Benefits of Responsive Web Design and How to Get It for Your Restaurant Website
- By Andreea Dobrila
- CREATE WEBSITE
- Mar 19, 2019
Over the last several years, search engines have emphasized the importance and benefits of responsive web design. Presently, Google prefers responsive design. Back in 2018, Google’s Webmaster Central Blog released a statement announcing that the search engine would switch to mobile-first indexing.
In the post, Google acknowledged that it still uses a single index. It also admitted that going forward, it will give more importance to mobile-friendly sites with responsive designs.
If you don’t use adaptive web design, then you will get a lower Google ranking than competitors that use responsive designs. By improving your search engine position, you will attract more customers and earn more money for your business.
Google decided to adjust its approach to website indexing because people have started relying more on their mobile devices than their desktop computers. In 2009, only 0.7% of web traffic came from mobile phones.
In 2018, mobile phones accounted for 52.2% of internet traffic. As more people started using their mobile devices to access websites, Google went with the trend by giving preference to mobile-optimized restaurant websites.
Below, we present the main business benefits of responsive web design for restaurant websites, but not before we answer the question, “What is responsive web design?”
Responsive Website Meaning
Responsive design is a type of web design that guarantees your website pages will render well on all devices or screen sizes. A responsive web design template will adjust and adapt automatically to fit your screen’s size, whether you’re browsing on a desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, or tablet.
That way, your customers won’t have to zoom in to see your menu or scroll until their finger hurts to find your contact information. Such a negative experience will frustrate them and cause them to leave your website faster than you can say, “unresponsive.”
Responsive Design Explained: How to Recognize a Responsive Restaurant Website
A responsive restaurant website builder will ensure that your restaurant’s website has all of the features it needs to attract more customers. Some of the elements to look for in the best responsive restaurant websites include:
- Mobile SEO for Google that will boost website rankings.
- An online menu that mobile users can easily navigate through.
- A mobile-friendly online ordering system that helps customers place orders through their smartphones without problems.
- A reservation form that looks attractive on small screens.
- Delicious images that load quickly and drive customers to order more food.
Ideally, you should have a responsive restaurant website builder with already-implemented mobile SEO and a great design.
Read more: Must-Have Restaurant Website Features
Benefits of Responsive Web Design for Restaurant Websites
1. More traffic coming from mobile
Your website will get more visits from people who use mobile devices to find restaurants near them. If their experience is positive and your website looks good on mobile, they will stay and order. This brings me to the next advantage of a mobile responsive website for restaurants.
2. Increased carryout and delivery orders from mobile users
Without a responsive design and without hiring an illustrator, your homepage and menu may look incomprehensible on mobile devices. And so, clients looking to order may decide to go to your competitor’s website and order from there. However, switching to a responsive restaurant menu from a mobile-optimized restaurant website builder solves this problem.
Learn more: How to Increase Restaurant Website Traffic for Online Ordering
3. Faster loading speed
Today’s customers don’t have a long attention span, especially when they’re hungry. One of the main benefits of responsive web design is that it allows your pages to load faster on mobile. Users tend to abandon pages that take more than three seconds to load. Keep them on your website with a Google responsive web design. This also translates into a lower bounce rate as you will tempt users to explore several pages on your site if it loads fast.
4. Higher conversion rates
How do you convert website visitors into customers? With a mobile website design that offers flawless user experience. If visitors can easily find the order or table reservation buttons, they’re one step closer to becoming paying customers.
5. Better SEO
Mobile-friendliness is a ranking signal for Google, so if you want to rank higher, you need a responsive restaurant website. Furthermore, having the same site for desktop and mobile prevents penalties from Google for duplicate content.
6. Simpler analytics
Instead of having two separate sites for which to keep track of funnels, conversion paths, and user journeys, with a responsive website, you can use Google Analytics for responsive reporting in a single report.
Learn more: How to grow your food business with Restaurant Data Analytics
7. More affordable
Most responsive website design templates are quite affordable compared to paying separately for a desktop and mobile website. For example, our responsive restaurant website builder costs only $9/month.
8. Increased social media sharing
If you have responsive social media buttons on your restaurant website, you increase the chances of users tapping on them and letting more people know about you. More shares = more potential customers.
Responsive Web Design Examples
Now that we’ve shown you the benefits of responsive web design, let’s look at some actual adaptive design examples from our demo restaurant website.
First, this is how your homepage could potentially look - no need to scroll or zoom in to see the table reservation and online ordering buttons.
At one tap of the Table Reservation button, customers reach a responsive form where they are minutes away from booking a table.
Tapping the See MENU & Order button takes them to an easy to browse menu where they can add dishes to their cart with one tap.
Finally, here’s another example of responsive web design on the customize your meal page. Customers can choose the size of the meal, the quantity, extra toppings, add special instructions, and more.
Is Your Restaurant Website Responsive? Take the Mobile Responsive Test to Find Out
Luckily, you don’t have to invest a lot of time and energy into finding out whether your website is mobile-responsive. Google’s mobile-friendly website tester makes that extremely easy. Just enter your website URL and wait for the diagnosis. If the result is green, like in our example below, you have a mobile-optimized website. If it’s not, it’s time to switch to one.
How to Get the Best Responsive Website Builder for Your Restaurant
If you’ve performed the mobile responsive website test and failed, here’s how to make your restaurant website responsive.
Dozens of website builders say that they can give you useful restaurant reservation templates, online ordering, and mobile-friendly restaurant websites. Unfortunately, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.
When searching for a company that understands the importance of responsive web design, you should ask to see examples of websites that the companies have built. Keep your eyes open for responsive restaurant menu examples and choose from some of the best responsive restaurant websites.
If the website builder can’t show you excellent examples of optimizing a restaurant website for mobile, then the company probably doesn’t understand the importance of mobile-friendly websites in 2020.
Here are some of the essential features to look for in a genuinely great responsive restaurant website builder:
- Responsive restaurant menu templates that you can easily update.
- Templates that will make your homepage look gorgeous.
- Access to mouth-watering images that make clients order more food.
- Reservation templates that help people choose dates and times.
- Images and text that adjust to the user’s screen size.
Now that you know more about the benefits of responsive web design and what you should expect from a responsive restaurant website builder, you can start looking for a company that matches your needs.
GloriaFood offers all of the features above through our restaurant website builder. In the next article, we’ll look at how our responsive restaurant website templates can contribute to your business’ success and what the main features you can enjoy are.
Use this video tutorial to find out how to use our website builder to generate a responsive restaurant website.
Learn more: Why Choose GloriaFood Responsive Restaurant Website Templates