Last week, I hopped on a Zoom call with my team and one of our restaurant clients. I went into the call without a lot of knowledge of their brand, and during the call, as we discussed his marketing, I started to see some gaps in his online presence. Below, I will list what I found and how I’d suggest fixing it. Hopefully, you can apply some of these lessons to your marketing.  

His Website

• No About Us page – Who owns it?  Runs It?  Works There?  The importance of this is simple: you’re biggest differentiator over a chain or big brand are YOU!  YOU need to be on your website.  Your history, why you started or bought the restaurant.  A video of you telling this story and then walking through what makes your restaurants different. 

• QR Codes – This owner had two QR Codes on his website, and these are not needed.  QR codes are for people to scan with their phone to take them somewhere, like your website.  These should be used only in print or an ad that does not allow a click that will be viewed on non-mobile platforms.  Instead, he needs to simply add a link.  He could even create a graphic with a CTA to click the image

• The Order Now button needs to open a new page – He’s using a different platform for his online ordering from his point of sale provider.  Whenever you are sending traffic to a new site, always have it open in a new window.  This way visitors don’t leave your business prematurely.  

• Menu Pictures Are Cropped – I Love the menu on the site and the way he presents an image for every type of pizza, but I’d like to see all pictures uniform and a full picture.  He had some that were of the entire pizza and very well done, but others were partial pizza pictures and it just didn’t flow.  

• Branded email address – Like many of you, way too many, he had a generic email like “mattspizza@hotmail.com.”  The email needs to be @YOURDOMAIN.com.  I’ve been talking about this for 15+ years: how you must use branded emails for your business.  It’s more professional, and when given our markets your actual website, it’s now a RULE by Google and others.  In the spring of 2024, many email providers announced they would block or move to spam business emails, not using branding URLs to send messages.  

• He had a link to an Instagram page he had not updated for two years since he lost control of it.  Remove the Instagram link until you start updating it.  People might click and see old content or think that you’re closed. 

• Who’s THIS? He had two pizza menus. One was based on the restaurant’s name, which made sense, but the other had a female name. I have no idea why. What’s the connection? When you get a chance to tell a story, tell it!

• The Lunch Menu was basic and nothing like the others. Make it uniform

• Combine all menus. On his main website menu, at the top left, he had a button for his menu, which opened a drop-down menu that showed his pizzas. But next to that, there was a separate menu choice for Salads, Desserts, and drinks. He needs to put those all under the menu dropdown and free up that space on the menu bar to make it cleaner. 

• Dessert Pictures, OH MY!!!!  I’m hungry.  Fantastic job on this.  I already mentioned he has solid food photography for his pizzas, but DAMN, these dessert pizzas were LEGIT!

• Pizza Rewards – I love the name; let’s get a graphic for that page and make it fun.  The page is dull; he needs to jazz it up.  But I do like how he lays out the rules of the program and what you get.  

• The fundraising page has lots of details and information but no pictures or logos of charities he’s partnered with. Logos and calling out your partnerships with other schools and charities will make new connections more comfortable.  

Facebook Marketing

• https://www.facebook.com/caseandbucks
• https://www.facebook.com/LouiesWaffleHouse
• https://www.facebook.com/cornerstonepubandprime
• https://www.facebook.com/littleitalygroveport
• https://www.facebook.com/WoodenPaddlePizza

Google

The big observation here was that he did not have enough reviews.  Although his rating was excellent, he only had 141 reviews. This restaurant has been around for 20 years, and its competition has over 1,000 reviews.  

Here are three recent podcasts about gaining online reviews that I gave him to listen to and help. 

– CLICK HERE to listen to Episode 648

– CLICK HERE to listen to Episode 669

– CLICK HERE to listen to Episode 650

That’s all I’ve got today; take an hour and poke around your website, but more importantly, ask your employees to review it.  Then, make a list and make the changes.  If you’d like to review your site, email me at matt@mattplapp.com

In episode 682 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets, I discussed this EXACT topic…HAVE A LISTEN CLICK HERE.