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www.ohiorestaurant.org
Fall 2012 Issue
Your website should be an ultra-effective,
24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week sales
person and marketing tool for your restaurant.
Here are five “must do’s” for independent
restaurateurs to help make the most of
their website.
1. Focus on Real People
One key differentiating opportunity for
independent restaurants on the web is
to highlight the people that make your
restaurant happen. Your restaurant is filled
with vibrant, colorful, exciting real people
– show them off. The ownership team,
executive chef and general manager should
certainly have pictures and brief bios on
the site. Don’t stop there, though. Include
the whole team. Post a group picture
of your kitchen team and service staff
or a photo of the entire staff under your
restaurant signage. It’s a small thing, but
it helps shows the personality and flavor of
your restaurant to potential guests. It also
gives pride to everyone on your staff by
showcasing them on the website.
2. Pictures Say More Than a
Thousand Words
Great photography on a website jumps out
and makes an impression. Surprisingly,
many restaurant websites have no pictures
whatsoever, or just a few low quality
photos. Don’t make this mistake. The web
is a beautiful four-color world with no real
space limitations like a print ad or brochure
would have. This is especially important
for upscale restaurants. Show your décor,
showcase key menu items or highlight the
size of private event rooms. The bottom
line here is to ensure that visuals on the
website effectively convey your restaurant’s
brand image.
3. Be Proactive and Recognize
What Your Site Says About You
Do a Google search for your restaurant.
This is how many folks will try to find your
restaurant on the web. Hopefully, your
restaurant’s website will appear towards
the top of the search results. Many times,
however, what you will tend to find is
your restaurant’s listing in various online
restaurant guides. These online directory
listings often tend to drown out your real
website in the search results. Don’t fret
– take a proactive step. Visit each of the
restaurant guide pages in the search results.
Investigate each for factual information,
but beyond that, make an effort to contact
each relevant guide and ask them about
including your website address along with
your online listing. Some will do it for free;
others may charge. Either way, do it as
this is how the majority of people find your
restaurant online.
4. Stay in Touch
E-mail offers several great ways to effectively
and affordably communicate with past
and potential customers. Hopefully, you
are already collecting customer e-mail
addresses in your restaurant through
comment forms, business cards or other
means. You should also be capturing
information from prospects that visit your
website by offering an online e-mail sign-
up form. Some ideas on what to send
them include a monthly e-mail newsletter
with tips from the chef, a recipe, event
listings, menu changes or perhaps even a
customer spotlight. Another e-mail option
is the reminder e-mail. But, do not send
spam e-mail so make sure that you ask
permission to send these guests e-mails.
5. Get Committed
Is the Mother’s Day special still listed on
your website in September? Do all e-mail
queries that come in get answered? Many
restaurateurs are guilty of not regularly
updating their websites or responding
to e-mails. This is crazy and lazy. First -
content on a website is incredibly easy to
change so there is no excuse to let it get
dated. Second - an e-mail from a customer
is like a phone call from a person who is
interested in doing business with your
restaurant. Don’t ignore them – you do so
at your own peril.
This hits on a broader point and that is
that many restaurants underutilize their
websites. A marketing or design firm
builds the site and that is the end of it.
No updates, no new content, no nothing.
Avoid the pitfall of the “dead” site by
dedicating someone on your team as the
“web specialist.” Maybe it’s the owner,
the general manager or, even, a key server.
Just make sure someone is responsible on
a daily basis for making necessary website
updates and responding to incoming
customer e-mails. At the end of the day,
you’ve got to work your website to have it
work for you.
Having a website is a great thing. Having an
effective website that sells for you and an
Internet strategy that communicates with
your customers is smart marketing – and
it will help you successfully drive new and
repeated business to your restaurant. Make
sure you’re implementing these five “must-
do’s” so as not to sabotage the efforts of
your Internet marketing strategy. Beyond
these five essential areas, get creative and
have fun with the web as an important part
of your marketing and sales toolbox.
This article was provided by Jaime Oikle,
the owner of RestaurantWebGuy.com and
RunningRestaurants.com, a comprehensive
website for restaurant owners and managers
that is filled with marketing, operations
and service tips to help restaurants profit
and succeed. To learn more from Oikle,
the ORA’s social media expert, visit his
websites: www.runningrestaurants.com and
www.restaurantwebguy.com.
Five Website “Must Do’s” for Restaurants
Use these tips to revitalize your online image
Tips For The Trade