Good food, good ambience and good service make for a successful restaurant business. But is that all? In the world of business today good marketing is as important as anything else for making your business successful. This is why when you are in the restaurant business, you don’t just need to serve the best food, you also need to create the best restaurant website. For a deeper understanding, consider exploring restaurant industry statistics to see how trends and customer preferences shape the market. But how do you create a restaurant website that works well and effectively markets your restaurant to grow your business? Well, this article will help you out.
Let us find out how to create a stellar restaurant website by taking a look at some tips and tricks you can use for formulating the best restaurant website design. We also know that showing is better than telling, hence, we will also take a look at some of the best restaurant website examples built using Pixpa. By the time you’re done reading this article we hope you will have discovered all the secrets behind the success of the best restaurant websites. So let’s get started, shall we?
What makes a great restaurant website?
What is the secret behind creating a restaurant website that isn’t just good but great? When thinking about a good restaurant website design, keep in mind that you are essentially creating a business website. Different websites serve different purposes and you can take a look at our article on the types of websites if you want a more in depth look at the different kinds of websites and the way they are built. Business websites are mainly built for branding, marketing and customer outreach. These are the purposes you want your restaurant website to serve. The best restaurant websites stand out from the crowd, represent your brand and effectively communicate with your target customer base.
A fine dining restaurant website will be different from that of a small coffee shop or a food truck. Different restaurants appeal to different customer bases and the best restaurant websites recognize this. If you run a gourmet restaurant catering to an elite customer base, your restaurant website design will need to reflect this. The choice of fonts, layouts, color schemes etc will have to reflect an elite, high society aesthetic and feel. In contrast if you run a food truck specializing in street food then your website would need to have a more upbeat color palette, more modern and youthful fonts and an appropriate layout.
Aesthetics are important but another more important aspect of creating the best restaurant website is functionality. Business websites need to play a functional role in improving your business and your restaurant website is no different. The best restaurant websites are efficient marketing tools and may incorporate other functions as well including bookings, online food delivery orders, mailing lists and more. This way you can create a restaurant website which is not only beautiful but also useful.
Here are some tips for creating the best restaurant website
- Do your research
- Less is more
- Branding is important
- Include a contact form
- Add an "About Us" section
- Choose the right restaurant website template
Do your research
The most important first step you need to take before you even start building your restaurant website is to do your research. Research is important in every aspect of business and creating your restaurant website is no different. You need to figure out the best way of creating, designing, managing and marketing your restaurant website and that takes some know-how.
The best way of doing your research is to look at restaurant website examples from your competitors. Looking at other restaurants in your market that target the same or a similar customer base and how they have set up their restaurant websites can give you a good place to start. Check out how they use their website to properly represent their brand. What are the services they provide through their website? How do these restaurants market their websites and how successful are they in properly leveraging their websites to grow their business. Another important thing is to identify gaps. Figure out what your competitor websites are lacking and how you can step in and fill that gap to create a complete, full-featured restaurant website that can help you grow your business.
Less is more
Ever heard the old adage “Less is always more”? Well, it holds incredibly true for your restaurant website. Clean, minimalist and easy to navigate is the secret behind some of the best restaurant websites and it's not without reason. This is the kind of website that offers the most user-friendly experience, is the most informative and encourages users to properly explore your website, thus encouraging conversions..
Innovation and creativity is important in marketing but coherence, consistency and clean design is essential. Don’t go overboard and create a restaurant website design that is so elaborate that it becomes confusing and unintuitive. Instead, keep all the different sections and pages of your website consistent in terms of color, design, theme etc. Prioritize usability and create a simple but impactful landing page.
You want your website to be able to tell a story, represent your brand and perform its requisite functions in an easy, compelling and most importantly comprehensible way. Take a look at our article on the best minimalistic websites to find out if minimalism can help you create the best restaurant website design.
Branding is important
In business and marketing branding is the key to establishing a marketable presence. Branding involves creating a curated professional identity based on your business philosophy, target clientele and business goals.Your brand helps you stand out in the market by creating an identifiable presence. This is especially important when you are competing in a highly saturated market like the restaurant industry where brand recognition can help you gain ground and more customers. Branding is also important when you run a chain of restaurants or if your restaurant has different branches because it can help tie all your businesses together.
A personalized, professional, custom business website is in and of itself a step forward towards creating your own brand. But you can do more than that. Maintain consistency in terms of themes, color palettes, fonts etc. Use colors and themes from your restaurant’s decor and ambience in your restaurant website. In addition, a custom domain name and a personalized brand logo can make your restaurant website look more established and legitimate for only a few dollars a year. Having your own personalized logo is also helpful because it is a visual representation of your brand.
Include a contact form
The best restaurant website is a full-fledged platform for you to promote and market yourself, as well as take table reservations, delivery orders and more. It is also a major tool for customer outreach which you can use to answer queries and interact with your customers. Outreach is an incredibly important function of any business website and both of these things involve communication. By communicating with your customers you can understand their needs and requirements better and take appropriate steps to improve the dining experience at your restaurant.
