Mark our words: you need to impress your site visitors as soon as they get to your website.
Here’s why.
When people get to your site, they expect to find a quick solution to their problems. Some of their problems are:
1. They are so hungry, they could eat all your most rich, high-calorie dishes.
2. Their stomachs started to growl, and they remembered they got a recommendation for your restaurant so they want to google you.
3. They are looking for the closest restaurant near them.
4. They are walking on a street and are looking for a place where they can grab a quick bite.
5. They wish to make reservations for dinner with their families or friends.
6. …
There are so many reasons why people google restaurants and decide to visit restaurant websites. But, whatever the case may be, know that they are not willing to compromise 一 they want to find a solution for their situations, and they want to find it ASAP.
And that’s why you have about 6 seconds to make a great first impression and convince them not to close the tab on you.
Luckily for you, we knew that site visitors are impatient when we were creating our restaurant and cafe themes, and that is why we came up with the two-block layout on your theme’s homepage.
To impress your site visitors and make them covet your delicious meals, on the left side of the layout, add an image of your restaurant, or, even better, a photo of your most popular dish(es). The images have to be so stunning that visitors can almost smell the meals. On the right side, add a “welcome to the site” message so visitors can get to know what type of restaurant your run and what dishes they can expect to see on your Menu page.
Bonus tip: Never use stock images on your site. Site visitors/potential customers need to see what YOUR restaurant has to offer. If you don’t know how to take great photos, hire a professional food photographer to do it for you.
Now, apart from having a responsive, easy to navigate homepage, that is filled with just the right content, you also need to have a menu bar that’s not stuffed with (pun intended) too many menu items. In the bar, include pages like Menu, Booking/Reservations, Contact and About page. We would suggest you don’t forget about the News section, which you can use to write about what’s happening “behind the kitchen door”.
And, the homepage is done.