Your website is important, but perhaps not in the ways you think. Here is a tutorial and checklist to use when making your website to ensure your website hits the mark and how to do this without spending a fortune.
I have done digital marketing for a number of years, and have a long history of ‘digital architecture’ experience, and extensive website usability training and design experience in a former life as a digital librarian (my Master’s was in Librarianship and I did digital librarianship and training for 8 years).
‘I don’t think my website is doing enough for my business. What can I do so it can get me more sales?”
This is a question I often hear from cafe owners.
Well, let’s backup a bit. This question shows that the person asking it does not understand the real role of your website in your cafe business.
The real role is not to ‘get you sales’. That implies you think the website has a role at the beginning of the customer journey, as a way to attract customers. But in fact,your website is one of the final steps in the customer journey and has a different role.
In fact, the real role of your website is to confirm the decision to come to your cafe, or make a final decision about whether to come to your cafe.
The truth is, people have already decided they are interested in coming to your cafe BEFORE they land on your website.
EIther they are repeat customers looking for confirm your open hours or make a reservation, or they are new potential customers narrowing their decision.
Perhaps they have seen your sign on the street, or saw the business listing on Google maps when they did a general search for cafes in your geographic area, or read a review in Trip Advisor or Yelp or a restaurant review site, and looked at the star review there, or they looked up comments posted by others on social media about your business, such as on Instagram or Twitter or maybe they saw some Facebook photos by friends.
They have already heard of your cafe by word of mouth from close friends if your food was outstandingly good, and they have seen fiery complaints all over social media if someone didn’t like your food. A report by gominga.com reports that customers are 21% more likely to leave a review after a negative experience than after a positive experience.
People will also have seen our ads if you used paid ads in your local area and perhaps read about your business in the news if your cafe is doing something noteworthy or sensational.
The thing to avoid is not to dissuade people from coming to your cafe after they have landed on your website homepage. They will be dissuaded if you don’t meet their needs within 10 to 20 seconds of landing on your homepage.
How do you meet their needs?
By providing what the potential customer is looking for, as quickly and conveniently as possible.
Forget the huge banner image that shows a close up of your signature breakfast dish. (There are better things to show in your banner image that I will discuss later in this article.)That kind of banner image that people have to take time to scroll past won’t help your customer who is looking for confirmation of your hours of operation this week (since most restaurants forget to update their Google map listing of open hours, forgetting that tourists and others rely on this and get really annoyed if they have been mislead and show up and you are closed). That won’t help the people wondering if you serve gluten free food and what the options are. That won’t help people wondering how to make a reservation who just want a phone number to call at first glance, and not have to hunt around the site to find this information.
So how do you meed their needs? What are people looking for in that first 10 to 20 seconds?
In a nutshell, they are looking to find out:
- WHO your cafe is best suited for. Families who need quick and tasty meals that are affordable and cater to kids? Digital nomads looking for a quiet and comfortable place to hang our for hours? Business people looking for a place to go for breakfast meetings?
- WHAT to EXPECT (Why do to your cafe and not another)- similar to the ‘who is served, but communicating the type of experience they will have- do you offer a ‘quick stopover on the way to work or school’ or a relaxing, sit down, leisurely breakfast experience?
- WHEN you are open (often Google maps has outdated hours of operation)
- WHERE you are located, a how to easily recognize or find your cafe an if there is parking nearby or what bus stops are within easy walking distance.
- WHAT you serve, and what’s new and unique on your menu (vegetarian, gluten free, or organic food? Feature of the month? Big breakfasts? Pastries and quick sandwiches? Unique cultural dishes? Gluten free and vegan options?)
- HOW to reserve quickly and easily, and if this is necessary.
- HOW MUCH to expect to spend ( a general $$ or $$$ helps some people make final decisions
What will help your new potential customers who have never been to your cafe before are looking for is the following information ‘above the fold’, which means, without scrolling.
The same information.
Now, the million dollar question: how can you do this at a glance, so people can find the answers to these questions within the first 10 to 20 seconds and decide to stay?
Put the following information ABOVE THE FOLD, which means, visible at first glance, without scrolling (and optimized for cell phones since 64% of people use their cell phones for shopping and Restaurant Engine reports that “ït seems that well over 80% of customers have searched for a restaurant on their smartphone. This means that your potential diners are looking for you online often and regularly.”
What do you need to do to confirm in the mind of your potential customer that your cafe is where they should go today? Make sure your site has the following elements ABOVE THE FOLD (without scrolling, or within 10 seconds of scrolling or with one click on a menu item):
- An effective BANNER image. I will write another article about this. And quick tip, it doesn’t have to take up the whole screen like a lot of website templates and website designers might try to push on you.
- An effective TAGLINE ( I will write another article about this to help you craft an effective one).
- Symbol images and bullet points with key info (location pin and address and phone at the TOP not in the footer) instead of sentences, overlaid on the banner image area or in small but clear text immediately above or below it.
- Standard Top Menu layout instead of something creative and fancy (people expect to see ‘ home, about, pricing and menu, location, FAQ, contact’.
People will do one click at most to find the information they need.
For example if they see ‘location’ they will click to read parking details but most people want to see the address and phone front and centre on the homepage without searching around to see where this is.
Now that you know an effective layout to aim for (and read more of my articles about banner images, crafting effective taglines, and how to get amazing testimonials and how to include social media effectively) , you don’t need to pay a website designer a fortune to make your site for you.
And yes, you do have more control over the website process than you think as the cafe owner. I have seen peole think they have to let the webdesigner decide everything for them, and blindly trust that they know best, but let me tell you, web designers are rarely educated about what users want and need from a site, and only know how to make fancy layouts and images.
I have seen people pay $10,000, $20,000 and even $40,000 for a site that looked pretty and failed miserably from a cafe customer usability point of view.
You need to be smart and know what you need and want before you hire anyone.
And maybe you are teckie enough to do it yourself now that you know what you really need and where to put it. I have a sure-fire system for deciding website layout that takes ALL the stress and guesswork out of making a website , if you are interested. It has proven to work for decades for thousands of sites.
Just remember, functionality trumps beauty in websites every time.
Sources
https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/mobile-vs-desktop-traffic-share