Should a Restaurant Have a Website?

Here in Denver, Colorado, there are many, many great, very unique restaurants that nobody knows about - unless you walk in off the street, work there, live nearby, or hear about it from someone else whose opinion you value.

In fact, if we were to get in a car together and drive along Colfax, one of Denver's most diverse and busiest streets, you'd see thousands of restaurants in one afternoon, easily, with great food, that cannot be found if you Google their type of food or service. To Google, Yahoo, and Bing, most of these fine establishments do not exist.

Many restaurant owners may feel ambivalent about web design and internet marketing. After all, the owner’s job is to watch over inventory, waste, insurance costs, hiring and firing, and managing.

If the restaurant is struggling financially, the restaurant owner(s) may feel that the time just isn’t right to invest. They’ll wait until profit is up, and then consider web design, SEO, and social media marketing. (And the irony of course is that the online presence is part of what pushes up profit in the first place).

Or they may feel that they can do it themselves, or know someone who may be able to build a website.

A website is nothing more than a flyer online, anyway, right?

Trying Other Routes
Many non-developers or people new to internet marketing can make the assumption that if someone is an IT professional or good at Excel or something similar, they may also be able to develop professional-level websites. (This is usually not the case, as it’s comparing two things that are wildly different, like comparing pit bulls to tea cup chihuahuas; they’re both dogs, but both very different.)

Restaurant owners may feel that if they have a “techie” friend, family member or know someone else in that category, that person may be able to create something for them. And while that individual may be a fine person, being familiar with IT, Microsoft products, or other form of media doesn’t ensure that the person is an experienced professional web developer who is versed in Search Engine Optimization, social media marketing, design standards, site security, and eCommerce set up (which is online ordering).

Web design, SEO, social media marketing, responsive design, eCommerce…these are all seen as something akin to putting an ad in a newspaper, or posting flyers perhaps. The business person may see commercials for drag-and-drop template builders and free site generators and assume that web design should be free or very cheap or that it has no intrinsic value or relevancy to their business growth.

Maybe the business owner had a Facebook page and feels that having that is the same thing as a professional online presence. Maybe they feel that “anyone” can create a professional online presence, or that having one doesn’t necessarily do anything for business growth. Maybe it’s seen as a pain point; something that was attempted at one time and not done to their satisfaction.

Leaving It to A Pro
Ironically, professional web design, when executed with thought-out Search Engine Optimization, a strategy and long-term game-plan, original custom design so that visual appeal stands out from the rest of the generic pack and SEO can be programmed properly into each page,  eCommerce to take orders and sell items, a blog, all of these factors can cultivate a clientele online, reinforce branding and identity, bring in new business leads, streamline processes with partners and vendors, provide an air of professionalism and seriousness and legitimacy, get publicity, and do even more. If it’s done right and taken seriously as a legitimate form of marketing. In short, a process and not a single commodity or one-shot deal like a classified ad, that stops producing results the minute it’s gone from view.

If a business is more than a hobby and is scaled (meaning that it’s organized and structured, is registered with a local Secretary of State and pays taxes as a legitimate legal business entity) for growth, it needs to generate more revenue in order to stay afloat.

If the business has overhead such as employees and rent (as most physical restaurants do), it needs to be making a specific monetary amount weekly and monthly to be making consistent profit. If it doesn’t make profit consistently, and just breaks even some months or operates at a loss, that business is teetering on the brink of going under financially.

Restaurants are a good example of business scale in that there are employees, rent, insurance costs, shipping/receiving expenses, money going in and going out in numerous directions and ways. There is cost of new hires, internal and external theft, training, loss that can be written-off, tax deductions, marketing expenses, and many other factors to consider that many new, small business owners aren’t familiar with.

Restaurants, like all other businesses, need regularly recurring streams of revenue coming in to survive. If they are to grow, they need that revenue to increase geometrically, and gradually. And at some point, when a business is ready to grow, it has to consider marketing.

This is where professional web development comes in, when coupled with SEO, eCommerce, social media, and other forms of long-term internet marketing strategy. When combined in one robust package (in the form of a site that utilizes these), a business can reap measurable and regularly increasing returns; when ignored many businesses shrivel. Not having a professional online presence usually in and of itself doesn’t sink a business, but it’s a fairly decent indicator of where that business places marketing in order of importance and how it values quality; poor businesses don’t have websites or have cheap-looking websites, those doing well have robust internet marketing presences in common.

Should a restaurant have a website? Yes, if it intends to grow consistently, in the long-term.

Should that website be professional-level and embrace eCommerce (so that it can process orders online, allow for reservations online, schedule private events, sell items, sign people up for cooking classes, help restaurant managers manage expenses, oversee inventory, let employees clock in and out, etcetera), Search Engine Optimization, social media, online review sites?

Absolutely, if that business owner wishes to fulfill long-term consistent growth.

*This article originally appeared in the Sudden Impact Web Design blog.