Building the Best Website for Your Restaurant

Written by: Hilary Young |  Published: May 7th, 2024

Defined as “the activity or business of promoting and selling products or services,” marketing is an essential part of running a successful restaurant. There are many different layers to marketing a restaurant, but the first, and perhaps most important, is building a website so customers can find you on the internet.

But simply having a website isn’t enough; your website platform should also be able to provide you with built-in analytics about traffic to your website, integrate with other technologies (like menu and online ordering), and even help you to create emails and loyalty programs in order to encourage customers both old and new to keep spending money at your establishment.

Why you need a website for your restaurant business

Before the internet came along, there were many different ways to market your restaurant; from taking out advertisements in the phone book to placing paper flyers on car windshields, pre-internet marketing required a big-money investment from restaurant operators.

The internet has really leveled the playing field for restaurants, making it possible to market your business successfully regardless of the size of your budget. In addition to your restaurant website populating in a Google search when a local customer is figuring out what they want to eat for dinner, a website is also a place where customers can browse your menu in advance, book reservations without ever picking up a phone, and even purchase merch or packaged goods from the comfort of their couch.

Without building a website for your restaurant, you’re missing out on lots of opportunities to increase your bottom line and grow your business effectively.

Choosing the right website builder for your restaurant

While all website builders will hopefully yield a complete website that is published to the internet, not all website builders were created equal. Depending on the type of restaurant you own and the services you provide, you’ll have to weigh your options based on how you want customers to interact with your website.

For example: Are you full-service or QSR? As a QSR, you might want your website to support an interactive menu that allows the customer to order from their computer or mobile device.

Do you do delivery or pick up? What about reservations?

Not all third-party applications that help enable these services will integrate with every type of website, so it’s important to think about exactly what you need to incorporate into your website before choosing your website builder.

Our team of experts have all worked in restaurants throughout their careers and have carefully vetted out the vendors we’ve selected with a restaurant operations focus. They’ve done more than just their internet homework; our Back of House experts have spent time getting to know these companies, sat through hours of demos, and in some cases, even have personal experience with using them.