I tried to order take-out tonight from a new Mexican restaurant in town. I'd heard it was good but had never been there, so I didn't have a menu to order from. I searched online for their website, but couldn't find one. I called them and asked if their menu was online - nope. Finally, I had them fax me their menu.
These days it's just crazy not to have at least a basic website if you own a traditional storefront, restaurant, or service. It's so cheap, it's so easy, and more and more, customers are looking online for you. Make sure they find you. Here's how...
A couple points:
* If a potential customer is just considering visiting your restaurant, they're probably not going to go to the trouble to have you fax them the menu. -They'll just order from somewhere else.
* Most residential homes do not have fax machines.
This restaurant has been open for several months now. They have no way of gaging how much new business they've lost by not having a simple website with their menu, restaurant hours, directions, location, etc.
If the cost of creating a simple website was, say, $5,000 or $20,000, they could be excused for thinking that it may not be worth the investment right away. But we're talking about minor expense here.
Costs:
To register a domain name for a year is $10-$15.
Hosting the domain can cost as little as under $100/year.
Paying one of your waiters or a local high school kid to create a 1-page website with your restaurant logo, address, phone number, and a downloadable PDF file of your menu would cost practically nothing. (You can add always add on to it later.)
Yes, it's true that it's tough for local businesses to gauge how much value a website will provide for them. But when the cost is practically zero, it's a no-brainer.
As time goes on, MORE people will be looking for your business online, not less. It's already faster for me to find a restaurant's phone number by typing in the name and city online rather than pull out the Yellow Pages Directory and start paging through, thinking, "does J come before or after H?..." :-)
It truly is a no-brainer. If you can't find a cheap local web designer, you can create your website for free using blog software like Wordpress, I've got complete free video training on my site on how to do it, there's truly no excuse!