How do I get more restaurant orders?
To get more restaurant orders online, your website should be optimized for sales and mobile devices. These days most of your potential customers are browsing on their phone all the time. If they are looking hungry and looking for places to eat, you want to make sure your website shows up for them if they are nearby.
In order to make that happen, you website should load fast and give food clients straightforward information on how to place an order.
Online ordering makes it very easy and convenient for your customers and new customers to do this. By having your own online ordering system in place you can save a great amount of commission fees and build your own customer base online.
Once you have your online ordering system setup, place the online ordering buttons on the top of the website and ensure they are clearly visible for both mobile and desktop. You should also make sure the website loads quickly and there is no popups or other distractions to confuse or turn your customers away.
Get More Orders Tip #1
Add your own nice pictures to the website
It is best to have pictures of food that are your own. Customers want to see what they can eat/order and they want to do this quickly and easily without clicking too many website buttons and navigating through several pages. Having your own mouth-watering pictures on your website increases the conversion rate, which means more orders to website visitors and less cart abandonment.
Here’s an example of some top performers: swissdonair.com, sumosumosushi.com, nitzaspizza.ca.
Get More Orders Tip #2
Have your full menu on your website
Make sure the online ordering menu is full and complete with descriptions filled out for each item. These includes your special promotions! Entice customers by having your full menu online easily available and with specific customer promotions! Nobody likes to see a bare item with no pictures or descriptions! Having descriptions is good but don’t make them too long for each item. Make them short and to the point. Also only having some items or half the menu for takeout might confuse customers. If you are going to have your online menu be different than in the restaurant make it clear that it is a take-out menu only
Get More Orders Tip #3
Promote Your Website
Promote your website and social media and link these to the online ordering menu. Make sure that it matches with what is on the website and online ordering and that your coupon promotions are properly working. Increase your orders online by having combo special or 10%/15%/20% off pickup promotions. Get setup on Facebook Ads and apply special targeting and ad copy to get your customers in the door and talking about you in the neighbourhood.
Don't Be Completely Dependent on Third Party Platforms
If you are using third-party delivery platforms you want to ensure you tell people about your website and you should increase your prices on third-party platforms accordingly to cover their high commission fees. These companies are meant to be partners to help with some deliveries and not completely brand jack your restaurant and take all your customers in the process.
If you are already completely dependant on third parties and they control your online presence, you have some work cut out for you.
An effective way is to put QR code coupons inside the Third Party Delivery Driver Bags or a nice custom note that tells them about how they can support local by ordering direct from the restaurant website next time.
Often customers want an incentive and changing the behaviour can be hard which is why it is important to have higher prices on those platforms or give your customers a promotion coupon.
Do Some Basic SEO to Rank Your Brand Name
The website should also rank high on Google. Ideally top position for your branded terms. To ensure it ranks well on Google please ensure the website is optimized and added to key platforms.
Restaurant ranking will depend on a number of factors including the age of the website.
To ensure your website gets to the top and remains in this position do some basic SEO.
Basic SEO includes adding your restaurant to a few directories and ensuring the meta description and title tags or relevant as well as the name, address and phone number across all websites and platforms.
Top Local Business Listings for Restaurants in Canada
This is a quick and dirty summary of how to promote your restaurant online and get more orders. We covered the importance of basic SEO for restaurants and link building, online/offline promotions, ensuring an optimized website and GMB page among other things. If you need assistance with any of the above, please do not hesitate to reach out.
