I've been meaning to get to this post for quite some time. Chris Silver Smith put together a great post over at Search Engine Land which discusses how restaurant owners can effectively market their restaurant online through proper use of menus.
It seems like I'm frequently online looking (or trying to look) at restaurant menus, and I'm often times frustrated. Menus are hard to find, and hard to read. Some of the tips from the article include basic things like:
- Link to the menu in an obvious manner from the home page
- Avoid Flash menus - especially since mobile devices often times have problems with Flash
- Display Prices - don't frustrate your site visitors by not giving them an idea of how much dinner is going to cost.
He also recommends having pdf menus - which I think is fine to have as an alternative. I think a lot of visitors are probably browsing with mobile phones, and .pdfs can be a bit of a hindrance for mobile phones if they are the primary method for you to display your menu information.
It seems like the majority of restaurant websites are doing this wrong. I encourage you to check out the original post - which is full of good menu ideas for Denver restaurant owners.
How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?
Denver restaurants are hit as hard as any sector during a down economy, and need to make the most of the available online resources at their disposal.
Be certain to own your listings at local search sites like Google Places, Yelp, CitySearch, Bing and Yahoo. Also, take advantage of websites like Groupon to help in promoting your restaurant and building your brand.
Finally - restaurant owners more than almost all other local businesses really need to be exploring mobile advertising opportunities. It is likely that a disproportionate amount of searches for restaurants occur on mobile devices when compared to other industries.