Restaurants and Mobile Optimization: What You Need to Know
If your restaurant's website isn't optimized for mobile devices, you're missing out on a huge portion of potential customers.
It's a fact - our web department actively tracks the usage statistics of more than 50 restaurant websites and has seen the trends emerge over the past two years.
For the average pizzeria website, approximately 25-30% of your website's traffic is coming from internet-connected mobile devices, with some sites seeing a higher portion and others slightly lower (although the smallest percentage we've seen is just under 20%, which is still significant).
Websites that are not designed with these new devices in mind don't work properly on them and quickly frustrate visitors turning them away to your competitor's sites, costing you potential sales.
There are a lot of reasons why a website might not work properly on a mobile device, but these three are probably the most significant: First, the simple fact that there are so many different devices already on the market and more come out every day.
iPhone, Androids, Blackberry, tablets of all kinds, hybrid phone/tablets, etc are all available in different sizes and resolutions.
Second, not all technology is supported equally.
The perfect example of this is the issue of Flash (a popular web technology used on websites for animation) not being supported on any Apple mobile device.
If your website is made entirely in Flash, it just doesn't show up on any iDevice - period! Third is the fact that interacting with a website with a mouse is different than using your fingers.
Common website elements like dropdown menus become extremely difficult to use when you can't hover your mouse pointer to trigger the effect.
The solution? Websites can be optimized for the mobile experience in a variety of ways.
It's not a one-size-fits-all solution and depends on the complexity and sophistication of the website that is being optimized.
The end result is the same though: a site that simply works for both the desktop and mobile that lets visitors access the content of your website without being tricky to use and navigate.
There are a few ways you can create an improved mobile experience for your customers depending on your budget level and website's functionality: Mobile Specific Site - this refers to creating a secondary site that mirrors your current website's content but is optimized for mobile devices.
A special piece of code is placed on your existing website that detects what kind of device your visitor is using (desktop, mobile, tablet, etc) and then displays the version of the site that is suited to this device.
This is a good strategy - it certainly works - however, you may run into problems with duplicate content which might hurt your search-engine rankings.
Also, updating the site becomes more time-consuming as all versions need to be updated separately, turning a quick job into a tedious one.
Responsive Site - this type of site is the kind that adapts to any device (hence, 'responsive' in the name).
It's more complicated to set up initially as your designer will have to create the various look-and-feels for each device's resolution, but provides the most flexibility in terms of being future-proof and for ease of maintenance.
If you're building a site from scratch, this is the best way for you to make sure you're not missing out on any traffic.
Don't forget that we're talking about a huge part of your traffic that will surely grow over the coming years.
Already, 54% of the important 18-24 demographic are using smartphones and that number is up to a whopping 62% of the 25-34 year old demographic ( Smartphone Usage Statistics 2012 ).
Contact your web development partner today and get to work on a mobile optimized website to boost your traffic and your sales!
It's a fact - our web department actively tracks the usage statistics of more than 50 restaurant websites and has seen the trends emerge over the past two years.
For the average pizzeria website, approximately 25-30% of your website's traffic is coming from internet-connected mobile devices, with some sites seeing a higher portion and others slightly lower (although the smallest percentage we've seen is just under 20%, which is still significant).
Websites that are not designed with these new devices in mind don't work properly on them and quickly frustrate visitors turning them away to your competitor's sites, costing you potential sales.
There are a lot of reasons why a website might not work properly on a mobile device, but these three are probably the most significant: First, the simple fact that there are so many different devices already on the market and more come out every day.
iPhone, Androids, Blackberry, tablets of all kinds, hybrid phone/tablets, etc are all available in different sizes and resolutions.
Second, not all technology is supported equally.
The perfect example of this is the issue of Flash (a popular web technology used on websites for animation) not being supported on any Apple mobile device.
If your website is made entirely in Flash, it just doesn't show up on any iDevice - period! Third is the fact that interacting with a website with a mouse is different than using your fingers.
Common website elements like dropdown menus become extremely difficult to use when you can't hover your mouse pointer to trigger the effect.
The solution? Websites can be optimized for the mobile experience in a variety of ways.
It's not a one-size-fits-all solution and depends on the complexity and sophistication of the website that is being optimized.
The end result is the same though: a site that simply works for both the desktop and mobile that lets visitors access the content of your website without being tricky to use and navigate.
There are a few ways you can create an improved mobile experience for your customers depending on your budget level and website's functionality: Mobile Specific Site - this refers to creating a secondary site that mirrors your current website's content but is optimized for mobile devices.
A special piece of code is placed on your existing website that detects what kind of device your visitor is using (desktop, mobile, tablet, etc) and then displays the version of the site that is suited to this device.
This is a good strategy - it certainly works - however, you may run into problems with duplicate content which might hurt your search-engine rankings.
Also, updating the site becomes more time-consuming as all versions need to be updated separately, turning a quick job into a tedious one.
Responsive Site - this type of site is the kind that adapts to any device (hence, 'responsive' in the name).
It's more complicated to set up initially as your designer will have to create the various look-and-feels for each device's resolution, but provides the most flexibility in terms of being future-proof and for ease of maintenance.
If you're building a site from scratch, this is the best way for you to make sure you're not missing out on any traffic.
Don't forget that we're talking about a huge part of your traffic that will surely grow over the coming years.
Already, 54% of the important 18-24 demographic are using smartphones and that number is up to a whopping 62% of the 25-34 year old demographic ( Smartphone Usage Statistics 2012 ).
Contact your web development partner today and get to work on a mobile optimized website to boost your traffic and your sales!