When visitors come to a restaurant website, it is an ideal to tempt their taste buds right then and there with an attractive design. Just as the food has to look appetizing, so does the website through graphics that reflect the personality of the restaurant.
Of course, the website has to be professional and it needs to relay all of the information that the visitor is looking for. There is no such thing as using generic templates or graphics to create a website the needs to be competitive within an industry that can be hard to survive in.
Here are some useful tips to help ensure that the website is a force behind the patrons that come into the restaurant, which will increase profits:
1. Keep It Simple
Visitors are simply looking for a menu, photos, and general information about the restaurant. There is no need for the website to be extremely complicated. It does, however, need to be attractive and have personality, but there is no need to get too carried away with areas that visitors are not going to care too much about.
2. Color Means Everything
People respond emotionally to color. For instance, bright colors may be considered fun and exhilarating. As a matter of fact, colors such as red can make a person’s heartbeat increase. Black denotes a more formal restaurant and can invoke a somber emotion. This shows that color is everything and can help manifest the right response to your site.
3. Consider Their Experience
Flash introductions are not always ideal. As a matter of fact, they can annoy people because they are time consuming, so some will hit the back button in a heartbeat if they see a Flash intro. They do the same if they hear music and know they have to go on a search for a music player so they can stop it. Besides, you want to do all you can to keep the website from dragging during load because people are generally impatient when surfing the Internet.
4. Make Discounts And Events Obvious
If there is a special discount or an event, it needs to be on the front page where it is obvious. The sale or event could be the difference between a person coming to the restaurant or not. The website needs to be an important part of the restaurant’s marketing materials since it can be the most effective material of them all.
5. Be Organized And Have Good Content
People prefer good organization and so do search engines. Key information should be seen in bold fonts and text should be easy to read. Navigation needs to be clear and easy to follow. Throw in good content and you can create the ideal website experience. People and search engines also like content and that content helps the search engines index the website based upon the properly used and relevant keywords within the text. You want to make you restaurant to stand out from the others and, since the website is frequently the first impression, the website is the key.