13 Web Design Tips For Restaurants (And How to Make Them Happen)

There’s no way to replace the sight of a perfect dish, the smell of fragrant spices, or the taste of a succulent piece of meat. However, that doesn’t mean your website shouldn’t whet your customer’s appetite for a delicious meal. That requires a beautiful website design.

Consumers are more likely to visit sites that make them feel engaged and informed. Your website should exist not just to raise awareness of your restaurant, but also to give prospective diners a sense of what they would experience if they stopped by for a meal.

By reading this article, you’ll get an overview of why web design for restaurants is so important, as well as learn a few useful restaurant website designs tips for you to consider.

If you’d like to speak with a specialist before reading on, you can contact us at 888-601-5359.

Why do restaurants need to worry about web design?

When most people think of web design, they think of the colors and photos on any given page. However, good web design requires more than a keen eye. It calls for an understanding of how people use websites.

In order to create the best web design possible, you’ll have to anticipate the needs of your users. How will they navigate your pages? Where will they look for information?

Your staff needs to coordinate their efforts in order to deliver a superior experience at your restaurant. Your website needs to do the same thing.

Web design for restaurants matters because it impacts several performance metrics, which we’ll detail below.

Navigation and usability

A poorly-designed website affects how easy it is for visitors to find useful information. If key details about your location, menu, or hours are buried in a footer or sub-menu, visitors will get frustrated because they can’t find what they need to make a decision.

Site speed plays a role in this, too. If certain images or pages are very large, they can slow your site load times. Visitors are approximately twice as likely to leave a page if it takes longer than four seconds to load, which is why it’s so important to create a fast, streamlined website that delivers information quickly.

Consumer trust

Your website is the first impression many consumers have of your restaurant, so it needs to be a good one. According to one study, 94 percent of users find websites with good designs more trustworthy. If users have a bad experience on your site, 88 percent won’t come back.

In other words, your restaurant’s reputation depends on how your website performs. If your website is well-designed, consumers are likely to trust it—and you, by extension. But if the site is unprofessional or out-of-date, consumers may assume that your restaurant is the same way!

Search engine rankings

How well your website ranks in searches is affected by a number of factors. The keywords you use, the number of links pointing to your site, and the way visitors interact with your website can affect your ranking. But your design can have an impact on it, too!

Google made mobile-friendliness a ranking factor in early 2015. This means that the search engine gives preference to websites that are designed to display properly on devices like smartphones and tablets. If your website requires scrolling and zooming to properly display its content on mobile devices, your rankings may be affected as a result.

The higher your site ranks, the more visitors—and potential customers—you attract. So it’s important to utilize web design best practices that can help your rankings improve.

Since web design plays such an important role in business performance, you must give it the time and attention it needs. The following section provides some basic building blocks of a website design that ensures consistent branding, credibility and a steady stream of customers.

What are some helpful restaurant website design tips?

Whatever design elements you choose for your website, they need to sit on a strong foundation. Visitors will be attracted to a beautiful design, but it’s the ease of use and ability to navigate each page that will determine how they react to it.

Whether you want to design your restaurant’s website by yourself or hire someone to do it for you, consider every element of the process. You should think about not just what visitors see, but also the architecture underneath. You can do that by following these restaurant website design tips.

1. Design with search in mind

As we mentioned, the way your website looks can definitely affect its performance in search engines. To ensure that you rank as highly as possible in searches for restaurants in your area, your design must be created with the preference of search engines in mind.

For example, your site should be responsive, which we’ll explain in further detail next. Google gives preference to responsive sites in searches, so this can be a huge benefit. You should also plan your design around pages that are keyword-rich and designed to attract searchers looking for something specific—like the cuisine you serve or even a specific dish.

2. Use responsive design

People are accessing your website on desktops, laptops and mobile phones. Your website has to look good and work properly on all of these screens if it’s going to get a good response.

Responsive design will scale the elements of your site up and down to automatically fit both large and small screens. In addition to the boost in rankings it can bring, responsiveness also gives the people who are looking for restaurants on the go a way to reliably find your menu, location, hours, and contact information—without digging around in a menu for several minutes or zooming in on large pages to get the details they need.

Also, avoid elements that don’t translate well to other devices. Data tables don’t move well to smaller screens, even with responsive design, and some mobile browsers don’t have plugins like Flash or JavaScript. So try to keep your pages simple and mobile-friendly to please everyone.

3. Incorporate intuitive navigation

The basic rule for any website layout is to make important elements easy to find. In what position would the “Place Order” button generate the most clicks? Do diners respond more often to menus on the top, bottom or side? Or do they prefer search tools? Where are people most likely to notice social media and sign-up buttons?

Create a design that mirrors the natural viewing habits of your visitors, and you’ll see better responses to—and more positive opinions about—to your site. Not sure what your visitors really prefer? Consider putting together a website focus group to look at your current design and give you some feedback.

4. Give a good first impression

There’s a good chance that many of your customers will look at your site before ever setting foot in your restaurant, so it’s important that they like what they see. It is your first chance to make an impression, and should be designed in such a way that accurately reflects the atmosphere, style, and service you offer.

Your online image is now a large part of customers’ overall experience with your services. Your website doesn’t have to be extravagant, but it should at least provide a good user experience and make visitors want to become customers.

5. Include the necessities

Every restaurant website should include the necessary components that customers expect. At minimum, your restaurant website should include your address, phone number, menu, and some photos of your food and dining area.

