It’s 2009 and Time For Restaurants To Mobilize
The new year is a great time to take a step back and have a look at your website strategy and your opportunities to reach more customers. The exciting (and sometimes frustrating) part about the online space and using technology to connect with customers is that it’s always changing. One thing we encourage restaurants to look at more seriously this year are the opportunities to market through mobile devices. Features such as SMS text messages, mobile coupons and more sophisticated targeting of customers in your local area are inexpensive ways to help generate business.
At a minimum, restaurants need to optimize their homepages and other key landing pages in their website for mobile use. Often a mobile user will conduct a search, find your restaurant in search results, and click on the link to view more information such as your address, location, hours or menu. Or, they may be searching through a site such as Yelp and want to link to your website for more information. If your site is not providing this potential customer with the information they need quickly and easily, you may have just missed out on their business. Take a look at your website on a web-enabled phone. Have friends or colleagues do the same as different phones display websites differently and you want to reach potential customers regardless of the type of phone they carry. If your website has the most important information at the top of the page, you can view and access the site navigation and things generally look good, then you’re off to a good start.
If your site doesn’t look as nice as it should, there are options. As far as we know, there aren’t a lot of restaurant owners out there who are also mobile developers, so we wanted to provide you with some interesting workarounds so get your site appearing on mobile devices right away. Some are free, some are cheap. Check out Mippin, Intersquash and Build My Mobi to get a feel for the options. There are also plenty of consulting firms who specialize in website optimization for mobile devices who would be happy to have your business.
