Every year, our lives become faster and faster, as new technologies are introduced to make things easier and put everything we need at our fingertips. Because of this, consumers have very short attention spans, and you can't take up too much of their time before they forget about you. In this article, we're going to cover a few ways to ensure your virtual restaurant's website is pulling in as much business as possible.
We've all been there. You're hungry, too lazy to cook, but too bored of your routine to order the same old thing. So, you look for something new and click on the first local restaurant's website you see. Unfortunately, it's a mess. you can't tell where the menu is, let alone figure out how to order online, and after 10 seconds, you've closed the tab and moved on to the next option.
Every year, our lives become faster and faster, as new technologies are introduced to make things easier and put everything we need at our fingertips. Because of this, consumers have very short attention spans, and you can't take up too much of their time before they forget about you. In this article, we're going to cover a few ways to ensure your virtual restaurant's website is pulling in as much business as possible.
At first glance, you may think we're telling you to make your website boring, but that's not the case at all. It's just that you need to put the most important info right in your consumers hands from the start. Don't give them a million buttons to push just to see your appetizers. This will both make their lives easier and faster, as your site will run faster the simpler it is.
Having said that, your home page should probably be your menu, and if it's not, there should be a navigation button to it without having to scroll. This is true for most restaurants; nobody is coming to your site to hear about your restaurant's history. Sorry, they just aren't. About 95% of the time, they're there to see your menu, and for virtual restaurants, you can consider that to be 100% of the time. This is because there's really not much else about a virtual restaurant that a consumer cares about. It's not like you've got live music, personable servers, or even a dining room to show off. All you've got is food, so show it off right away.
Once they know what they want to order, make it easy to do so. At the very least, you should have a very obvious "Order now" button pinned to your header so that it doesn't move as consumers scroll. This should take them either to your own native ordering system, or link them to whatever platform you're partnered with, such as DoorDash, Grubhub, etc. If you're feeling really fancy, you could integrate your menu with your ordering system from the start so that consumers can begin to place the order the second something catches their eye.
The menu and the ordering system are undoubtedly the two most important pieces of your website, but there's another thing we absolutely cannot stress enough: optimize for mobile. Very very few people will be ordering food from their desktop. There might be the occasional office worker who does so, but the overwhelming majority of your consumers will be browsing and ordering from their phones. If your website isn't optimized for mobile, it won't even matter how obvious your menu and ordering system are, because most people will click out before bothering to look.
If you could still use a hand with this or any other part of setting up your brand, hit us up here at Superorder. With the help of our team, you can use your existing operation, however big or small, to launch a virtual restaurant with multiple brands. This means you'll have even more chances to reach consumers, with even less investment.
We'll handle branding, website and menu design, and everything else needed to get you going. All you have to do is what you're best at: make great food (just for more people). If this sounds more like what you need, email us at signup@superorder.com or fill out this form to talk with a team expert!
