The Not-So-Quiet Power of a Good Restaurant Website
Photo Caption: BentoBox is a website-building service made specifically for restaurants.
Skift Take
It's easy to overlook the importance of a well-designed and useful website in an age of social media hype, but a restaurant's website is the one true place the business has total control of the message.
In a climate where social media rules all and reviews and ranking sites routinely show up as top search results for a restaurant, a business’s own website might become an afterthought. Online branding a brick-and-mortar business takes time and effort. Given the sheer volume of channels like Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor, Instagram, and all the others that make up a good online presence, the prospect of any business, let alone a small business, spending precious time on these services is a daunting proposition. But there’s one place, away from all the third-party-controlled sites where small businesses can maintain complete control: their website. According to a 2015 OpenTable survey, 84 percent of diners visit a restaurant’s own website before making a reservation. That’s a huge audience a business may be losing without a robust and useful website — and that’s not even taking into consideration the lost revenue opportunity.
Krystle Mobayeni is founder and CEO of BentoBox,
