Domain
Your restaurant website is going to be one of your most important assets. It is imperative that you design a professional restaurant website. It will separate you from your competition, especially the local restaurants. Customers are more and more turning to the web for information on the restaurants they want to visit. Having a restaurant website is a must these days and keeping it up to date and professional will bring in more customers. Building a professional restaurant website is not out of reach and there are many tools and services out there to help you.
What is a domain
First things first you need to obtain, if you haven’t already, is your domain name. This is the www.yournamehere.com address that you type into the internet browser. It is very important the domain match your restaurant name exactly as your web search results will depend on it. The best way to be at the top of a web search is to have the domain match the search term. The best way to find a domain is to go to a domain broker website. GoDaddy is a good option and offer the very good tools and interfaces with a comparable price. You will need to renew the domain registration every year (you can usually also signup for multiple years), but most domain sellers offer easy or automatic renewal. GoDaddy’s renewal features work flawlessly so you don't have to worry about your domain expiring and someone jumping on it.
Get your name
If you have a business name in mind and the domain is available, you should probably buy the domain even if you are a long time away from opening. The domain is like a de facto trade mark, although it doesn’t hold any legal rights to the name, it will hold the practical rights. It would be very hard for someone to open a business with that name and get good web results. Having the domain early is good practice so it is available when you open and you can build your website ahead of time. Getting good search results can take some time so the earlier you start the better.
Let’s go buy it
Go to godaddy.com and enter your restaurant name (no spaces or dashes) in their search window and see if it is available. If it is not available, then as hard as it may be, you might want to consider changing the name you are considering for your restaurant. If you are already open and the name isn’t available, try adding a simple word to the beginning (or maybe adding your city to the end).
To also help with uniqueness (and thus searchability) try googling the name you are thinking of for your business. You don't want something like "Tony's pizza" as there are probably thousands across the country. You really want something that is unique country wide, just get creative.
Cost
When you find the right domain add it to your cart and by it for one year (or more). They will try to sell you on extras, like privacy service and hosting, just decline them. Typical one-year domain costs are about $15, don't pay much more. Some popular domains are considered premium and can run into the thousands. Don't get caught up in the hype, they might be worth it for a massive nationwide web business, but they are not worth it for a small local restaurant website.
Restaurant Website
Different options
Building a website is a little technical so you should choose an option based on your experience. If you have the patients and learning ability you can do it all yourself. The more you do the less it will cost generally.
Professional developers
Traditional website developers can charge up to $5000 for a simple site and it can take months. You will get charged every time you need to make an update as you haven’t learned the skills to do it yourself.
Combined platforms
Squarespace.com and WordPress.com offer good options and tools for do-it yourself website building. These providers combine webhosting with website development tools, making it simpler to get your site up. Squarespace is priced a bit higher and can be limiting if you are picky about your design. WordPress.com has a free option but it will not let you use your fancy new domain. You will want to upgrade and use your domain and remove all the WordPress branding. This plan is still very affordable under $10 a month.
Keeping your website clean by using your domain and removing the hosting platforms branding is super important to a professional look. If you look professional people will assume you are! Both these options are much cheaper than a full on professional development project, but they can still be limiting. If you are willing to learn a little more you can have almost unlimited flexibility.
Separate hosting and developing
Our favorite option is to get a hosting account and build your own website. It sounds daunting but it is only a little more complicated than using the combined platforms tools. If you are comfortable doing some web searches and some trial and error, you should have no problem becoming a web expert! Ok, maybe not an expert, but you will have the tools to maintain your restaurant website.
Website Hosting
A web hosting company is basically file storage in the cloud, that will allow you to publish your website. You will have a web browser portal to your “cPanel” or dash board for your hosting. Within this cPanel you will be able to set up email accounts, add domains to your account and if they are a good hosting provider, the tools to build your website. Quick aside, having an email from your domain is very professional, like info@yourrestaurant.com vs yourrestaurant@gmail.com. These tools allow you to do that. We prefer HostGator as a provider as it is very affordable, less the $10 a month, and it has all the tools you will need. Its interface (cPanel) is modern and very user friendly. Once you have your hosting plan in place you will need to install your website software.
Website software
The domain you want to install the website on must be added to your hosting account, just go to your cPanel and click the “addon domain” button and add your domain. This will create a directory in your cloud space to install your website software on. Decent hosting platforms will have a couple different content management systems (the website software) available.
WordPress and Joomla are the most popular. WordPress seems to out developing Joomla and we would suggest using it. These should both be free to install, so don’t pay a premium for these, they should be included in your hosting plan. WordPress has thousands of free themes and plugins to help make the perfect website for you. It is also very simple to use and there are millions of tutorials and info on the web to help.
Go ahead and install WordPress on your restaurant domain. You will be emailed a password for you to login at this address: www.yoursitenamehere.com/wp-admin. Now you can login to the admin side of your website and begin customizing. There are many tutorials online to help you understand the WordPress platform and it will take some time to come up to speed, but it can be done. Let’s now take a look on what your website should contain.
Restaurant website features
A "one page" style seems to be the fashion now and is very well suited for a restaurant. All your information is listed on a single page so it is very simple for people to find what they want. Pictures are obviously very important for a restaurant website so make sure to capture some when you have a chance. Hiring a professional photographer is going to cost a lot of money and with a decent cell phone you can take some very good shots.
Your phone number and address should be very large and obvious on the top of the page after the header with your logo and background pic. Having a picture of the inside of your restaurant on top is a good idea to let your customers know what to expect. Make sure to add your location with a location widget which will insert a google map insert so people can find the shop.
Having a contact form and a feedback form is critical, the two can be easily combined with the appropriate form widget. Every restaurant website should be collecting emails for the newsletter. Mailchimp is a very good email newsletter provider that can easily integrate with your WordPress website and is free for small lists. A restaurants email list is an incredible asset and it should not be taken lightly. You get to advertise free to a list of your fans! Make sure you capture emails and use them to your advantage.
Other sections
The menu should be right in the middle and the text should be written in HTML, do not just include a picture of your menu. Your search results will suffer. Make a black and white version of your menu for people to download and print. Add a page for catering, and if you are not doing catering then start catering! Include an “About You” section to allow your customers to learn more about you and the company's history. Add a facebook widget to show your face book posts and drive cross traffic. You can also include yelp and tripadvisor widgets which show your ratings (which will be great!) Most platforms will have simple search engine optimization plugin, WordPress has many, which you should install and activate.
Summary
Whichever way you choose to go, just make sure that you get a website up for your restaurant. It is the best way to get FREE online traffic into your brick and mortar restaurant. A website can make or break a restaurant so don’t skip it.
We have built dozens of restaurant websites and are here to help. Consider joining our team with a restaurant coaching membership. We can walk you through building a website on your platform, like Squarespace or WordPress.com, or we can guide you through getting your own hosting plan and building your restaurant website in the cloud. If it all seems just too much for you, we understand. There are only so many hours in the day. We can build a basic website one-page website with all the features a restaurant needs on your hosting platform or even host it for you. We want to help you succeed!
