Restaurant-CoverPeople love food and a good dining experience. If you’re a restaurant owner you probably strive to give your guests the best possible experience when they come to you for food. But where does that fit into your marketing? Incorporating important details about your restaurant along with personal touches on your website is really important if you want a prospective guest to come to you for food.

Display Your Branding

Remember that your website is an extension of your brand. You may have a pretty defined color palette to work with, or you may just have your logo. Before heading into the development of your website, make sure you have a clear vision about what you want your website to communicate to your customer. Show the designer pictures of your restaurant or space. I’ve picked a whole color palette from a piece of wallpaper inside of a building. It can be really helpful to ensure the cohesiveness across a website.

Take this food truck called mmmpanadas. Their website relies on the color of their truck to give the visitor a look into the dining experience.

MMMpanadas

Display your Menu and Location Prominently

Most of the time when I go to your restaurant’s website I’m looking for your location or to look your menu. If you’re a food truck, your followers want to know exactly where to find you. This food truck does a great job of focusing their main call to action on where a potential customer can find the truck.

Photograph your Food Well or Don’t At All

This may go without saying, but photography can be really great for food or really, really bad. Invest in a photographer who can create pictures of your food that show how delicious it is. If you don’t have the resources to hire a professional, consider eliminating food photos all together and include a stream of your Instagram feed to engage followers and give them a look into your vibe. A lot of foodies will do the work for you if they like the way the presentation of the food. If you’re a food truck with limited picture opportunities of a physical space, Instagram can be a great tool for you to attract more customers.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words but a picture of delicious food is probably worth 5000. If you can take professional photos of your food, they definitely deserve a spot on your website. A trend in web design is featuring a large cover image and call-to-action to get a potential customer’s attention. For example, I love this simple restaurant website for The Girl + The Bull.

The-Girl-+-The-Bull-1

Besides being right on target brand wise, they have gorgeous shots of their food in action. If I ever see a great restaurant site like this it makes me want to drop everything to try it. It’s clean, and focused on the food.

Use handwritten elements or unique typefaces:
Websites are becoming more robust than ever and you have a ton of font options to choose from. Consider choosing a unique typeface or branding element to really set your site apart. This site does a great job of including their branding but also showing personality with large images of some of the choices on their menu.

Creating a website for a restaurant can be a daunting task for a restaurant owner. Consider your branding, audience and take professional photos if you want to include the ambiance and food in the best way possible. And remember that your bottom line is to get customers in the door so be sure to prominently display your menu and contact information clearly.

 


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