Marketing

5-Step Checklist for a Restaurant’s Online Presence

Learn how to set up your restaurant’s digital front door for maximum visibility and diner loyalty from day one.

Building your online presence involves the same attention to detail as creating your restaurant's physical space. It’s an essential factor to a restaurant's success, right next to the concept, food, staff, and storefront. These are five prerequisites to have in place to create a solid digital footprint.

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1. Set Up a Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is a free service that helps businesses manage their online presence across Google's products and platforms. Setting up a profile creates a snapshot of your restaurant that appears in search results. Owning your Google Business Profile lets you control how your restaurant appears across Google platforms.

As a result, you can keep critical information that guests might be searching for online — like menus, hours, contact info, online ordering, and photos — up-to-date. However, it is worth noting that online visitors can create a profile for a business through suggestions. Therefore, a restaurant must claim the profile to update information accurately.

Use Google Sync to automatically update your Google Business Profile when you make changes on your website. That way, you won’t need to cross-reference multiple platforms to make edits. Your information is synced across the web with one click to ensure consistency and accuracy.

2. Connect Google Analytics

Google Analytics helps you better understand your guests and how they use your restaurant website and ultimately improve their entire experience. First, make sure you have a Google Analytics account set up and that it's appropriately tracking your website.

If you are a BentoBox customer, we make it easy to get set up through our pre-built Google Analytics integration. However, many step-by-step resources can help you get everything in order if you're on your own. Once set up, you can monitor how diners visit your website, referral traffic, time of day, and demographics.

3. Integrate Your Social Media Channels

Your social media presence is just as important as your website. Though the two are independent of each other, they should complement each other and drive visitor traffic between one another. The benefits of integrating social media and websites do more than heighten traffic engagement between platforms.

A website with a social media integration that populates a feed automatically on the site keeps the appearance up to date, seamlessly promotes marketing initiatives, and improves site visitor engagement. BentoBox customers can easily integrate social media channels onto their websites.

Additionally, BentoBox customers can connect their Takeout & Delivery or Online Catering storefront to their Facebook and Instagram business pages. This connection allows restaurants to place a dedicated "Order Food" button on their Facebook and Instagram business pages.

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4. Create an Email Sign-Up

Email is one of the most effective ways to communicate with diners and loyal followers — it's fast, easy, and inexpensive. First, you have to give people a place to sign up for an email list, which you can do directly on your website. If you're a new restaurant or an established restaurant revising your online presence, don't feel pressured to kick things off with a newsletter immediately. Take your time, but don't miss the opportunity to start collecting emails immediately.

BentoBox customers can easily collect emails on their websites and have the contact information stored and organized in their BentoBox back end. Additionally, customers can integrate their website with a third-party email provider and sync contact information directly.

5. Implement Marketing Tools

Online ordering has become a critical part of a restaurant's daily operations and revenue driver. Having a way for diners to order online is step one; establishing a relationship and turning one-time customers into loyal diners is step two.

BentoBox customers have the tools built into their Online Ordering platform to extend digital hospitality and foster a relationship that encourages guests to return. These tools and features include promo codes, automated campaigns, and a loyalty program. With built-in marketing tools enabled, restaurants can foster stronger relationships digitally, drive higher revenue and establish brand cohesion.