Website Tips & Tricks for Restaurants & Hospo
70% of people looking to dine out will check out the restaurant’s website when looking for somewhere new to eat. So first and foremost, yes, you need a website.
But, it doesn’t need to be flashy and incredibly complex. One or two pages is absolutely fine. There are a few main key points people are looking for, and beyond a nice, clean, easy to read layout if people are on your website, chances are they’re looking for more information.
From a study we ran as part of our Tech Week event 2022, we saw that the main three things people are looking for on your website are the menu, imagery and the price. If you’ve got these three things at the forefront of your site or they’re super easy to find then you’re on the right track to having a good hospo website!
From these three things, my one piece of advice would be to invest in some good photography of your eatery and your food & drinks. It’s not going to break the bank and you can use the images over socials, web and in other promotional spaces. It takes 7 seconds to make a first impression to a new user, so make sure yours is a welcoming, delicious one!
Interestingly people are also looking for deals and events at your eatery. So if you’re part of Treat NZ, or you’ve got your own things going on, then let people know! I, of course, love a deal, but who doesn’t! If I’m going out, I will 100% choose the bar giving me a free bowl of chips on a Friday or the eatery with a Tuesday burger night deal over other competition. It’s not going to cost you anything, in fact - the whole point is you’ll create interest, a bit of atmosphere and most importantly make money! So don’t hide your goings on!
You’ve probably heard of something called ‘SEO’. This is basically optimising your site for google and other search engines (yes, it’s literally ‘search engine optimisation’). Here’s a few simple things you can do to get right up there in search results:
- Include lots of keywords! Keywords are little nuggets of information that Google will pick up on your website so that it can do its job and show your website when people search for it. To find your keywords, simply think of what people are going to search for e.g. ‘restaurant in Hamilton’, ‘where’s the best big breakfast in Rotorua’, local restaurant in Auckland’. By sprinkling these phrases in your content, you’ll show up more and more.
- Quality & quantity in content! It used to be ‘less is more’ and by no means waffle, or copy and paste (HUGE no-no!), but when you’ve got a content block to write a bit about your story or what you do, instead of a few little lines, write in a little more depth. Get those keywords in to make sure Google has plenty to pick up on!
- Image captions for keywords. All images have the capacity to have an ‘alt tag’, you may have seen these when you hover over an image online. They’re there to help visually impaired users still get a good understanding of what’s in the picture. But, it’s also a nice little sneaky way to get in some more keywords without cluttering your site with too much content.
There is so much more to this topic and I could go on and on about this. However, I’ll keep some content up my sleeve for next Sunday! If you’re interested in learning more about website hacks for restaurants, watch our webinar here: https://player.vimeo.com/video/702265141?h=940769d2fb
