Whether you’re about to launch a business or you’re an industry veteran, a website for a foodservice business is an essential portal of information and discovery for potential customers.
From initial wire-framing to user experience concerns to the content that will populate it, there’s a lot to take into consideration – both when you are initially launching a website and afterwards, as you continue to maintain and update it.
The process doesn’t have to be overwhelming, though. Even if you’re a complete newcomer to the world of web design, there are professionals on Fiverr who can help you.
Here are some tips to make sure your foodservice business is getting the most out of its online presence.
Designing a website for your foodservice business
The first step when it comes to creating a website from scratch is wire-framing. Simply put, wire-framing is the layout of your website – a map detailing which sections it will contain and where different bits of information will be stored.
No matter which industry, every website should have a homepage – the first thing most people see when they click into your site. For food service business, other important pages might be an About Us page, a page dedicated to current menus, and pages dedicated to any other subject that might be relevant to your business (for instance, if you host a lot of events, you might want to include a dedicated Events page where customers can find information on anything you have coming in your calendar).
These sections might appear as tabs at the top of your website, or links to them might fold out from a sidebar. You also need to consider how these will appear on both desktop and mobile platforms. There are numerous ways to organise the information on your food service website – but if you don’t know where to begin, it can pay to bring in an expert.
To make sure your customers are able to access your information in the most efficient way possible, consider hiring a freelancer who specialises in wireframe design.
Making your website visually appealing
Once your wireframe has been designed, it’s time to fill it in. Any website should be both visually appealing and consistent in its aesthetic, ideally matching the branding of your business so that customers can easily recognise the website as yours.
What will your colour scheme be? Will be pages contain any graphics? Where and how will your logo be placed? What will the fonts be? What images will you use and where will they be placed? There are endless design considerations to keep in mind when you are thinking of launching a new website or redesigning an existing one.
If you’re not a graphic designer by trade, chances are there is someone out there who is better placed to get your website looking as good as it can possibly be. Hiring a freelance graphic designer can be a cheap and efficient way of achieving this.
Writing content for your website
Of course, the core purpose of a website is to deliver useful information to your customers, who might use that to decide where they are going to dine.
Further, each page of your website should contain the information that a customer is expecting to find on that page – for instance, if they click on your About Us page, they are likely looking to find out your backstory and what your offering is.
Another important consideration for digital content writing is SEO (search engine optimization). How your content is arranged and how it is written will affect where Google places you on their page when customers search for relevant terms (for instance, ‘Italian food in Melbourne’). If your content is poorly written or hard for your customers to access, then competitor restaurants might get business that you could have otherwise attracted.
To make sure customers can find you in their searches, and that they get what they are searching for when they land on your page, consider hiring a freelance copywriter or specialist SEO writer to create the written content for your website.
Staying relevant
Just as the menu of any food service restaurant will evolve according to time, trends and seasons, so too should your website.
The standards of web design are constantly changing – whether this means updating the layout of your website, changing the information on your pages to reflect your current offering, or refreshing the design to keep up with current trends and any new branding you’ve undertaken.
Every few years, it’s worth engaging a freelance web designer to take a look at your website and provide an audit of changes that could be beneficial for your digital presence – and, ultimately, for your foot traffic.
No matter which aspect of your website you are working on, there’s an expert on Fiverr who can help.
Click here for more resources to keep your website in tip-top shape.