Are you looking to invest in a takeaway website design?
I have some great news.
This article is filled with:
- cost saving
- profit making
- customer converting
…recommendations that will help your food-to-go business really take off.
A. Planning your takeaway website
Firstly, you’ve got some critical strategic decisions to make.
1. Platform or Solo
Top priority is deciding what your route to market will be.
Will you tag on to a market aggregator like Just Eat or Deliveroo? Or will you go it alone and drum up business for yourself?
Platform pros and cons
Attraction to using a platform
By using an aggregator, you get immediate access to their user base.
In the case of Just Eat this equals some 12 million subscribers who order food-to-go via the platform EVERY month.
In short, you’ll get orders instantly – all marketing is taken care of.
However…
Why you shouldn’t use a platform
You MORE THAN pay for it.
Deliveroo reportedly make as much as 35% commission +VAT on every sale. An indirect inflationary uplift on your food pricing.
Plus they directly inflate your prices with delivery and service charges
Many food vendors have alienated large swathes of their customer base through enforcing price hikes.
And even worse, the platforms actively promote cheaper options in the area to your existing customer base.
2. Managing the website
Before setting out to build a takeaway website, it’s always worth deciding how you’lll maintain it.
This pretty much follows on from whoever built it.
But this in itself can be a major pitfall.
Your designer may back out of maintenance
Web designers are notoriously poor at sticking to maintenance arrangements. To a web designer, maintaining a small business website is a loss making exercise.
For the same time spent maintaining a site, a designer could make 10x – 50x the money building a new project.
So, in my opinion, be realistic.
You’re going to have to maintain your site yourself.
Build your site in WordPress
Therefore, choose a web platform that is user-friendly and easy to make amendments. In other words, choose a content management system (CMS).
And when it comes to CMS software, WordPress is the best in the business.
Learn more about WordPress here.
3. Web hosting the smart way
This is a sword that many a small business fall on eventually.
How NOT to see your web host
Some small business owners see hosting as a tax.
Others as a necessary business expense.
Others as a miscellaneous item on the bank statement.
How you SHOULD see your web host
As a takeaway owner in 2022, your website host is actually a priority business partner.
They are your 1st class valet service for keeping your prized digital asset in tip top shape.
You pay more for a market leading host.
But in my opinion they’re worth many times more the money in peace of mind.
What a top host does that’s worth the money – and more
They keep your website:
- virus free
- up all the time
- well supported with 1-to-1 techincal help
…and more.
The cost of gettin it wrong and going cheap
When pressed, a mission critical web problem taking your site out of action could be worth thousands of pounds or dollars.
Plus, there’s nothing worse than being held to ransom by a web security company after being hit by a virus.
Pay for the best professional support upfront, you won’t regret it.
Get WPMUDEV
My hosting recommendation for your takeaway website:
4. User experience
The crux of selling online is achieving an optimal conversion rate.
In other words, making it easy for your customers to buy what they are looking for.
Make user experience hospitable
This comes down to user experience. Making their journey through your site intuitive and an easy engagement.
Sometimes it’s the most miniscule functions that make all the difference to a particular customer.
Example
Take tipping for example…
…some customers like to see tips as percentages, others as actual sums. Having one and not the other introduces friction into the buying process.
Friction kills sales
Too much friction can completely throw the entire transaction out of the basket or cart. Losing you money.
Stay ahead of users
Here are some must-read actionable tips for turning your takeaway web or app design into a sales dynamo:
B. Building your WordPress takeaway website
If you’ve chosen WordPress as your web building platform for this project, you’ve chosen well.
In fact, 46% of all websites online use WordPress. You’re now amidst the vast majority.
However, it’s no time to sit back and relax.
Learn how to customise your WordPress takeaway website for the very best online food ordering results:
1. Woocommerce
Woocommerce is the no.1 most used ecommerce engine for WordPress CMS.
It’s the ideal plugin or extension of WordPress if you are looking to take online payments.
It’s a facilitator to presenting products or services online for sale via your WordPress website.
But for a takeaway web layout, Woocommerce needs some help.
Download Woocommerce for WordPress (it’s free!)
2. Barn2 Woocommerce Restaurant Ordering Plugin
Made by Barn2, the Woocommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin literally transforms Woocommerce into a custom restuarant and takeaway ordering system.
It’s equally delicious to look at as it is to use by customers.
Plus it’s fully featured with the most up-to-date functions to keep your online ordering checkout on top of it’s game.
Here are just some of what to expect from this plugin:
- Fast
- Mobile-friendly
- Intuitive
- Customisable menu layout
- Add as many product options as you want
- Instant order forms
- Set restaurant opening times
- Quick order
Download Barn2’s Restaurant Ordering Plugin
3. Oliver POS
And where does that leave my point of sale and till systems? (You might be asking…)
The answer is simple.
On the front foot.
Because you are using one of the most well supported ecommerce engines out there, the great news is that there are some excellent complementary solutions.
In the case of POS, Woocommerce has Oliver POS at its disposal.
Oliver POS is smart and future proof.
Tablet-ready, cloud-based and comes with an array of hardware options.
It integrates also with Apple Pay, Stripe, Authorize.net and accepts Mastercard and Visa.
Also, to keep you on top of what’s happening with customer orders, billing etc. it has a very insightful analytical reporting engine – dashboarding all your vital stats in a convenient place.
In short, Oliver POS is the obvious option for POS if Woocommerce and WordPress are your choice of system.
4. Rank Math
Rank Math is one of the most popular SEO software programs for WordPress.
It’s an all in one solution for preparing your site’s content for getting digested by Google and other search engine.
A lot of search engine optimization comes down to organised data.
And even more so, structured data.
How your takeaway website presents its data i.e.
- address,
- telephone number,
- opening times,
- menu etc.
…to Google, either helps or hinders the search algorithm serve up your business to searchers.
Rank Math makes sure your web content is always understanderble and fluently speaking that SEO-friendly language.
With Rank Math there are basic and advanced functions.
Each function, if used properly, will offer your website a Google-friendly advantage over the competition.
For a step by step tutorial breakdown of how to use Rank Math to lift your WordPress takeaway website up the search rankings, visit this article:
Restaurant Schema Type – by Rank Math
C. Conclusion
So, there we have it.
The principles of takeaway web design in a nutshell.
Everything your need to know from choosing the right host to making your site SEO-friendly.
Sure there’s much more detailed guides for building sites out there, but these tips will help you make the most profitable decisions for your business.
Think things through, have a go and should you get stuck – feel free to get in touch.
Leave a Reply