Restaurateurs who want to create a restaurant website by themselves and others who wish to hire a website designer can use this guide to make the right decisions. It’s a detailed and universal answer to a question making the rounds among restaurateurs: how to create a website for my restaurant? The good news is that it’s pretty straightforward, and you can even do it for free with Menuzen.site website builder.
What to know about designing a restaurant website.
Building the restaurant website you want takes time and effort, even if you hire someone else to do it. The only way to create a website, without personally investing the time and effort, is by delegating the job to someone else from start to finish.
The truth is you’ll rarely get exactly what you want because people’s choices differ, especially concerning graphic design. That’s why you should be involved in your restaurant’s website design project from day one, so you don’t wind up with less appealing results.
You must think and plan carefully before designing your restaurant’s website. This tricky project will have a far-reaching and long-term effect on your business because it’s the main visual interface between customers and the restaurant. If you get anything wrong, it might precipitate a substantial overhaul in the future, which is not only money- and time-wasting but also bad for business.
To simplify your task, here are the different steps involved in creating a website for your restaurant:
- Look around and brainstorm design concepts.
- Analyse snippets you got from other websites.
- Conceive a stylish and navigable design.
- If you can, build several website prototypes.
- Choose a design platform (CMS - Content Management System) that works.
- Decide whether or not to hire a designer.
We’ll go over each one as we proceed.
Step #1: Observe and brainstorm design ideas.
For those asking, “how do I make a website for my restaurant?” the first step is to look around and brainstorm. By looking around, we mean checking competitors’ websites and browsing the hundreds of free restaurant website templates on the Menuzen.site and other platforms. In essence, you should study these websites and templates to get inspiration.
Take a mental note of design features and verbiage that impresses you about a website, and try to remember areas of improvement. For example, you can study the colour combinations, page contents, locations of buttons and forms, headers, footers, menus, and so on. If it’s difficult to remember these observations, consider taking screenshots using a snipping tool and jotting down verbiage in a word file.
Tip: Save similar items together in a separate folder. For example, header screenshots should be in a folder you name “Header”. Also, take care not to promise on your website what you can’t fulfil in the restaurant. That’s the fastest way to lose customer loyalty.
Step #2: Analyse the snippets from websites.
The screenshots, sales-inclined languages you recorded, and the templates on Menuzen.site are enough resources to help you visualise a suitable website. No matter what, a picture will begin to form in your mind after you study a couple of items. Start with objects in the “Header” folder because website designs typically start with the header; afterwards, proceed to analyse the other folders.
Typically, your restaurant website should reflect your dining style and be easy and fun to navigate on different devices, such as laptops and mobile devices, and their respective screen sizes. The messages and graphics on the pages should articulate your restaurant’s culture. That’s an integral part of our answer to the question: how to make a website for my restaurant?
Step #3: Visualise a simple and stylish design.
The last thing you want is a website that’s difficult to navigate for information or specific actions. People can overlook poor aesthetics, but they won’t easily forget their troubles in using your website.
What are the most vital pieces of information for the website’s visitors? Make sure they’re close to the top of your landing page or homepage and boldly pop off the background.
You also need to read up on website branding extensively. While not the topic of this post, it’s critical to building a restaurant website that exudes your culture towards customers. For example, if your restaurant is luxurious, ensure its verbiage, graphics, and general outlook fit together to cultivate exclusivity.
Step #4: Preferably, build several prototypes.
The best restaurant website is that which your customers, not you, like best. You would be surprised sometimes at the number of people who may greatly appreciate something you consider unattractive. This applies to your restaurant’s website too, and is an important consideration when answering the question: how to make a website for my restaurant?
Perhaps, you prefer an overall greenish appearance, but most customers think your competitor’s bluish decor is more attractive. Or maybe you’re proud of the full-screen image on the homepage when customers consider your competitor’s gridded, sales-inclined homepage as better.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t personally choose a design for your restaurant — but what matters is the user experience of your website and dining experience.
While combining a refreshing outlook with a great dining experience will be rewarding, how do you conceive a unique design concept that most customers love?
It’s unlikely that you can muster the labour and expenses required to involve customers in the design process. It can be pretty challenging and lengthly, to say the least.
However, if you decide to, you need to create several mock-up designs, which will cost some money or consume more time. Then, you need to have a substantial portion of your customers interact with the prototypes and provide feedback. Once you’ve settled on a prototype, head to the next step.
Step #5: Choose a design platform.
With many ways to build a website for a restaurant today, choosing the best platform can take time and effort... Unless you find the right guide (like this one). Your website’s designer won’t be responsible for the site’s day-to-day operations. By this we mean publishing new or editing old content, replying to comments, handling online orders, and many more.
There are dozens of content management systems for restaurant websites, the most prominent of which are Menuzen.site, Weebly, Wix, and WordPress. You might wonder, why the Menuzen.site?
While the other platforms are built for all kinds of websites, Menuzen.site is only dedicated to restaurants and food businesses. Therefore, it has all the facilities that a restaurant website needs, even with extras specific to restaurants, to enhance its productivity in ways other CMSs (Content Management Systems) do not.
Another critical reason why Menuzen.site outstrips most other CMSs for restaurant websites is the simplicity of designing a website, even for a non-tech-savvy restaurateur. Since the company focuses squarely on the hospitality industry, the staff will likely give you better support than other content management systems catering to a broader need.
