Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
It Is Time to Redesign Your Restaurant’s Website
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 by Michael Lewis
If you are a restaurateur you have probably heard this pitch a
thousand times: "You need a new website." Culinary training, both
formal and informal, is focused on teaching people how run a
kitchen. Bringing patrons in the door is almost an afterthought. So
when a Flash Designer fresh out of school is stops by just as the
dinner rush is starting or when your grill-man quits in the middle
of his shift, you may be inclined to go with whatever proposal for
a new website the designer brings you.
In almost any industry having a website is important, but even
more so if you own a restaurant. However, many restaurants'
websites are stuck in a design paradigm abandoned by other
industries a decade ago. In a recent editorial, Farhad Manjoo
writes:
The rest of the Web long ago did
away with auto-playing music, Flash buttons and menus, and
elaborate intro pages, but restaurant sites seem stuck in 1999. The
problem is getting worse in the age of the mobile Web - Flash
doesn't work on Apple's devices, and while some of these sites do
load on non-Apple smart phones, they take forever to do so, and
their finicky navigation makes them impossible to use.
A few years ago, restaurants had little reason to get with the
times. Now, with the explosive growth of the mobile web and
amateure review sites, making a website accessible on any platform
is a key component to the success of the business. By sticking to
an old design model, restaurants have given ground to third party
websites like Menu Pages, Yelp, Urban Spoon, and OpenTable. These
sites all can play an important role in the growth of a
restaurant's business. Mobile sites may be driving traffic to your
sites based on the person's proximity, a coupon, or great reviews.
But if they cannot load the restaurant's website on their smart
phone, they may choose to go someplace else for dinner. Restaurants
that rely on outdated websites to generate new business give up
control of branding. All patrons will ever see are the Yelp
reviews. All it takes is a couple of bad reviews for people to give
up the idea of ever visiting your restaurant.
An artfully designed website may show off a restaurant's
ambiance or a chef's genius. Potential patrons are looking for
ready access to information to help them make their decision which
is exactly why your clever and accessible website needs to be the
first thing they see.
When designing a new website for a restaurant, here are some
tips to keep in mind.
- Put the most vital information where a patron is going
to see it. Do not hide hours, your reservation phone
number or your address on an information page. Put it on the top
front page. If a patron cannot find that information quickly they
might go somewhere else.
- Make sure the website loads fast and leave Flash
behind. As fast as mobile web browsing has been getting,
smart phones still have limited power. Optimizing graphics can go a
long way to reducing load times on mobile phones.
Additionally, a content management system can go a long way
in helping speed up load times.
- Keep site navigation simple. People visiting
the website are going to be navigating using their fingers. Finding
the correct information in a timely matter is important for any
website. But for a person walking down the street looking for a
place to eat, unusual navigation features can be a deal
breaker.
- Optimize the menu. This can be done in several
ways: either on the page itself or in a PDF. If you go with a
downloadable PDF, keep the file size small. Long download times or
high resolution images can drag down even the most powerful mobile
phone. If you choose to put the menu on the site itself, uses
standard web fonts. The goal has to be to make the menu as readable
as possible.
If you are a restaurant owner looking to update and optimize
your site, feel free to contact the web design and marketing team
at Switchfast at 773.241.3007 or TheFutureOfIT@switchfast.com.
Until next time -
Mike Lewis
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support &
Consulting
DC IT Support &
Consulting
Outsourced Marketing Services
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