Even an existing website can have problems with engaging and sustaining visitors.
It’s not the end of the world, but what’s the point of having a site if potential customers are not seeing your vision?
These things of course should be seamless to your potential customers, but as the success of your restaurant site all comes down to you, there are a few common copywriting mistakes to avoid if you want to have an informative site, hell bent on rendering consumers unable to resist.
Forgetting We Eat With Our Eyes
Of course good quality images of real food, and in particular, your food are important.
Photos visually take your site visitors to another place and even make them hungry, but you please don’t forget the art of copywriting to enhance the experience. Not to take anything away from these amazing shots, but written descriptive of the food should be just as appetizing.
Try to avoid the usual adjectives and dig deep for some descriptors that tell visitors how you really feel about your restaurant and indeed your chef’s and indeed your staff’s abilities.
Disregarding Your Unique Selling Point/ Position
Very important in your copy, is the expressing of your unique selling point. Why are you better than the similar restaurant two blocks down? Maybe it is that your restaurant is right in the business or financial district of your city with the benefit of regular and changing business lunch menus. Or maybe that you offer a large range of vegetarian dishes.
Whatever your selling point, your site may be the first thing potential customer have ever seen of you, or your venue may be tucked away down a lane and have remained unnoticed and unknown for years, except for a few locals and regulars so it is imperative that you make your features visible. Shout out why you are better; if you don’t you run the risk of become one of the many that are bypassed every day. This is a big one. Ignore it at your own peril.
Knowing What Is Mightier Than the Sword
There is nothing quite as bad as a site that doesn’t say something. Lovely flash images enticing people is all fine, and certainly important however keeping visitors interested is paramount. Use interesting calls-to action or special offers, just keeping visitors on your page is the main objective, after all you want them to flow through your site’s path on to hopefully a final transaction.
Don’t be afraid to bring a little bit of personality to your site. This is your pride and joy, right? So tell them a bit about the history of the restaurant and perhaps even your staff. This sometimes has the effect of making people feel more comfortable and that the proprietor really loves what he/she is doing and happy to share it.
This may be a family restaurant we are talking about, having been passed down from generations of restaurant owner. Share your proud history in your sites introduction and writing.
Is Beauty Really in The Eye of the Beholder?
This brings me to colour choices and font size for your text.
We all have a favorite colour that we feel will make the site looks great but keep in mind this is not about YOU. There is no y-o-u in ‘this sucks, get me outta here’. Do a bit of research on the phycology of color by all means, but try to push away the need to go with what you personally like. Look, I went through a stage where fluoro yellow was all I wanted to see and wear, but enough about my problems.
The same of course goes for the font. Elaborate and scrolled fonts may be romantic and suit your Valentine’s Day menu but it is really hard to read. It puts the general pulpous off very quickly if your text is too small, or too annoying to read. They will move on quickly. Keep it simple.
Luckily, Quicktools by Picsart has an amazing tool that makes finding the right font easy. Their font generator allows you to quickly and easily pick the perfect font for your project. With hundreds of typefaces, you can easily find the right font for any design project.
Saying the right things on your pages goes very much hand in hand with the placement of those things. Yes, it is a design aspect that if not too invested in those types of things, may frustrate but don’t disregard simple design techniques. Most folks don’t have hours to spend on one site, and will skim over headings so make them count. Don’t bore people with the headlines used
Have a flow to the information on your site, on all pages. People want concise informative copy, not to be led all over the place. Most don’t have the patience, or the time.
Saying It Like It Is
Give your potential customers what they want, but don’t assume you know what that is. If you are making an offer of a special, dealing with a target market in mind, make sure you deliver.
Whatever you say needs to be factual. It’s your credibility on the line, after all. Don’t boast that your restaurant is family friendly if there are no menu items suitable for an under twelve age group. Let’s face it, if you are proud of your restaurant and what you offer, then you will be more than happy to shout it out loud.
Use It Or Lose It
Did someone say SEO? We all know it exists, so why fight it. Search Engine Optimization is the very art of optimizing your online content with the hopes of driving more visitors to your site. From the get go, your potential customers will be directed directly to you and what you have to offer. Who knows, if you make it good they may not want to go anywhere else.
Non engagement of this technology, love it or hate it, make have you potentially losing out on some of the traffic out there. And there’s lots of it.
No Visibility of Contact and Location
I cannot stress enough on the concept of making your copy clear. Writing needs to be concise in terms of your location and how to reach you. Give people options on how to access your venue, including any public transport information, by Taxi, by foot and any parking facilities on and surrounding your premises. What’s more, make it fun by saying ‘We are close enough to the park that you can take a romantic stroll after dinner’.
Make your contacts visible and again give different options to enable them to contact you by phone, email or social media.
Just as if your had visitors to a showroom, or a store, copyrighting needs to be a mindful process. Consider your site an electronic brochure with the ability to capture visually, and enticing your visitors.
Keep in mind it’s all about showcasing your restaurant in conjunction with the final goal of your visitors taking action. Whether that is through making a direct booking or picking up the phone to make an enquiry after viewing your site, your words play a vital role.
A lot of times is it not just about having a pretty site will all the bells and whistles, but more so it’s about what you say and how you say it.
