comes from
- How it is prepared
- Where you got inspiration for your menu
- Who is your chef
- Who is the core team
By providing more details, you will immediately differentiate yourself from your competition. See the Chai Pani section for inspiration.
7. Refine the usability of your menu
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The user friendliness of the menu is crucial. Next to your homepage, the menu is the second most important page. A good menu is appealing, user-friendly and enticing. There are some strict requirements for online menus…
1. Never upload your physical menu as an image or file
For one, it will annoy mobile users since dragging/panning in a document trying to read something sucks. Secondly, it will hurt search engine rankings as the text cannot be read by crawler robots. Always re-enter your menu into your website so the text can be scaled, moved, resized and parsed by search engines.
2. Never separate parts of your menu into tabs or hide parts of it behind a click
If a user needs to click to show sandwiches, then click again to show appetizers, then click back to see sandwiches again displaying this is frustrating. and that’s never good. The entire menu should be viewable on one page with no extra clicks (scrolling is fine and expected). This is crucial on mobile as clicking is slower than scrolling.
8. Consider using photos on your menu
Even if you object to using photos on your physical menu, using photos online can provide a competitive advantage. When evaluating a restaurant in real life, diners typically look at other diners’ plates to see if the food “looks good” before committing to a meal. Do what you can to simulate this real-world process online.
9. Clearly display your hours and location
The ultimate goal of your website is to increase conversions – for a restaurant, that means phone calls or visits. These are the actions you want users to take, so don’t bury them behind a click or on a dedicated page. The restaurant name, address and phone number should be prominently displayed at all times. Bonus points if you associate the address with Google Maps and the phone number with a special Tel link so users can call or get directions with a single click:
10. Track your visitor behavior
How do you know if your website is working and actually generating sales? This is difficult for a restaurant since your conversion is usually walk-in customers or a phone call. Walk-in customer tracing is impossible, and call tracing is prohibitively expensive for small businesses. At the very least, make sure you implement Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools.
- Google Analytics tells you about the bounce rate, the time spent on the site and the click-through rate what are good indicators of success. A low bounce rate (below 70%) means users don’t “go back” immediately when they arrive. A high time spent on the website (over 20 seconds) shows that you are attracting the attention of visitors.When users click through to your menu from your home page, that’s even better!
- Webmaster Tools can tell you what keywords people typed into Google to find your site , and how you rank for those keywords compared to your competition. This information can help you refine your message to get more traffic from high-quality keywords. For example, if users are more likely to search for “Asian cuisine” rather than “Chinese food,” refining your content to target “Asian cuisine” will help you rank higher and generate more traffic, leading to more sales.
11. Set up social media profiles
By making sure that your business has the right presence on multiple social networks, you not only generate sales directly through these channels, but also help you to rank in the Google rank higher in search results.
- Ensure your Facebook, Yelp, Google+, Foursquare, and Twitter websites are all branded and presenting the same quality content as your website.
- Don’t only post when you close or customers will have no incentive to follow you and all your recent posts will look like you’re going out of business.
- Link Do not return any social pages to your site!
12. Consider hiring a professional web design agency
Sounds like a lot of work? Do we agree! A professional web design agency like Bitcookie can do it all, from professional photos of your space and food, to creating an engaging website that attracts new customers and delights repeat guests. A website is the most important component of any modern marketing campaign, so getting it right from the start is critical to its success.
Looking for more inspiration? Check out EZCater’s ideas and recommendations for restaurant owners and catering companies to increase mobile ordering
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