Want to build a website for your restaurant? The first solution that comes to mind for creating a restaurant website is probably WordPress. In terms of pure website market share, WordPress is far ahead of other platforms like Shopify and Wix.
When we also account for all the industry use cases WordPress caters to, the choice becomes clear. WordPress is flexible when it comes to addressing your specific business needs. From adding endless menu items as products to configuring unique shipping methods, there are ample ways to customize a website the way you want.
In this article, we will cover the main steps involved in creating a restaurant website on WordPress. These steps can be rejigged for creating various other types of product-based websites.
Step 1: Setup your domain and hosting
To create any website, you need to first buy a domain and choose a hosting partner to set it up. There are endless options in the market when it comes to selecting a website host. One of the most popular platforms you can get started with is SiteGround.
SiteGround is a very popular hosting platform, especially for WordPress site owners. Almost every website hosted on Siteground delivers super fast loading times. It is also ideal from a security standpoint with its smart WAF (web application firewall) and 24×7 site administation.
With SiteGround, you can also register your domain while signing up for a hosting plan. Alternatively, you can register your domain with another registrar and connect it to SiteGround later.
Once you’ve setup your website with SiteGround, install WordPress and login to the admin panel. You can then get started with building your website.
Step 2: Design your website with the right theme and plugins
There are many ways you can design a website on WordPress. The most obvious place to start is to choose a good website theme.
With a little research, you would be able to find many WordPress themes solely catered to restaurant businesses. Major theme developers like Astra and ThemeIsle have special templates for restaurant websites that can be instantly imported to a website. This makes the design process much faster.
The other option is to use a page builder plugin and design every page of your website. Elementor is the most popular page builder plugin in the WordPress marketplace. With it, you can build beautiful landing pages for your restaurant website.
You can also use Elementor if you already have a restaurant-optimized theme. This helps if you want to custom design some pages on your website. Generally, it is better to use a WordPress theme that already has all the features you need.
Step 3: Add products and set up ordering via WooCommerce
After the core website design has been setup, you can go ahead and start adding the restaurant’s menu to the website. You can do this with WooCommerce.
While WooCommerce is built for ecommerce stores, it can also be used for restaurant websites. After installing WooCommerce, simply add your menu items as products and map them to relevant categories.
WooCommerce is extremely customizable when it comes to products. You can create product variations, add sale prices, write descriptions, and much more. Once your products are added, link them to the relevant navigation menus and buttons. Restaurant websites generally have an order button in the header, and specific category buttons in other landing page sections.
You can change button locations later based on how easily your users are able to discover your products. Once the products are ready, it’s time to setup a payment gateway.
Step 4: Integrate a payment gateway
The whole point of starting a resturant website is to get orders online and accept payments on the go.
WooCommerce makes it very easy for users to integrate a payment gateway. Generally, payment gateways tend to have their own plugins in the WordPress marketplace that instantly sync with WooCommerce.
The process of payment gateway integration varies based upon the service provider you choose. Almost every reliable payment gateway provider has documentation for WooCommerce integration. It is best advised that you follow the documentation provided to integrate the payment gateway you want to your website.
Step 5: Configure shipping options
As a restaurant business, you can probably only ship orders in your area of operation. In short, you need to limit shipping to a given set of pin codes that are nearest to you.
You can do this natively within WooCommerce. Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping. Here, create a new shipping zone and click on the Limit to specific ZIP/Post codes button. This will ensure that shipping is only open for customers located in a given shipping zone.
You also have the option of adding different shipping methods within the zone. While shipping methods are generally standard for local delivery, you can add your own custom shipping methods if you like. Each shipping method can be associated with a different price. In WooCommerce, you can also configure how your products are taxed.
Step 6: Test your website before going live
While building a restaurant website, there are a number of areas where you can go wrong. Incorrect prices, mobile responsiveness issues, incorrect shipping, and more are some common issues that websites face prior to launch.
It is vital that you open and test check every page of your website before opening it up to customers.
Once you’re sure that your website is ready, go live with your store. You will soon start to see where you can make improvements to increase orders and grow sales.
When your website is ready, you can also install AppMySite on your WordPress site and create an app for your restaurant website. AppMySite’s restaurant app builder can easily integrate with your WordPress website and sync all your restaurant items, categories, and menus effortlessly.
In conclusion
Since 70% of customers prefer online food ordering, building a restaurant website is essential. There’s no way you can scale a restaurant business in this day and age without a viable digital asset.
This article explains how you can make a restaurant website with WordPress and WooCommerce.
The steps covered here provide a broad overview of the process. Since WordPress is largely no-code, you can build a website on it even if you don’t have a technical background. However, there is a learning curve involved when it comes to working with different themes and plugins.