Beyond this, your website can be as simple or as detailed as you’d like. There are plenty of options to consider when it comes to content, but be sure to first provide the information that most visitors are looking for.

6. Focus on your strong points

Your website is a chance to highlight what it is that makes your restaurant special. Maybe you offer the city’s finest eggplant parmigiana or a chic atmosphere for fine diners. Whether it’s $5 appetizers or a prestigious wine list that makes you unique, highlight your originality on your website.

If you’re struggling to articulate what makes your restaurant unique, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What are my customers’ favorite dishes?
2. What do I offer that my competitors don’t?
3. How do customers feel when they leave?
4. How do employees describe the food?
5. What does the atmosphere represent?

7. Include a creative “About Us” page

If your restaurant has an interesting history, including it on your site is a great idea. Knowing the story behind a chef or establishment can make the dining experience all the more fun, and can make customers even more inclined to patronize your business.

Explain your original vision for the establishment, how things might have changed along the way, and the mission and expectations you hold today. You should aim to tell your story, and do it in an interesting way.

8. Consider color theory

Spend some time thinking about website color. The obvious choices are the colors in your logo or restaurant interior, but matching your color scheme to your physical restaurant isn’t an absolute necessity.

If you operate a high-end establishment, a black background can be a great choice. It gives a feeling or sophistication. On the other hand, a white background lends an air of freshness, and can make beautiful food photos really pop.

Of course, almost any color scheme can work depending on your site. It is completely up to you, but be sure to spend some time thinking about it before creating your design.

Besides the tips outlined above, here are a few extra restaurant website design tips to consider.

9. Don’t use stock photos

If possible, use authentic images on your website. Customers will feel cheated if the food on the website doesn’t look like the food you serve, or if you use a phony chef stock photo on your website.

10. List other important information

If you don’t accept Discover or are BYOB, be sure to highlight these facts on your website.

11. Provide more than a PDF menu

Yes, you can offer a PDF menu for customers to print. But don’t only provide a PDF. They can be difficult to read on small screens, and not always compatible with all browsers. Instead, create a text version that is accessible no matter how visitors are browsing.

12. Add social buttons

Allow people to easily follow you on social media by adding social buttons to your website. This way, your website will serve as a connector between your potential customers and your other marketing efforts.

13. Aim to reduce clicks

Your site visitors shouldn’t have to click 4 or 5 times to get the information they need. They’re likely viewing your site to see basic information like your address or phone number. Make these items easily viewable or accessible from the homepage.

FAQs about restaurant website design

Learn more about restaurant website design with these tips:

What are the most effective restaurant website colors?

The right colors can make diners feel calm, excited, sensual, and even hungry. On a restaurant website, colors also impact response rates and readability. Keep aesthetics and functionality in mind when choosing your website’s color scheme.

If you’re not sure which colors to use, start with the color scheme in your restaurant and create a consistent experience from screen to table. This will help keep your branding consistent, and ensure visitors that they’re in the right place, when they do finally come see you in person.

Since you run a restaurant, you may want to experiment with the usage of colors that impact appetite. For instance, avoid appetite-killing colors like black and purple, but use colors like red and yellow to make visitors feel hungrier. This is not guaranteed to work, but it’s worth a shot!

Whatever colors you choose, make sure they make text readable without straining the eyes. Any scheme with a light background and dark text will work, or vice-versa. Avoid neon colors for links and text, as they will probably annoy your visitors—even if those colors are part of your branding.

What are the best layouts for restaurant websites

When people first visit your website, they should see one thing: food. The best layouts for restaurant websites should always focus on the food. That means implementing a design that features high-quality color photos on nearly every page of your website.

Your homepage will probably contain the most photos. Other pages should still incorporate photos when possible, but will likely contain more text. For example, the pages linked to from your navigational menu may include dish names, descriptions, and prices. They may also include links to order food and make reservations, or a page that describes how to get to your restaurant.

How you structure the layout of your website is up to you. However, try to avoid cramming too much information into any single page. Separate your content into separate “buckets” and link to each page in a clear, sensible manner.

What are the best restaurant website fonts?

Few people actually know the names of all the fonts available for websites, but they know whether the chosen font fits with the overall design. Block text looks odd within a fun a frilly layout, while cursive doesn’t fit the professional tone of a law website. Your restaurant website’s best font depends on the mood you’re trying to set.

Most text falls into one of two categories: serif and sans serif. Serif fonts have small strokes or lines extending from the ends of letters, and are seen as warmer and more conservative than sans serif fonts. Both types of fonts can be modern, basic, plain, or decorative.

There are many other fonts to choose from. However, your final choice needs to be legible on multiple devices and compatible with different browsers. Otherwise, people won’t stay on your website and, as a result, might not stop by for dinner.

Create a restaurant website design that attracts more customers

Your website needs to be well organized and easy to use and entice people to visit your restaurant. Above all, it should make people feel the way they do when they’re eating one of your meals. You put a lot of work into your dining experience—put that same effort into your design and create a positive restaurant website user experience.

Do you need help creating a website for your restaurant that brings in more customers? Not sure you have the time to put together a new site that will help you accomplish all your marketing goals? Reach out to WebFX to find out how we can help. We’ve designed hundreds of new websites for our 1,100+ clients, and we’d be happy to put something together for you, too.

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