Basically, there are two kings of restaurant webistes:
- The amateurish ones made, for free or for a meal by the cousin or a friend of the owner with some basic knowledge of HTML and zero skills with design. You know the ones that I mean, when you open the site, they look terrible and they are seldom if ever updated.
- The super-expensive ones, made by a "Web master" full of Flash animation and created to self-please the webmaster or the restaurant owner or Chef but not to provide with useful information to the potential customers.
When users to go to a restaurant website, they are looking for an easy way to navigate and find one or more of the following information items:
* Menus (with the following elements):
- Descriptions
- Prices
- Photos to see what they are going to get
* Wine list with prices
* A way to make a reservation (online, phone number, etc.)
* Contact Information (email, phone, etc.)
* Address and directions to the restaurant
* Some photos of the restaurant so that they know how the place looks before they step into the restaurant
* A form to leave comments or feedback (instead of going straight to Yelp, Restaurants.com or CitySearch
* Events or specials (updated, please)
The rest (flash animations, annoying music, photos of the SuperChef with a big smile… are superfluous, annoying and self-congratulatory exercises in futility. Customers hate them (I know I do!), restaurateurs pay extra for frills that they don't need, and web masters get to practice their Flash skills and charge their customers high fees.
I would recommend that you read my free article: Ten Basic Rules to Have An Effective Restaurant Website. It contains a lot of good information to have a useful and practical website.
Good luck!
Jose L Riesco