Most people who visit your website will likely do so for more information about your restaurant and as such they may have queries. Some of these queries may be addressed in an FAQ section or through other informational elements however it isn’t always possible to address every possible query that a person may have. This is where contact forms come in .Contact forms give your site visitors an assigned space from where they can contact you. They also ensure that you do not have to give out any personal or sensitive information like emails or phone numbers which can make you vulnerable to spam or fraud. Contact forms are the perfect way of enabling communication and outreach while also addressing privacy concerns.
Here is a guide to creating the perfect contact page for your website!
Add an “About Us” section
While it is always a good idea to keep a business first approach when it comes to creating a restaurant website, a more personal, human approach can sometimes work wonders. People often find it difficult to connect to faceless businesses. However, if you incorporate a more human element, it may help customers form a stronger, more personal connection to your restaurant website. Food is deeply human and eating spaces like restaurants can be places where people form memories, bonds and relationships. A space like this deserves a story and this is exactly what your ‘About Us’ section allows you to do.
Adding an ‘About’ page to your restaurant website is one of the simplest ways of adding a story and a human element to it. Even the most no-nonsense, corporate websites are incomplete without an ‘About’ page. Keep the ‘About Us’ page short but sweet. Talk about your restaurant, how it came to be, the story behind the menu items and what you aim to deliver to your customers through your food and service. Remember that your ‘About Us’ page is not only an introduction but also a sales pitch. For a more detailed look into writing ‘About’ pages check out our guide to ‘About’ pages!
Choose the right restaurant website template
Minimalism, branding and right aesthetics and layouts are essential when you want your website to hold a place among the best restaurant websites. To create such a website you need to start with the right set of tools. Choosing the right restaurant website template will ensure that you are starting off on the right foot when creating your own restaurant website.
When you’re looking for the right restaurant website design templates, you will need the right restaurant website builder. Pixpa is an easy to use, all-in-one website building platform perfect for all kinds of business websites, particularly restaurant websites. Pixpa’s pixel-perfect, full-customizable restaurant website templates can help you build a professional, custom branded restaurant website in no time. You don’t even need any advanced technical skills or coding knowledge! Pixpa makes website building incredibly easy, accessible and most importantly affordable.
Pixpa’s stunning range of food and restaurant website templates include Shade, Balance and Relay which are the perfect choice for any restaurant or food business. The easy to use visual editor and drag and drop page builder empowers you to create your restaurant website effortlessly and without hassle. Along with this you also get access to Pixpa’s integrated SEO and marketing features including marketing pop-ups, announcement bars and mailing lists to help you use your website as an effective marketing platform for your restaurant. If you are still unsure then these top 25 reasons why you should choose Pixpa to build your website are guaranteed to convince you!
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Here are a few stunning restaurant website examples built with Pixpa
The Endive Eatery
The Endive Eatery’s website is vibrant and impactful. The simple but delicious looking slideshow forms the background to the landing page making it both attractive and true to the brand. The landing page also contains important information about the restaurant’s working hours as well as services offered for example takeaway, dine in, drive through etc. This is on our list of best restaurant websites for bringing together aesthetics as well as functionality.
Rhys Patissier
Lincoln Rhys Jones is a pastry chef and patissier and his restaurant website is a great example of how minimalism and simple color palettes can work wonders in a restaurant website. The understated black and white color palette, and the simple but lucid restaurant logo as the landing page background serves to create an impactful and sleek restaurant website. Minimalism can be used as an effective tool for branding in restaurant websites.
Anna Zaykina
Anna Zaykina is a pastry chef from Berlin and her restaurant website works well because she focuses on the most important part of any restaurant, the food. Her website serves to display her food and culinary creations in a mouthwatering grid style gallery on her landing page. Focusing on the food can be an excellent way of creating an interesting and attractive restaurant website which tempts people to actually visit your restaurant and try your food for themselves.
Mama's Desserts
Mama’s Desserts is the creation of a Prague based mother and businesswoman. The homestyle, intimate, cheerful concept is reflected in the branding of the website. The font is cheerful and friendly and the color palette used is warm and bright. Brown and orange tones evoke a home-like feeling and the logo and slogans used also evoke a similar intimate atmosphere.
Conclusion
These were some of the best restaurant websites built on Pixpa. We hope these amazing restaurant website examples help inspire you and get you itching to create your own custom restaurant website! If you are ready already then this step-by-step guide on how to design your website will be very useful for you. Meanwhile, before starting our restaurant website design project, why don’t we brush up on our design knowledge by taking a look at some basic principles of design? It is always a great idea to start with the basics anyway!
Choose from stunning, modern and responsive hotels and venues website templates to start building the perfect website for your hotel or venue, while also enjoying the benefits of creating a custom restaurant website that can be shockingly easy, affordable, and accessible. In fact, you don’t even have to write a single line of code! Pixpa makes it easy. You can sign up for a full-featured, 15-day free trial right now to test drive Pixpa and start building a stunning, feature-rich restaurant website. No credit card is required for sign-up and no hidden charges. Sign up now!