Take Your Eatery Online: Building a Great Website for Your Restaurant
With so many new eateries popping up overnight, restaurateurs are constantly on the lookout for bold and
exciting ways to attract diners. Fortunately, a great website can be an invaluable tool for getting the word
out about your juice bar, cafe, pizza parlor or bistro. This article is packed with tips for taking your
restaurant online with an attractive and well-designed website.
You can post the most enticing menu, rave reviews or colorful photographs of signature dishes, but all of it
would be for naught if you forget to include contact information for your restaurant. Include the name of your
eatery, the address (or addresses for multiple locations), email address if desired and the company phone
number. This ensures that prospective diners always know where to find you and how to get in touch.
Posting your breakfast, lunch, dinner and drink menus online is a great way to show hungry foodies what your
restaurant has to offer. However, you must take care to ensure that the menus are always up-to-date and
reflect your most current offerings. This is especially important if you offer seasonal or specialty dishes.
Otherwise, you risk disappointing diners who choose your restaurant based on the menu.
A detailed, descriptive account of your signature dishes will have mouths watering, but it certainly helps to
support your text with a colorful, clear image of a steaming entree or a tantalizing dessert. The same is true
of your location and dining facilities. This is especially true if your restaurant is not located in a
well-known area of town or is isolated from your city's dining and cultural district. Including photographs of
the dining room and front facade also conveys the quality and ambiance that diners can expect during their
meal.
Your restaurant's website should also include updated hours of operation, as well as information about
upcoming events and special deals. If your dining room closes for a few hours before dinner or is only open on
certain days of the week, it should be clearly communicated on the website; this also applies to holiday and
weekend hours.
If your eatery serves up a specific type of cuisine, it should coordinate neatly with the design of your
website. The site will have a greater impact in the eyes of visitors if it is styled in a way that complements
the look and feel of your dining room and cuisine. For example, bold colors and graphics are well-suited to a
family restaurant or retro diner. On the other hand, the website of an exclusive and critically acclaimed
steakhouse or French bistro should convey sophistication with a palette of dark, subdued colors and refined
images.
If you provide an email address on your restaurant's website, you must ensure that someone is monitoring the
inbox and responding in a timely manner. Email can be a valuable tool for communicating with customers
(prospective and long-established), as well as with local businesses, food critics and even the media. If you
do not attend to these emails personally, you should appoint someone who can respond in a professional, polite
manner; otherwise, you run the risk of jeopardizing relations with the public.
Whether your eatery is universally hailed by critics or has just set up shop in the neighborhood, taking your
business online can be a blessing. An attractive, helpful website is more about getting your name out there;
it also helps to give prospective diners an idea of the quality and cuisine of what could be their next
favorite hot spot. Make the most of your site with helpful information, appealing imagery and great design.
With so many new eateries popping up overnight, restaurateurs are constantly on the lookout for bold and
exciting ways to attract diners. Fortunately, a great website can be an invaluable tool for getting the word
out about your juice bar, cafe, pizza parlor or bistro. This article is packed with tips for taking your
restaurant online with an attractive and well-designed website.
You can post the most enticing menu, rave reviews or colorful photographs of signature dishes, but all of it
would be for naught if you forget to include contact information for your restaurant. Include the name of your
eatery, the address (or addresses for multiple locations), email address if desired and the company phone
number. This ensures that prospective diners always know where to find you and how to get in touch.
Posting your breakfast, lunch, dinner and drink menus online is a great way to show hungry foodies what your
restaurant has to offer. However, you must take care to ensure that the menus are always up-to-date and
reflect your most current offerings. This is especially important if you offer seasonal or specialty dishes.
Otherwise, you risk disappointing diners who choose your restaurant based on the menu.
A detailed, descriptive account of your signature dishes will have mouths watering, but it certainly helps to
support your text with a colorful, clear image of a steaming entree or a tantalizing dessert. The same is true
of your location and dining facilities. This is especially true if your restaurant is not located in a
well-known area of town or is isolated from your city's dining and cultural district. Including photographs of
the dining room and front facade also conveys the quality and ambiance that diners can expect during their
meal.
Your restaurant's website should also include updated hours of operation, as well as information about
upcoming events and special deals. If your dining room closes for a few hours before dinner or is only open on
certain days of the week, it should be clearly communicated on the website; this also applies to holiday and
weekend hours.
If your eatery serves up a specific type of cuisine, it should coordinate neatly with the design of your
website. The site will have a greater impact in the eyes of visitors if it is styled in a way that complements
the look and feel of your dining room and cuisine. For example, bold colors and graphics are well-suited to a
family restaurant or retro diner. On the other hand, the website of an exclusive and critically acclaimed
steakhouse or French bistro should convey sophistication with a palette of dark, subdued colors and refined
images.
If you provide an email address on your restaurant's website, you must ensure that someone is monitoring the
inbox and responding in a timely manner. Email can be a valuable tool for communicating with customers
(prospective and long-established), as well as with local businesses, food critics and even the media. If you
do not attend to these emails personally, you should appoint someone who can respond in a professional, polite
manner; otherwise, you run the risk of jeopardizing relations with the public.
Whether your eatery is universally hailed by critics or has just set up shop in the neighborhood, taking your
business online can be a blessing. An attractive, helpful website is more about getting your name out there;
it also helps to give prospective diners an idea of the quality and cuisine of what could be their next
favorite hot spot. Make the most of your site with helpful information, appealing imagery and great design.
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