After the pandemic the restaurant industry faces labor-intensive processes that need automation, rising supplier prices that push owners to refresh the menu without raising prices, a hunt for a professional and passionate team and requirements that are not getting easier and all of it motivates restaurant owners to invent new sales channels, open online food delivery and simplify the take-away orders that became mainstream. This article shows how an investment in a well-established and SEO-optimized website keeps your restaurant moving forward.
As a Canadian web design company, IDL Web Inc designs and builds restaurant websites in Toronto, ask for a FREE audit or a FREE quote and we will tell you what your restaurant website needs.
Must-Have Features for Your Restaurant Website
- Online booking.
- A menu.
- Testimonials.
- Integrations with TripAdvisor, Google Maps and OpenTable.
- A gallery.
Trendy Features to Stand Out and Increase Online Sales
- Gamification and engaging elements.
- Testimonials in every format: text, photo, video and audio.
- A food blog to improve your ranking and move your website into the top 10 Google results.
- Influencers and columnists who create and promote content.
- A special guide for people with different food preferences, intolerances and allergies.
- Special occasion services.
- Professional food photos.
Ecommerce and Online Sales for Restaurant Websites
Whether you want to sell some positions from your menu online or cover take-away, an ecommerce add-on or plugin handles the main tasks, such as the photo, size, ingredients, price, promo proposals and special promos for registered users. Review your options before you choose.
WooCommerce
Popular and simple to navigate and set up. It works with a WordPress blog that improves your SEO greatly and generates organic leads from Google results and local SEO.
Shopify
One of the most popular ecommerce builders, it lets you start selling online in a couple of days and the corners show later when you grow your sales and need more customization.
BigCommerce
A powerful ecommerce product with many features and room to scale, although it can be complicated for beginners. Check the monthly cost and the setup effort before you decide, especially if you have a small menu.
Restaurant POS systems
Some restaurant POS providers work as an ecommerce add-on to your website whatever CMS it uses and Toast POS and Square POS both let you sell online.
Food Delivery Plugins and Platforms
An easier way to start online sales, set up the process and then extend it to your website, Facebook and Instagram is to put your menu on food delivery services. The most popular in North America are Delivery.com, Postmates, Grubhub, DoorDash and UberEats. The pros are that they cover marketing, delivery and payment and the cons are that you are one of hundreds of businesses there, so:
- The prices.
- The speed of delivery.
- The reviews.
Not sure which online ordering option fits your restaurant?
IDL Web Inc can review your menu, your sales channels and your website and tell you which technology covers your tasks best.
Website vs App: Do You Still Need Both for Your Restaurant?
You still gain from both, especially if you have an offline restaurant as well as online bookings and sales.
Online presence
Your website shows your restaurant, menu, location and contact details and is your own channel to talk to customers, future employees and suppliers, free from competitors. You can create valuable content, gather reviews and add features that turn users into clients.
SEO and lead generation
An optimized website is easy to find and SEO traffic is low-cost and brings leads over the long term. A menu page, a food blog and local keywords bring in people who search for a place to eat.
Flexibility
Your website, your rules. You set up the engaging processes and the tone of voice, gather emails and move leads to email marketing and quizzes.
Accessibility
Your website is reachable worldwide, so you win your local audience and also the travelers and business visitors, which extends your customer base greatly. Add opening hours, directions and a menu that loads fast on mobile for travelers.
A restaurant app
An app offers a more personalized experience with push notifications and loyalty programs, builds brand loyalty and repeat business, gives a direct channel for communication and feedback and can work offline, whatever the quality of the internet connection.
Templates and Themes for a Restaurant Website: What Can Go Wrong
- Junk code that slows your website down.
- Unexpected updates.
- A template is not unique and not memorable and if you do not create a wow effect in the first seconds you can lose that lead forever.
- Limits and conflicts between the plugins and add-ons that come with the theme and the ones you add.
- Once you customize a theme or plugin you are limited in updates, because the customized code disappears and you spend extra time to put it back.
