Tips For Effective Restaurant Web Design

Websites for restaurants will generally go one of two ways – they’re either absolutely stunning with cutting edge designs that showcase their food or they completely miss the mark and look as if they were made when the internet was first born. How many restaurant web designs have you seen that have included an annoying intro, PDF menus (if they even provide you with a menu), and slow loading content because it’s all image based? To make sure that these unattractive and outdated websites are a thing of the past, you need to use the following restaurant design tips:

• Web-Based Menus
  You need to understand that the menu is at the centre of the restaurant – visitors to the website want to be able to browse the menu, getting an idea of what sort of food they can expect to enjoy and how much they’re night out is going to cost them. This is why it is time for that old practice of providing a link that downloads the menu in PDF has to stop – PDFs, after all, can be quite frustrating for visitors. Instead, include the menu directly in the web design.
• Contact Information, Location and Hours
  Believe it or not, there are actually plenty of websites out there that simply fail to provide even this basic information. Failure to include these sections will most likely cause visitors to choose a competing restaurant over your own; how will they call you to make a booking, and what happens if they just decide to rock up and you’re closed? It is a good idea to include basic contact information (such as a telephone number or email address) on every page of the web design.
• Integrate Social Media
  It is important to keep in mind that restaurants are a very social business – people like to dine out so tat they can socialise with their friends and family. This is why your web design should include social media features, enabling your patrons to extend the social aspect of their visit past the meal itself. Add a Facebook ‘Like’ button to different sections of the site so that fans can like their favourite dish, or add reviews and testimonials so that patrons can let others know what they thought.

As you can see, there are a number of things that you can do to improve your restaurant’s web design, allowing you to attract more patrons than you could have ever dreamed of. Some other ways that you could improve on the design of your website is to include online reservations and ordering functionality (which makes it easier than ever for patrons to connect with your business), include an events calendar (if your restaurant regularly holds events), and a blog so that you can keep visitors up to date.