Online ordering, reservations, and payments can integrate seamlessly into the website. You can also incorporate links to your digital menu, such as a Google Maps link for clients to find your restaurant.
Reviews from credible platforms can also be incorporated, and directory pages. All these advantages and broad customisation freedom make Menuzen.site one of the ideal restaurant platforms, especially if the owner has little or no technical skills.
What to look for in a CMS:
You need time to understand a CMS platform to use it properly. Write down all the things you want to be able to do with the website, such as taking online orders, reservations, payments, and so on. Afterwards, confirm that your chosen CMS can smoothly integrate them all.
Your chosen CMS must also be a secure platform with a gentle learning curve. This is key in learning how to make a restaurant website if you’re unfamiliar with CMS platforms and how they work.
Menuzen.site ticks all checkboxes in choosing the best CMS for a restaurant website. It has dozens of pre-built restaurant website design templates you can pick from or customise to match your dining style. All of the templates have the desirable features of a modern restaurant website. Again, the best part is you don’t need technical skills to leverage these designs.
Make sure to investigate any CMS, theme, or hosting provider before using them to build and maintain your restaurant website. Any significant problem with one of these components can have a site-wide effect that undermines the entire project.
Step #5: Will you build the restaurant website yourself?
You should consider building your restaurant website yourself if you intend to manage and operate the website yourself later. The knowledge and experience you’ll gain while building a restaurant website will help you run the site and troubleshoot problems that may arise down the road.
Some people think managing a website is too time-consuming. However, this is a misguided perception as everything becomes easy once you get used to the initial change.
We’re not saying you must do everything yourself — you can get technical support whenever you get stuck with the design. Still, the sad reality is help won’t come quickly sometimes, especially if your website uses a CMS with too many users or less experienced staff in restaurant design. In this case, asking questions on forums or writing to experts on that CMS may become necessary, and that’s when a frustrating delay might occur.
Still, you can make a website for a restaurant without paying anyone for a service. Most top CMSs have enough learning materials for non-techie newbies to learn website design.
We’d recommend finding YouTube videos that teach designing a website on such platforms. You can also find expert articles and ebooks to help plug some knowledge gaps on YouTube.
Menuzen.site: The CMS for a self-designed restaurant website
If you want to design the website yourself—which is advisable so you can get familiar with the platform—Menuzen.site’s website design tool is all you need. Not only will you have it for free, plus a custom URL, but you’ll also enjoy a responsive and manageable design on a smartphone.
If you find it easier to build on what is already created, you can save even more time by using a restaurant template from the Menuzen.site.
Even with no premium plan, you are able to design your menu how you want, and move around the menu items simply with the drag and drop editor. With this free tool, many have and can make a website or online store for their restaurant, anytime, with their own custom domain.
How can you enjoy designing a website if the content management system you adopt is challenging to learn? You’d find you can easily abandon the project after trying hard without things working out.
That’s why—unless you have a solid determination to learn—it’s better to use a CMS that’s easy to understand. Again, this is another area where Menuzen.site shines — the platform is explicitly designed for non-tech-savvy restaurateurs.
When to hire a website designer:
If you want a complex or custom design, it’s safer to work with a web design company, or if you can risk it, freelancers. This can save you time for other things. You’ll be spared the stress and also gain access to expert-level designs that are almost 100% flawless.
However, hiring designers has several disadvantages depending on the entity you work with. Independent freelancers are typically cheaper than established agencies but riskier in terms of security, confidentiality, and errors. Still, you need to be involved in the design process.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I make a restaurant website?
While we’ve answered this question in considerable detail in this guide, here’s a quick summary of the steps involved:
- Look around and brainstorm design concepts.
- Analyse snippets you got from other websites.
- Conceive a stylish and navigable design.
- If you can, build several website prototypes.
- Choose a design platform (CMS) that works.
- Decide whether or not to hire a designer.
In summary, building a restaurant website yourself can be very challenging and time-consuming unless you use easy-to-use builders like Menuzen.site.
What makes a good website for a restaurant?
The three major components of a good and functional restaurant website are:
- Navigation
- Aesthetics
- Brand voice
Any of these factors will undermine your website if not done right.
Does a restaurant need a good website?
For any modern restaurant in an educated society, the answer is yes. Your regular customers would appreciate the opportunity to interact with your restaurant through a website, especially if it supports online ordering. In essence, a website is one of the best ways to increase restaurant sales.
How do I create my own website for my business for free?
There’s no better free option for a restaurant website than Menuzen.site. Not only is it completely free, but also easy to use and has dozens of templates to choose from or customise. Simply sign up and get started designing your award-winning restaurant website.
Conclusion
Perhaps, you’ve pondered the question: “how to create a website for my restaurant?” In that case, we hope this guide has provided a general roadmap. However, you still need to read further on other less emphasised points to acquire the necessary knowledge.
Don’t just jump into it, though; do some preliminary studying. Otherwise you may be forced to dismantle parts of the website, migrate to a different CMS or a hosting company, redesign the site, or even start all over. Even in-depth preliminary research doesn’t guarantee error-free decisions.
Hence, you should stick to a website design platform tailored not only to restaurants and food businesses but also to non-tech-savvy individuals. An excellent example of such is Menuzen.site. Sign up today to get started building your dream restaurant website.
