Using your restaurant’s website to grow your business

Even with an inviting ambience, delicious menu and friendly staff, it’s still difficult to stand out in the food services industry. Luckily, this doesn’t spell the end for restaurants but instead challenges them to enhance their online and social media presence to attract newcomers and consolidate the existing ones. An effective way to boost your restaurant’s turnover and public relations are to begin a narrative online and create a call to action.

Many patrons check the restaurants and their menus online before dining. Even slight changes to the aesthetic of your menu and daily specials can be the difference between enticing or disengaging your patrons. There are many ways a restaurant can leverage its website to increase its online presence, build customer relationships, and increase its overall popularity.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, businesses were enhancing their online presence through influencers, segments and other social media strategies. Even for the iconic and longstanding establishments that have resisted gentrification, technology is still a weapon to wield. Perhaps most notably, it’s a vehicle for spreading the word and reaching a new market of people that traditionally couldn’t have been reached. Below are some easy tips on enhancing your restaurant’s online presence.

Enhance Your Google Search Ranking

Engaging the services of a renowned online agency will help the Google ranking of your business- where most people search for it. A survey from the US-based company OpenTable reveals that 93 percent of diners review menus online before visiting an eatery. If those looking for a dining space find you online, there is a high chance they will dine in with you or order takeaway. Either way, they are purchasing from your restaurant and are building a relationship with you. To assist the search for potential patrons, you should always include basic information on your pages, such as your name, address, contact details, service hours and menu.

Make It Pretty and Easy

Regular menu updates will encourage your visitors to dine with you. Presenting these boldly and attractively is the first step in whetting their appetite. Moreover, you should ensure your website is user-friendly and allows for simple navigation so they can quickly find the information they’re after. This is invariably assisted by a linked and active social media presence in which the aforementioned basic details are displayed and effectively attracts your customers to engage with your narrative.

Showcase Your Point of Difference

After two years of lockdowns and the subsequent blow to foodie culture, patrons are eager to dine out. Again, they have a myriad of restaurants to choose from and resting on the laurels of your transient UberEats customers is unstable. As you are trying to tell a story and excite the market with a vision of an awesome dining experience, sharing photos of your booths, towering burgers or eclectic cocktail menu is the level of specificity needed to attract newcomers. Throw in some specials, a gallery of sumptuous photos (of your latest banquet) with a dash of urgency, and you may very well be at capacity before you know it.