Part of your restaurant’s business plan is to increase foot traffic to your restaurant but don’t forget that part of your marketing strategy should also be to increase your website traffic. Today we will be looking at what restaurant owners can do to increase their website traffic and what key information should be included on your website. But before we can look at these aspects we need to first understand what influences customers dining decisions.
What influences customers dining decisions
A survey was conducted involving 500 people who were asked about their dining habits. When respondents were asked the question “When looking for a new restaurant to try, who/what influences your dining decision most?” almost 50% responded a “trusted friend, family, friend or co-worker” and over 20% responded a “consumer generated website review”. Take a look a the complete survey results below. Does anything surprise you about these results?
Respondents were also asked: “If a trusted friend gives you a restaurant recommendation, do you then look for more information on the restaurant before deciding to dine?” and over 80% of respondents said “Yes”. This means that even after a good recommendation from a trusted friend the vast majority of people will look for more information on the restaurant before making their final decision. This emphasises the need to go beyond word of mouth promotion and ensure that there is additional information about your restaurant accessible to potential customers.
How to increase traffic to your restaurant
Let’s look at some of the influential sites and see how restaurant owners can leverage these channels to increase their web traffic, which will contribute to an increase in foot traffic.
Trusted friend, family, friend or co-worker – leveraged through Social Media and a referral program.
The best way to encourage people to refer your restaurant is to provided them good quality food and a great experience. It’s also a good idea to provide a small incentive to people to refer or recommend your restaurant such as a loyalty program. This is a great way to increase word of mouth and encourage current customers to recommend your restaurant. A recent study conducted , concluded that bad customer service interactions are more likely to be shared than good ones (95% compared to 87%) and shared multiple times with different people. Check out the graph below to see who people tell about their experiences:
When we think of word of mouth and what restaurant owners can do to leverage this as an opportunity to increase web traffic we naturally think about how we can use social media strategies to do this. Word of mouth has significantly changed over the last 10 years with the evolution of social media and conversations between peers are now taking place online and publicly. If you’re new to social media I suggest you take a look at our previous blog post about using social media to market your restaurants. Let’s quickly review a great example of a restaurant that is using social media very well, Sawasushi.ca – click here to see their Facebook page.
As you can see on their facebook page they are following some of the key best practices by displaying:
- Key contact information (address, phone number, business hours)
- Link to their website
- Pictures of their food
- Promotions of new items / Specials
- Images of their customers, staff, restaurant etc.
- Posts related to holidays etc.
- Posting on regular basis and responding quickly to comments/questions
- Clear call to action – Order Online
Generated Review Sites - such as Yelp and Urbanspoon.
A consumer generated review site is a website where people can post their personal opinion about a restaurant or other topics, some popular sites are Yelp and Urbanspoon. It’s very important for restaurant owners to ensure their restaurants account on user generated review sites is active and updated as these types of sites are used regularly by consumers looking to make dinning decisions. Once you have your account set up remember to respond to any reviews (positive or negative) and continue to monitor comments and update information such as images etc on a regular bases. Here is an example of a great response from a restaurant owner to a negative review:
“Hi (name of reviewer). I’m really sorry to hear that you were not thrilled with your experience with us. I would love to hear more if you are open to sharing. Feedback is the only way that we get better, and I would love to see if we can turn your unfortunate experience around for you. I can be reached at XXX email and really hope to hear from you on what we might have done to provide you a better experience”.
Here is a quick reminder of the key information you want to make sure is included on your profile when you create your business account on generated review sites:
- Correct address and directions (if necessary) – if they can’t find you they will go to your competitors
- Phone number and email – Make it easy for customers to contact you through their preferred channels of communication
- Link to your website, social media – for further information
- Images of food, restaurant, staff etc. – choose a few good quality pictures (it’s about quality not quantity!)
- Important: Don’t forget to claim your restaurant on Yelp and Urbanspoon. Claiming your restaurant allows you to have full control of your business account, you can update, delete, replace the information
Restaurant Website - Promote Your Website and Encourage Web Traffic
Over 5% of people surveyed mentioned looking to the restaurant’s website as a source of information and over 80% stated they would look for a secondary source of information after being referred by a friend, which could suggest visiting the restaurant’s website. What’s important here in terms of increasing traffic to your website is making sure you are promoting your website on all advertising material, such as printed menus, flyers, business cards, social media, directories etc. You also want to encourage customers to return to your website by providing them a reason, such as a promotional offer, event information or additional information that can only be found online.
Remember: Don’t forget the basic design elements customers want to see on your restaurants website:
The first element that people are looking for when they visit your website is your menu. You want to make your menu quickly accessible and easy to read. The second element is large pictures, keep in mind that “people eat with their eyes first” so it’s important to have at least a few good quality images. You can also post pictures of your staff, the restaurant, to help people get a better sense of your restaurant.
Tip: If you can’t upload pictures to your website due to limited web functionality you can use social media accounts like Facebook or Pinterest to show case your pictures.
Search Engine - make sure when they try to find you they can find you!
Almost 5% of respondents surveyed sighted Google as an influence when deciding on a restaurant. You want to make sure if a potential customer is trying to find information about your restaurant they are able to and therefore you need to make sure your website is optimized for search engines. Check out our guide on search engine optimization for restaurants.
Food Bloggers / Restaurant food critics – Invite them your restaurant
The best way to determine what is helping increase your web traffic is by reviewing your web analytics on a regular basis. This helps to provide indications to what has worked well and what needs to be changed or modified. To learn more about analytics check out our recent blog that covers an introduction to Google analytics and how it can be used. It’s a good idea to start with a baseline of traffic and set a realistic web traffic increase goal such as 5-10% for the first few months.
The suggestions above will not only increase your web traffic but will also result in more foot traffic to your restaurant. By implementing some or all of the ideas we suggested you will see an increase in both! Good luck and let us know how it goes and if you have any other suggestions.
