Restaurants are all about appetite! The more appetizing their website is, the more people tend to choose and order from them.

If you’re a restaurant owner and are considering getting a restaurant website design, read this post for some practical tips on how to get the most attractive and customer-grabbing website design for your restaurant.

Tips on getting a functional & attractive restaurant website design

Whether you’re considering hiring a website design agency or you’re looking to hire an in-house website designer, be sure to give them and discuss the following list as these points will highly impact user experience on your website and your own experience and ease of handling the website.

1. Consider an appetizing design

The first point is an obvious one, but it’s so important that saying it again doesn’t hurt. You have probably been to restaurants or places in your life where the food is delicious, but the garments and presentation are so bad that you don’t even want to touch the food.

Well, this is also the case with restaurant website design. People who land on your website through search or online ads will judge you and your business quality based on the appearance of your website. This is why it is super important to make your website attractive.

Don’t get us wrong, we don’t mean anything necessarily complicated, even a simple elegant design would leave a better first impression on your potential customers compared to when they enter an old or out-of-date website with an unprofessional design.

2. Choose your website colors carefully

Every color has its own psychological effect. This is especially important in the food industry. If you think again, you’d notice that most fast-food restaurants use the colors red or orange for the brand or menu. This is because these 2 colors are known to boost appetite.

So before you randomly choose your restaurant web design’s color, think carefully about the colors you’d like to associate with your brand.

The below image is a simple guide on colors meanings and effects on people. You can also read this guide for further information on color meanings in marketing.

3. Be sure to include a menu on your website

The first thing people ask when they come to your restaurant is the menu. It’s the same with potential customers when they land on your restaurant’s website.

Make sure to include your restaurant’s menu on your site.

Also, be careful about the following points:

• The menu must be up to date
• The menu must also look well on mobiles and tablets
• The menu should be easily found
• The menu should be designed nicely. Don’t just type in your menu items like a simple word file on the menu page

4. Have a clear website navigation

Potential customers must be able to navigate around your website fast and find what they want easily.

Whether they’re looking for the menu or just checking your site, if they get lost, they’ll leave the site immediately

5. Include an online ordering system

This one is a tricky recommendation. An online ordering system is super useful, yet it highly depends on your business size and how you handle orders.

Get an online ordering system ONLY IF YOU CAN HANDLE AND MANAGE PHYSICAL AND ONLINE ORDERS PROPERLY. If you’re a small business just starting out, it might be best to wait until you can handle many orders.

6. Include clear and easy to access contact information

Make sure people find your restaurant’s contact information without any hassle. It’s best to include it in the header and footer of your website.

You can also ask your website designer to include a google map with your restaurant’s location as well. When users click on this map, they will get directions to your restaurant on the Google Maps app.

7. Include a space for showing news or promotions

You can showcase news or promotions on your restaurant’s website’s home page.

For instance, if your restaurant has won an award or has a new offer, you can show it to visitors arriving on your site at the very first second.

8. Include online chat

Ask your website designer to include features for instant messaging and online chatting. You can ask your receptionist to check these messages and be in touch with the users on your websites who have questions.

If you answer online users fast and properly, it will leave a very good impression, prompting them to become customers.

9. Bolden your restaurant’s advantages

Mention your business’s advantages on your website’s home page. You can do this with images, videos, or even icons. it’s up to your web developer.

10. Have a gallery for food and ambiance images

Upload quality and beautiful images from your food, atmosphere, personnel, and … on your website. Beautiful visual elements increase the possibility of online users becoming actual customers.

11. Get a mobile-friendly website design for restaurants

About 70 % of online users search on their mobile phones. Therefore, it is crucial to have a responsive aka mobile-friendly website that works and looks well on all devices and screen sizes.

12. Get an easy CMS for data entry

Business owners usually forget about the parts after the website design process. After your web design company delivers you the website, you must complete its information, images, and … yourself.

Of course, some restaurant owners choose to outsource this to the web design company. But if you want to do this yourself, make sure the system for uploading data to your new website is easy to work with.

13. Testimonials and reviews

Good reviews are every restaurant’s best bet. So it’s necessary to include a place for them in website design for restaurants.

Ask your restaurant web designer to consider a place for testimonials on your restaurant website. There are also ways to connect your website to your Google My Business profile and show every review there, on your website.

14. Make room for digital marketing extension in the future

Make sure your website design agency has considered extension possibilities and digital marketing opportunities for the future. For instance, if you want to add an online booking and delivery system, or if you want to add an online shop for special ready-to-eat snacks or … it’s important to discuss this with your web designer to avoid future problems.

Wrapping up

Just to sum up, when you want to get a website design for restaurant, discuss these items with your website designer:

• The design and layout of your restaurant website
• The colors for your restaurant website design
• Including a beautiful food menu on your website
• Having a clear main menu and navigation
• Possibilities of online ordering
• Showing contact information
• Having a promotion slider or a dedicated new page
• Online chat features
• Having a gallery module for both images and videos
• Showing your advantages on the first page
• Responsive restaurant website design
• Easy to work with CMS
• Testimonials and reviews
• Considering the possibilities for future digital marketing efforts

If you consider all the above tips on website design for restaurants, you’ll definitely have a restaurant website that will attract potential customers and push them to actually come in and test that delicious food of yours.