If you have a restaurant (or any business), you need a website. Simple, right? Well, a lot of restaurants have no web presence whatsoever, and even more have badly designed websites that haven’t been updated in years.
If you think your business’s web design won’t impact revenue, you’re wrong. I just won the PIE Award for Best Restaurant Website, so I know a couple of things about this topic, and I’ve put together a quick guide to help you build (or improve) your pizzeria’s website.
You Need a Website
You need a website to increase your pizzeria’s online visibility. Ranking high in search engines helps customers find you, and search engines don’t give your social media pages much attention. Google and other search engines care a lot about well-designed websites that provide dependable information. Even if all other aspects of a company are going great, a bad website can hold back the entire operation.
Website design isn’t just about making things look pretty. It’s about guiding your visitors on a journey, creating meaningful first impressions, showcasing your products and services and, ultimately, leading visitors to take action.
Whether you think you need a full site design or refresh—or even if you need to start one from scratch—the first thing you need to do is some research.
Check out the websites of your competitors. Look at the websites of some of the largest restaurant chains. Industry titans spend millions of dollars on website research and design; they have tested every possible dynamic regarding their sites. They know what drives sales, what doesn’t drive sales and what their customers are looking for online.
If you believe your site already best represents your restaurant, you might just need to update the content and design. But if most of your site isn’t user-friendly—or if it looks underwhelming—then you need to start over. But don’t stress out: Often it’s easier to start from scratch than it is to fix a badly designed website.
Website Design
Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to apply those ideas to your own pizzeria. Every website has a “vibe,” just like your restaurant does. Your job is to translate the vibe of your restaurant to your website. The design should mirror what your pizzeria design and advertising say to your customers.
When it comes to layout, think of the first page of your site like a book index: It should direct you to what you are looking for. The top of the first page needs to have your restaurant’s name, phone number and a link to order online (if you offer that). The font should be similar to what you use on your menus and signs.
If you take reservations, you definitely need a link at the top of your site. Numerous apps to make it easy to align your online reservations with your pizzeria’s reservation book.
The top of the page (the “header”) should have visible links to your most important pages; the other pages can be accessed from a drop-down menu. Consider using a “call to action” at the top of your page, such as button that says “order now!” Believe it or not, these things work. That’s why everyone uses them.
Responsive Web Design
Your site needs to be responsive, meaning it works well on phones, tablets and computers. Consider building your site as mobile-friendly first; right now, about 75% of my restaurant site’s visitors access it through a mobile device.
You also need to make sure users can visit any page from any page, meaning they don’t need to return to the home page to navigate.
Food and drinks make great images. Hire a professional photographer whose work you have reviewed beforehand. Make sure your contract allows you to use the photos in a variety of ways, from your website to social media to local search.
Here’s a little secret: The major third-party delivery services (Uber Eats, Door Dash and Grubhub) will send a photographer out to your restaurant for free—yes, free—to shoot 10-20 different items, which could represent most of the menu in a lot of restaurants. They give restaurants these images to use any way they like, forever. Just contact your account manager and see if they are shooting in your area. I’ve had these companies out a few different times; by now, they have photographed almost my entire menu.
Online Ordering
When we redid my pizzeria’s website in 2020, our online orders doubled. Currently, about 30% of our business comes through our online ordering page (I wish we got all our to-go orders online).
To set up online ordering, you need your entire menu listed on your site, with prices. If your menu does not include pricing, consumers think they have something to hide.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Now, let’s talk about search engine optimization (SEO), those site design elements that get search engines to list your restaurant at the top of search results. Research shows that about 92% of search engine users only look at the first page of results. If you aren’t on the first page, potential customers will never know that your business exists!
There is a whole science to SEO, but my best advice is not to try it on your own unless you are really familiar with it. SEO was complicated 15 years ago, when I used it to get my company’s website listed on Google, and it’s even more complicated now.
Building Your Website
Finally, it’s time to have your website built—either by you or someone you hire. I like to use Wix, which has hundreds of multipage templates that allow you to instantly see a site’s design and functionality. Wix is for amateur website creators, and you can use it to build your site for free; they only charge you when you make it live. So, play around and see what happens. You might find you have a hidden talent for web design.
If you have no interest in that, there are tons of website designers out there. I spend a lot of time on Fiverr, where you can hire web designers, SEO experts and professional writers for a fraction of what you would pay a team of designers. You can get a pretty decent five-page website built by a Fiverr designer for about $300.
Just remember: It’s important for you to be able to update your own site because your website is never done!
Greg Randall won the 2024 PIE Award for Best Pizzeria Website and Best Video Short to promote Vinceno’s Newhall.