For the website of your restaurant to fulfill the purpose of increasing take-away sales and attracting customers to the restaurant, it is essential to have a combination of excellent content with an intuitive website and guarantee the best practices of UI / UX - user interface and user experience. These are my tips for success ...

Get amazing photos of your food and space

Invest in creating the perfect symbiosis between space and food in your restaurant, the famous Portuguese phrase “eat with your eyes” is no coincidence! Your visitors have to be delighted with the variety of dishes that your restaurant produces.

These images have to vary between macro and micro - I recommend horizontal photos of the entire dining room or small details of the dishes on the table. Already proven, the color palettes must maintain a warm and welcoming tone to remind visitors of comfort and hunger. In these photos your food is the star of the site! The images need to capture the personality and mood to appeal to your target.

Your website must be intuitive and mobile friendly

Many of your future visitors may now be outside and looking for a restaurant to visit right away - your restaurant and website must be ready to welcome anyone in the nick of time. There are countless features that work perfectly on desktop and mobile such as booking a table forms, direct links to Google maps, menu of the day for takeaway, buttons to call directly - don't lose this proximity to your future customers.

Easy-to-read menu, dishes of the day and takeaway menu

When browsing the restaurant websites, we noticed that most have only one PDF with the menu available. The problem is that it forces the customer to download a file that they can only view once and worse, it is not classified organically for search results on Google. The best way is to create a button on the homepage that opens a page with an attractive and well-structured layout to quickly read your menu. Make it available with easy-to-read content.

Updated schedules and contacts

Now in a time of pandemic it is essential to have all the updated information of your contacts, schedules and address. With the time changes, update and facilitate this information as soon as possible for your customers to know what time you open, what time you close, if you have the option of ubereats or takeaway for example. Do not hide this information in your contacts or on another page of the website - be direct so as not to lose a customer who failed to find this essential information.

Tell your story

Tell your client what led you to create this space for them. We all love to know what can relate to the products we love - do the same with your customers. Do you own an Asian restaurant because you lived in Vietnam for 10 years? Tell your experiences and how it influenced your menu and decoration - the future client wants to identify with the person behind the business. So don't miss the opportunity to share with others the story behind your excellent dishes!

Give importance to social media

You don't need to be present on all social media - focus on Facebook and Instagram to keep your customers up to date. Use these tools to promote special events (for example for the Easter Menu) and update your new dishes. Create an album with your favorite (or regular) customers so they can share the experience with their friends. You can also create “stories” on your Instagram of the new dishes or your new staff!

In conclusion

Let the star of your restaurant also be your website. The web designer will take all of the above topics into account to follow the perfect recipe. With the menu, incredible images, reservation system and contacts available, you will have many more hungry customers waiting to enter.