We initially started the Restaurant Webmaster website to act as the foundation for a series of restaurant directory sites that we were building in numerous cities around the United States. These directory sites provided an opportunity for multiple restaurants in one location to share the benefits of a single website that would show up on the search engines when people searched for restaurants in the area. The cost of the directory would have been very affordable for each restaurant that signed up and there was a limit as to how many restaurants would be featured on the site. All of the restaurants in town would be listed, but only a handful would be featured. In the test runs we did, the sites performed as promised and it looked like it would be a good fit for a lot of restaurants. We also offered restaurants that got involved the option of having us build an effective website that would do well on the search engines for very reasonable prices.

Then the economy went south and it became increasingly difficult to market the restaurant directories, and so we have just finished shutting down the last of the directories we had in place and we are going to be simplifying what we do here. Our focus now will be too offer great restaurant websites, that show up on the search engines for numerous keyword searches, at very competitive prices. We have a strong SEO background and build websites for a variety of businesses and non profit organizations. We would be happy to put our experience to work for you in creating a website for your restaurant that will actually bring people through your doors. If you have any questions about our services please contact us, or visit our main website at Blog Consulting.

In order to develop the best directory page or website for you, we need the following information.

• A copy of your menu (breakfast, lunch, dinner, specials, take-out)
• Days open and Hours of operation
• Address and phone number
• A few of your favorite recipes
• Any reviews you might have of your restaurant
• A logo if you have one

If you were talking to someone about your restaurant, how would you answer the following questions?

• What is your restaurant like?
• What kind of food do you serve?
• What is the atmosphere like?
• Is your restaurant casual or formal?
• Do you need a reservation?

Would you like to start a blog for your restaurant?  This is a great way to help your website get traffic from the Internet.  You can write the occasional article (two or three times a month) and ask people that work for you or even your regular customers to write the occasional 200- 300 word article about your site.  If you are interested in a blog, we have a couple of different solutions bit of which are no extra charge.  One solution is that we we will start a free blogger.com blog for you and teach you how to use it.  The other option is that you email us your articles and we add them to your site.

We also need some pictures of your restaurant (inside, outside, food, staff, customers, etc).  If you have a digital camera and are comfortable with getting the pictures on to your computer and emailing them then do that.  If that is going to slow down the process, go to your local drug store and buy a disposal flash camera with 27 exposures.  Take the pictures and then return the camera to your 1 hour film developer.  Have them put the pictures on a CD.  The cameras will cost you about $5.  The CD will cost about $5.  This is often the quickest and most convenient way to get us pictures.

Our hope is to keep the process as simple as we can for you.  The thing that often slows the process down is gathering the necessary information.  You should be able to run through this list in under an hour.  Do the best you can to get us the information quickly.  f you have any questions use the Contact page to let us know.

On Restaurant Webmaster our goal is to make it possible for every restaurant to have a quality, well maintained, website. We provide a wide range of services to help with this process, but we will be teaching any of you who want to take on the role of restaurant webmaster for your restaurant how to start websites in this series of articles. We are firmly committed to the concepts of the Golden Rule and believe in helping people wherever we can. We will be developing a restaurant website for “Coco’s Kitchen” as we write these articles to help you see the process. You will be able to visit the website and see the progress.

Web Hosting

There are a couple of things you need to think through as you start a website. The first question will help us answer the second question. The first question to answer is, “Will I use one of the free blog services available, or will I have my website hosted?”. There are some excellent, easy to use programs available to create your website and you will never have to pay a dime (or a penny). They are absolutely free. My two favorites are Blogger.com and WordPress.com. (I have written an article about how to create sites using these programs in an article on My Newbie Blog site called “More on Starting Free Blogs“). For restaurants with no budget for Internet presence this is a great option.

If you are able, however, I would recommend you use a hosting service for your website. It will allow for a lot of options in the future that the free blogs won’t. You can have your website hosted for $50 – $80 dollars a year depending on how much space you might need and what web hosting company you use. I use GoodNewsDomains for my web hosting. They have reasonable rates and have always provided me with excellent technical support (technical support is another advantage of using a web host, the free blog services don’t have live tech support, you have to use their forums for help which can take a long time). Once you decide whether you will be using a free service or a web host we can move along to the second question.

The Domain Name

Once we decide our hosting question we need to turn our attention to our domain name (url address, the www.whatever.com, web address). If you use one of the free blog services they will work you through the domain name process. All of the domain names for those free sites include the free host name, for example, if you started a site for “yourrestaurant” on blogger.com the domain name would be www.yourrestaurant.blogspot.com (that is another drawback to the free sites, long domain names, but they are free). If you are using a web host you have more flexibility with your domain name. I suggest you use a domain name that best describes your restaurant. The domain name you choose will have an impact on search engine results in the future. You will want people to be able to find your restaurant website by searching for the name of your restaurant on Google. If you use a nickname, or initials, your restaurant website won’t show up on the search engines. If your restaurant is called Fargo Coffee Shop, you will want a domain name that is www.fargocoffeeshop.com Don’t try and shorten it to FCS.com as this will never show up on the search engines. It may be easier to remember but the only people who will ever find your site that way are people who already have the web address. You want people who are searching for restaurants in your area to be able to find your restaurant on Google. Once you decide what domain name you want, go to GoodNewsDomains and see if it is available. A domain name will cost you about $10 a year. (For a detailed description of how to get a domain name and a web host read an article I write called “Create a Blog You Can be Proud Of“.

Getting Started

For the rest of our articles in this series we will be setting up a hosted restaurant website for “Coco’s Kitchen”. We are setting this site up as a sub-domain to this main site. It allows us to set up the site for free and yet gives us the advantage of being a hosted site. We can do that because our main site, Restaurant Webmaster is a hosted site. That allows us to set up as many as 25 sub-domain sites for no extra charge. Since we are using this site as an example, this works best for our purposes. The rest of the articles will be written assuming you have a domain name and a web host.

The Restaurant Webmaster site is here to help provide restaurants with a variety of Internet services. These service include affordable website packages and restaurant website consulting services. These Internet services will help increase traffic not only to a restaurant’s website, but also to the restaurant itself. Next to word of mouth, the Internet is where people turn for information about restaurants. We look forward to working with you in the future as your Restaurant Webmaster Online.

Take some time to browse through this website to acquaint yourself with our services. If you have any questions please use the Contact page to let us know!