5 Online Menu Mistakes

Greetings Foodies and Restaurateurs!

Some observations for restaurateurs today.

Having a great restaurant isn't enough. Consumers need information quickly to make decisions concerning their eating habits. They must be able to obtain restaurant knowledge. Restaurant knowledge isn't limited to just a building; what is served is equally as important as where it is served. If people don't know a great restaurant exists, they can't go there. If they don't know what's served, they may choose to not go there.

So what mistakes can a restaurateur make regarding consumer knowledge? Here are our top five.

5) Illegible Menus - If a menu is online and unreadable it is worse than not having a menu at all. Taunting consumers with the prospect of restaurant knowledge and then providing sub-par content can only anger them. A picture of a menu lacks the intractability of even a list of dishes. It cannot scale. It cannot be searched. It can create distaste, however.

If a restaurateur doesn't care enough to provide legible menus, why should diners gamble on their meal?

4) Non-indexable Online Menus - A menu is of little use if no one can find it. Consumers use search engines to locate their potential meals. If your menu is not indexed by the search engine, it can't be found quickly. Non-indexable menus will appear lower on search results than competing options. Lower listings are missed by casual searchers.

If a restaurateur doesn't care about being found, why should diners care to find them?

3) Lack of Description - Dish names are important to have on menus, but they are not enough. The more that can be said about a dish, the more appealing it can become. Describing the special qualities of a dish distinguish it from all competitors. Likewise, images can entice would-be eaters in ways words cannot. The more description added to a menu, the more people may be persuaded to come eat.

If a restaurateur doesn't care about their dishes, why should diners?

2) Out of Date Menus - Trust is an important factor in eatery selection. When menus are provided for searching, the dishes they contain should be accurate. Eaters who have selected a dish expect THAT dish. Similarly, eaters who have chosen a restaurant based on a dish, expect that dish to be served when they arrive.

If a restaurateur doesn't care about their validity, why should diners trust them?

1) No Online Menus - If consumers can't find your restaurant, they can't eat at your restaurant. This point is not as complex as those previously mentioned. People have computers, cell phones, and mobile devices that they use to plan their lives. The internet gives them life choice options. Not being an option is the fastest way to not being in business.

If restaurateurs don't want to be online, diners can't find them.

Luckily, MarksMenus alleviates all these problems. Menu entry is simple, clean, and indexable. There are optional fields for images and descriptions for each dish. Each field in the menu is a searchable field within the MarksMenus system and from the internet as a whole. We want to ensure that consumers looking for food are able to find it locally with minimal effort. And we do it down to the dish level.

Happy eating,

Mike