Jul 09
5 things every restaurant website should think about
This week, I’m working with Look and Taste, and I’d be doing a lot of work when it comes to restaurants. With that, I need to be able to get key information from a load of different restaurants. Now, if I’ve got to search through a million pages to find out the key information, you fail.
Before I continue, I’m *not* a PR person, and am *not* a so-called SEO expert. I’m just someone doing an internship with the L+T folks, and this is one of the things I’ve picked up on.
If I were a restauranteur, this is what I’d be thinking about on my site. Some thoughts.
1. Have your name + address in big writing. Really big
No really, some of the sites I visited didn’t have this!
2. Include every communication method you can think of
Just cover all the bases. It doesn’t take long to set up yourrestaurantname@gmail.com, or even better, info@yourrestaurantname.com. In no particular order, you should ideally have:
- phone
- address (with GPS co-ordinates and a Google Map if at all possible)
- email
- facebook
- twitter
Also, contact forms (example) are a big no. Just no.
3. Include what sort of cuisine you are, and a menu
Everything on your menu, please, too, not just food and prices. We like allergy information, service charges, and, crucially, opening hours. This should actually be in bold, at the top of your site. Oh, and *not* in a PDF form. Yes, looks lovely, but some of us can’t open them, and Google doesn’t fancy them. Oh, and if you force us to download one, you earn 6 FAIL points. Having said that, offer people the chance to download a PDF, but don’t make us rely on it.
4. Don’t have lots of flash
Leaving aside the folks who couldn’t see it, it looks tacky. Makes our browsers run slow too, and that’s just not on :)
5. Finally, don’t sacrifice usability for authenticity
If you’re an authentic old Irish pub, there’s nothing wrong that. Where the wrong comes in is when you have a goddawful pasty yellow paper look. Also, Zapfino (example) is a fun font for birthday invitations. Restaurants? Not so much..
July 9th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
A Chara Tommy,
nice mention of the GPS location which most hotels dont do either and shame on those with car parks located seperately.
It would be great the following could also be noted.
1] if they could mention wheel chair accessability a
2] whether they have a smoking area that *is not* outside the front door of the restaurant.
3] the amount of produce sourced locally/ irish
bulaidh bós mate
looking forward to reading how you get on.
peter
July 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Hi Peter
Yeah, 1-3 came under my third point, about including *everything* on the menu. That info should be on the physical menu to start with, which would/should be transcribed faithfully onto the site
July 9th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Good man Tommy!
…..while i’m here a noted procedure on how the business deals with customer issues &/ or complaints
p.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Good list, makes sense.
On the contact form bit, i think it all depends on how well the restaurant USE the information. Like a restaurant that can’t answer the phone during heavy hours or don’t open until 4pm etc , a ‘call back’ form like that can work really well, but again once it is checked regularly and they do call you back. From my own use, i’ve never had a restaurant respond to me by email (where it hasn’t been automated).
Am with you all the way on the Flash Content. Some places just are over kill
Great list
July 10th, 2009 at 11:14 am
ben mate
that’s extremely logic. I gave up emailing restaurants – because none in my experience ever replied – so i end up calling after emailing ? Unlike a hotel for example. Dont know why they dont just get skype? can be frustrating – even though the restaurant is most likely amazing.
slan go foill lads
p.
July 25th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Nice article, and very good points.
Also a great point made by Peter about wheel chair access. I’ve been guilty of not including that in the past but will definitely have that high up on priorities from now on.