Five Ways For Diners To Find Your Restaurant On iPhone

The iPhone is truly something special. On the iPhone, could predict which of their friends would get married next or find the best restaurants in town.

I don’t know about friends getting married, but the second application is no doubt very interesting to a restaurant owner. Here’s five ways people are getting information about restaurants on iPhone.

1.    Yelp
I remember writing about Yelp in one of my previous posts. Anyway, Yelp allows customers to write and submit reviews about your place directly from their iPhones. Sometimes the reviews are good, but most of the time are amateur at most.

Thanks to Yelp, potential diners are now getting a taste of your menu even before they walk in the front entrance.

2.    OpenTable
OpenTable is an online reservation service for restaurants. If you’ve been in the foodservice business for some years now, you’ve probably heard about it one time or another. Diners could now use their iPhones to find your restaurant using OpenTable and even make a reservation. Brilliant.

3.    VegOut
Eating out has always been a problem for vegetarians. But not anymore. VegOut is an iPhone application that searches for vegetarian and vegan restaurants only. Put yourself in the good graces of this application if you run a vegetarian restaurant.

4.    LocalEats
The difference between LocalEats and other iPhone applications is that LocalEats only shows the 100 best restaurants within the 50 largest cities in the US. So getting your restaurant picked by one of their editors is definitely a cause for celebration.

5.    UrbanSpoon
UrbanSpoon tries to be unique by supporting a slot machine interface that selects restaurants based on three factors – food type, price, and neighborhood.

Leaving your business to chance is something no restaurant owner wants to happen. But that’s just the way it goes. The one thing you can do, however, is to make sure your restaurant is included in UrbanSpoon’s list of places.

It’s amazing how a single application could either attract or push away potential customers with the press of a button. As a restaurant owner, you need to learn to roll with the punches, and hope that Yelp doesn’t say anything about your restaurant that isn’t true.

Got any more iPhone applications in mind? Share them by leaving a comment below.

Tips On How To Build A Good Restaurant Website

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you’re looking for a fine restaurant to go on a date? Where do you look for a restaurant to eat out for lunch? The internet. Do you still place orders on the phone? No, you do it on the internet, on the restaurant’s website.

Internet marketing is crucial to a restaurant’s success, and the first step to internet marketing is to build a damn good website. Here are some tips and common practices so you don’t make a fool of yourself – and your restaurant – online.

1.    Slice the responsibility into manageable sizes. Think of building a restaurant website as a huge 17-inch Yellow Cab pizza. Don’t even try to finish the whole thing yourself.

Building a website seems like easy work, but it’s actually more time-consuming than you think. I suggest you find someone to build and maintain your website, and keep that person around to make some necessary changes and keep the website active. I hate to see an outdated restaurant website go down the drain. I’ve seen it too many times.

2.    When Flash isn’t flashy. The word “Loading…” has never been more infuriating than when you’re hungry and the restaurant website you’re looking up takes 20 seconds to load every other page. When I visit a restaurant website, I only want to know a few basic details: where’s it located, what’s their contact number, what’s on the menu, etc. Give me that and I’ll give you my orders.

Interactive web design elements are great and make everything look more professional, but is it really helping out?

3.    Scratch their backs, and pray they’ll scratch yours. The idea is to provide links to other websites on your website. After all, the internet is known as the World Wide Web for a reason. Integration is key.

As a way to promote tourism, many cities now offer membership to restaurant directories absolutely free. Yellow Pages are also interesting, as well as other restaurant websites. If you make their names visible on your own website, they might be inclined to return the favor and mention your restaurant in theirs. It’s a way to boost online presence.

I’d like to know your opinions on other ways to improve your restaurant’s reputation online. Whether time-tested or theoretical, I’m all ears. Let’s hear them out by leaving a comment below.

Do You Struggle With The Idea Of Whether Your Restaurant Really Needs A Website?

I’m a business coach, and it’s a part of my job to talk with and act as advisor to all of my small business owner clients. That’s what I get paid for – to give people a straight answer. Period.

But here is the thing. Did you know that more than half my clients, in this modern era, were still hesitant about building their own restaurant website before I took them under my wing and showed them the real thing?

Simply put, not everyone is convinced, yet. So now I’ll tell you what I told my clients – right here, I’ll give you a straight answer. Does your restaurant really need a website?

1.    Yes, because a restaurant website helps you get to know your customers. There’s no better way to learn more about your customers than through a restaurant website. Construct a simple survey and ask visitors to your website or when they sign up – to get that free newsletter or dessert coupon. When visitors sign up, they leave their email addresses and phone numbers behind. To a small business owner, this information is gold.

2.    Yes, because a restaurant website lets you communicate with your fanbase. A restaurant website lets you to talk directly with your customers about promotions and stuff, at the same time it allows you to address service-related questions and concerns right away. A successful business is first and foremost a good friend.

3.    Yes, because a restaurant website is a marketing tool. This type of information lets you forward promotions and various deals to customers before they even walk in to your restaurant. Then measure your success, what I keep talking about in my previous posts. Observe which campaigns excite customers the most, change or improve the mechanics a little, and then launch it again on your website after a few months or so.

4.    Yes, because it is simply that. A decent website can never hurt your business and marketing efforts. Building a website is cheap, and it’s got the potential to take off and attract hundreds of curious customers into your restaurant when done right. Read my previous posts to check out the things you can do for your business with this so-called “internet presence”.

I hope I’ve given a straight answer, and the message should be clear. Your restaurant needs a website. Not every restaurant needs one, but that’s neither here nor there. Like I said earlier, a decent website can never hurt your business. A restaurant website is low-cost. So there’s absolutely no excuse—that is, unless you live out in the country and you’re Amish.

Feedback and comments are welcome. Leave a message below.