 Did you know that more than 50% of the guests go online and research your website before deciding whether to come in or not? And that's precisely the reason why we're shooting today's video to show you guys that eight must have items on your website So then that way you can convert your online traffic into paying customers that come and dine in at your restaurant Hey guys, it's Wilson here Make sure you guys subscribe along the journey as I'm going to be sharing a lot more small business tips restaurant building tips and strategies with you Many restaurant owners think that their website is just nice to have thing on their site And it's just part of the package But at the end of the day they fail to realize how much traffic and how much paying customers They're actually losing out when they don't pay attention to their website And they're actually losing tens of thousands of dollars each year And that's precisely the reason why we're diving deep into telling you and showing you all the essential components Into a great website, which will convert into dollars for you. And without further ado, let's dive right in The number one must have item for your website is SEO. What does SEO stand for? It stands for search engine optimization Simply put when someone puts in a phrase on Google and searches it It's how far up the listing you would rank For example, best ice cream in LA How far up your listing is how strong your SEO is the higher It has SEO the higher the ranking it is more than 80% of the traffic Actually only clicks through the first three listings that show up So the better your SEO is the more customers you're going to be able to convert that comes in through your doors Now for the sake of this video, we're not going to dive too deep into how to get better SEO But some quick examples would be creating more back links. What does backlink mean? It means another credible source linking to your website For example, when someone or a publication says that you know what best Ice cream shop in LA and they tag and they reference your website That gives your website and that shows Google that you have more credibility because Another website references back to your website and in turn allows your website to have higher SEO juice pushes your listing higher on the search columns Which means if you want to build more backlinks talk to more publications Talk to more PR journalists and talk to these different types of people and to collaborate with other people To get more credibility for your website In addition, if you want to be a little bit more unique if you want to stand out amongst the crowd I would recommend a different unique domain such as dot us What does that mean? It means that having that at the end of your website instead of a dot-com That gives you that uniqueness that people can actually memorize so instead of 720 suites calm You would go with 720 suites dot us this uniqueness would bring more branded recognition to your specific Ration and not only that it also gives a sense of community because of how this domain is I myself is working on a secret project with dot us and I'll gladly Share with you in the months to come and if you guys are wanting to learn more about dot us's domain And how this whole thing works and how you can get your dot us domain right away Check it in the description below The second must have items for your website is the essential. What are they? They're basically your address your contact number your social media handle your hours of operation So many times I go on restaurants website to see. Hey, you know what what time are they closed? I can't find that it's like a scavenger hunt and it's like a puzzle that I'm playing their website Or I might show that they're hours of operation at the top But then their contact number is at the bottom and their address is a different website It's just crazy the fact that it's not right in front of you super easy to find which is the reason why I would highly recommend you to have all this Essential information up top somewhere that's easy to see and that's somewhere that is easy to find as well Third must have item for your website is the menu the menu is something that Everyone would want to see when they come on your website. They want to know what is it that you're offering? So make it super easy to read have descriptions for each item that you're serving so many times of alone websites especially Italian's websites The food offering is an Italian. I don't know exactly what they're offering I don't know what kind of spaghetti it is and that's just because of my ignorance I don't know that much But at the end of the day, that's the reason why you need to make sure that your website and your menu is super easy to read Even for a grade 5 level and at the same time make sure your menu is super up-to-date so many times Restaurants don't manage their customers expectation well enough because the menu is out of date How many times have you go into a restaurant? You're like, hey, you know what I want to order that Carbonara well, unfortunately, it's out of date because that was something that I was serving two years ago That doesn't manage our customers Expectation well enough and in turn doesn't create that experience that you want to translate to your customers That's the reason why make it easy to read and make it up to date The fourth must have item for your website are photos. We're talking about Legitimate appealing photos because nowadays Everyone eats with their eyes as I was sharing with you more than 50% of visitors that go into your website Would consider coming into your restaurant if everything checks out and images and photos that are high resolution High in quality makes them salivate is something that is essential to your Restaurants success so make sure having a very good appealing website and and having a really good appealing set of photos For your menu is essential now Additionally, you would want to have photos of the ambience and also the setting around your restaurant And this is an opportunity where a lot of restaurants fail to capitalize on Why is that the case? It is because if I want to bring in my wife to come into dine and to I want to dazzle her I would want to see how that would feel like. Is this the right spot? Does it have to write ambience? Now if you don't show me the pictures I wouldn't know same thing is if I were to have a