Friday, June 25, 2010

Making Your Restaurant Website Sell For You

Does your restaurant's web site sell for you? If your site is like most then the answer is probably not. It's an opportunity that the large majority of independent restaurants are not taking advantage of. Let's look at some ways that your restaurant's site can go beyond the basics to help boost your sales and profits by capturing revenue that may currently be going elsewhere.

Online Ordering
This is a true growth category and area of opportunity. The large chains are getting into online take-out ordering in a big way. Independents need to get in on the action. Families are looking for better (i.e. not fast food) take-out options that are easy, flexible and familiar. This is a 20% to 30% sales growth opportunity waiting to happen for your restaurant.

Taking Reservations Online
One rule of business is "make it easy for your customers to do business with you". This certainly applies to online reservation systems. For customers, online reservation taking offers a speedy, around the clock option for making dinner plans. There is a certain demographic that loves this feature. They are, for the most part, tech savvy, professionals with high levels of disposal income. Sounds like a good target audience, no?

Gift Cards
If your restaurant has a gift card or gift certificate program in place then you need to be promoting and selling your cards online. An easy to use secure order form can help your restaurant bump up its gift card sales to the next level. An online gift card option or even an instant gift certificate option meets the needs of the time crunched gift giver where an order can be completed in just a few minutes. Get this on your web site and promote it. This is a no-brainer

Parties & Catering
Events, parties and catering are terrific profit centers for your business. Rarely, however, does a restaurant use its web site well to promote these offerings. Think about having full screen photos of your private rooms or facilities. Event menus and catering prices should be readily available, even if they are only samples. Floor plans with layouts and dimensions can easily be included. A virtual tour similar to a "house-for-sale" listing can easily be created. Let beautiful pictures and bountiful information do the selling for you.

Merchandise
As with gift cards if you have logo merchandise or other products that you sell in your restaurant then have them for sale on your web site as well. For most restaurants a basic e-commerce application is all that is needed. This is cheap and easy and almost any web hosting company or developer can help you get up and running fast.

Now Open
The truth is your restaurant's web site should be selling for you 24/7/365. Don't make the mistake of having your restaurant's web site be just a yellow page listing with your name, menu and phone number. Take advantage of all that the Internet has to offer by expanding your web site to include some of these interactive and e-commerce options as a way to increase your restaurant's bottom line.

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