3 Ways to Improve Your Restaurant Website Updates

Most guests research restaurants online before deciding where to dine, which means it’s crucial to maintain your website with up to date information about menus, hours and events. Knowing what kind of content your guests are looking for and when to make changes is just as important. A well laid out and current website can help to bring guests from your homepage to your restaurant’s front door. Here are some simple tips to keep in mind the next time you’re updating your restaurant website.

Understand What Your Guests Are Looking For

Our 2017 Year in Review showed that the most visited pages on restaurant websites are Menus, Location, Events, Reservations and Contact Information, so it’s important to make sure each of those pages are up to date. In terms of timing, the busiest hour of the day for restaurant website traffic is 5 p.m., and the busiest day of the week is Friday, so plan content updates in advance of those peak hours. In addition to updating those high traffic pages, offering ticketed events, reservation integration and menus for special occasions are great ways to support continued engagement on your website.

Get Familiar With Your Analytics

Your BentoBox Dashboard provides at-a-glance analytics to help you get a sense of what guests are looking for on your website. By checking your visitor stats you can see a breakdown of your top referring sites, visitor counts, and page popularity. For a more in-depth understanding of your guests’ behavior online, connect your restaurant website to Google Analytics. By tracking pageviews, responses to email marketing campaigns and your user demographic, you can tailor your updates for maximum impact. 

Promote Online

Once you’ve made an update, there are many ways to get the word out about those changes.  Schedule homepage alerts in advance to let guests know about daily specials or events when they’re deciding where to dine. They can also help promote sections of your site that you want to get more traffic on like catering or private events. Sending out a social media blast or a complementary email newsletter that link back to your website to sell tickets, gift cards or merchandise is also a great way to engage your guests across several different platforms.

Want to know more about how you can optimize your website updates? Get in touch with us to learn more!