host my birthday party and your restaurant Is it a big enough venue? Does it look nice enough so on and so forth? Which is the reason why having photos of your interior setting that actually exerts your ambience is crucial in capturing more audience and more customers The fifth must have item is social proof. A lot of people miss this mark. What are basically social proof? There are testimonials of what other people have to say about your restaurant and your the experience that they received and your restaurant Photos and user-generated content are also great social proof for your website Now you may be thinking why do I even have to have this in there? It is because your website is an opportunity to turn cold visitors into paying customers And a lot of people are missing tens of thousands of dollars in sales because they're not able to push and convert that visitors That's the reason why we need additional proof Additional edge in order for us to attract people to come in and that's where social proof comes in What we say about a restaurant is nowhere close to what other people say about our restaurant And that's the reason why we need to include as many social proof on our website as possible Some things that you would also want to incorporate into your website would be Yelp reviews Amazon reviews Google reviews on your website If you guys find any value whatsoever in this video, make sure you smash like button. Now, let's get back to regular programming The sixth item to have for your website is online ordering as a feature After this whole COVID-19 thing online ordering is and will be one of the core fundamentals for your restaurant Ordering and actually having the option to have curbside pickup and online ordering is crucial to your success because People's spending habits have changed people are much more Aware of their personal hygiene So a lot of people might not want to dine out But they would still want to enjoy your food offering and that's the reason why Having an online ordering system for your website is that crucial for your success And at the same time I understand that there are third-party delivery apps such as Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub Postmates and all these different companies that you can rely on but at the same time you're paying 30% For these companies yet if you have your own online ordering system, for example like talk They only charge 3% versus that 30% That's the reason why I would highly recommend having an online ordering system for your website moving forward If you guys want to learn more about what I have to say about third-party apps, definitely check out this video right here The seventh must-have item for your website is your story A lot of people miss this mark as well because they feel like why do people even care about our existence? It is because when people are liking the menu items liking the photos that you have to offer They're really buying it and then they see a lot of people raving about your restaurant They're doing a lot more digging they're in the mindset of wow this restaurant is amazing And then to top it off you tell them your story You tell them what inspires you to open up this beautiful place And what inspires you to offer your food offering and at the same time Your values that you want to put in here as well. What is it specifically that you value? Do you value excellence? Do you value teamwork? Do you value communication? And that itself would pull everything together and that pushes people off the edge into becoming your customers Last but not least we need to make sure that our website is mobile friendly More than 81% of the people out there that searches these restaurants are searching through their phones When was the last time you went on your desktop to search for where to eat? Most likely you're hanging out with your friends You guys are trying to decide where you're going to eat tonight and you're just scrolling and typing it online So if your website doesn't show up nicely on your mobile people can't find your essential items People can't see the pictures properly people can't see your menu properly Then most likely they're going to turn out and going to choose the next person That or the next restaurant that they see on that search bar And that's the reason why having a mobile friendly website is also essential for your restaurant website And in addition to that mobile responsive is actually Super helpful in gaining more SEO juice So as you can see all these things tie in together very nicely So there you go the eight must have items for your website So then that way you can turn that cold visitors into paying customers as a recap Having good SEO would allow people to find your website and thus having them convert into paying customers On that same note make sure you guys check out dot us as a domain because that gives you more uniqueness Makes your brand much more memorable. Check it in the description below The second essential is having essential items like your address your hours our operation and your contact number Is essential for people to find you and find these Items that they need in order for them to contact you third menu setting the right expectation of what they can Expect in your menu and your offering is going to go a long way for their experience Fourth appealing photos of not only your food offering But also your setting and the ambiance so then that way we set the right expectation And that we can actually attract these visitors into paying customers Fifth social proof what other people have to say about your company has much more weight than what you have to say about yourself Six online ordering is going to be the core fundamentals of any restaurants moving forward So make sure that you guys have that as a feature seven Tell us your story Tell us what inspires you to open and have your values out there So then people can truly connect with your mission and support you And finally having your website as a mobile friendly version would definitely enhance the experience for people who are searching online Overall, I really really hope you enjoyed this video because I had a ton of fun making it for you If you guys enjoyed it make sure you guys give me a thumbs up Otherwise subscribe along the journey because i'm going to be sharing a lot more of these tips tricks and hacks with you I will see you guys in the next video