- Security issues, especially with a free or low-cost theme or template.
Website Builders for a Restaurant Website: Gains and Threats
Gains
A fast launch, ready-to-use integrations such as payment gateways and delivery plugins, regular security updates and system upgrades, a user-friendly interface and affordable pricing. Together these make a builder a quick way to get a simple restaurant website online.
Threats
Limits when you want to extend your business, customization limits, security risks with builders that host your website with no option to move to your own hosting, a look that is similar to many other restaurant websites, restrictions that cause SEO and Google Ads issues and a lot of code that slows the performance, which you cannot fix when the builder controls the hosting.
What IDL Web Inc Offers to Make Your Restaurant Website Stand Out
We do not build regular web designs and layouts, we build full web software that powers your restaurant website, including a restaurant website connected to your social media that automates your social sharing, so you spend less effort, increase your local visibility and your admins spend more time on content. Our web developers make sure your project has the best SEO-coded layout to give you a head start over your competitors.
To Wrap Up
Many restaurants in Toronto opened and closed in a short span of time because they lacked a proper digital presence, so thrive in the post-COVID restaurant world with a powerful website. Include the must-have features, add the features that underline what makes your restaurant exceptional, choose an ecommerce solution for delivery, take-away or catering and keep both a website and an app, because together they bring you more leads, reach different audiences and let you offer products focused on your clients.
Ready for a restaurant website that stands out?
Tell IDL Web Inc about your restaurant and we will send you a scope and a price.
How IDL Web Inc Can Help
You can start with a template and grow and IDL Web Inc helps at every stage. We are a Canadian company and we help businesses in both Canada and the USA.
WordPress development
We build bookings, menus and online ordering on WordPress, see our WordPress development.
Ecommerce
We set up take-away and online ordering, see our ecommerce solutions.
Local SEO
We help hungry customers find you, see our SEO audit.
Don't forget
Remember that your website is a brand channel where you have no competitors, because only your brand and your customer are involved in the conversation.
If you are not sure which technology covers your restaurant tasks better, leave it to the web team at IDL Web Inc, ask for a FREE audit or a FREE quote and we will build a custom restaurant website that stands out and boosts your SEO. IDL Web Inc is a Canadian company that serves businesses in Canada and the USA. Keep up with us to know more of web design news/fixes!
Schedule Consultation with An Expert
IDL Web Inc designs and builds restaurant websites in Toronto, ask for a FREE audit or a FREE quote and we will tell you what your restaurant website needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is WordPress good for a restaurant website?
Yes, WordPress is flexible, scalable and customizable, it has many booking plugins and integrations with OpenTable and other third-party services and its ecommerce options such as WooCommerce help to set up food delivery, brand merch and to-go orders.
What is the difference between a website template and a theme?
They are often used as synonyms but they are not the same. A template is a pre-designed layout for a specific type of website, for example a restaurant template, where you can usually change the color scheme and move the elements but the customization stays limited and an ecommerce template includes the main pages and features of the store. A theme includes the layouts and also a wide range of customization such as forms, colors and fonts.
Which POS system is best for a restaurant?
If you want a POS that integrates with both your restaurant website and the floor, Toast and Square cover both tasks.
What are the top restaurant marketing platforms?
TripAdvisor, Google Maps (Google Business Profile), Facebook and Instagram and the online food ordering platforms DoorDash, Uber Eats, Postmates and Grubhub are the top marketing channels for restaurant and hospitality businesses.
Do I need a website for my restaurant?
Yes, you gain from running a website next to Instagram, TripAdvisor and other hospitality platforms, because it is a brand channel with no competitors and a sales platform that brings leads from Google Search and Google Maps and not every restaurant invests in one, so you stand out.
How do I connect OpenTable to my website?
There are three main ways, an OpenTable widget, a plugin or a custom integration and the best one depends on your CMS (WordPress has a plugin for it), your website structure and whether you have an in-house development team, or you can hire a web development agency.
