How to create a restaurant menu and start selling your food online

Having an online presence is a must these days for any restaurant. It can boost engagement, brand recognition, and sales.

Start by crafting an irresistible online menu and sprinkle other ingredients like promotions and a sales optimized website to guarantee your success online.

You can do all of that with GloriaFood. Here’s how:

How to create your own restaurant menu that customers won’t be able to forget: the cheatsheet

Having a PDF menu that customers have to download is a no-go. You need to create a menu that can be easily accessed and browsed from any device.

Here is what you need to create a restaurant menu that will have customers pressing the Order button in no time:

• Structure the online menu into categories. Especially if you have a big menu. It makes it easy to glance through and find items.
• Use good quality images. Remember how you should not buy groceries on an empty stomach? You get the same effect online with food photography. Your hungry customers will be tempted by your mouthwatering dishes if you use quality photos.
• Write nice and clear descriptions. Although not as powerful as images, creative food descriptions can stimulate the appetite. Be careful though not to go overboard with the epithets.

• Make it easy to customize a dish. Flexibility is good. Whether you offer multiple choices of sides for main dishes or tons of toppings for making your own pizza, everything should be simple and easy for the customer to understand and choose.
• Keep your restaurant menu up to date. It’s very disappointing, as a client, to set your mind on something and then hear that the item is not available. So, take the time to keep your menu up to date. Especially since with GloriaFood, it’s so easy to make changes to the online menu and publish them instantly on your website.

How to make your menu shine with restaurant promotions and special offers

Another good thing about creating a menu for free using our restaurant menu maker is you get access to our promotion templates that you can customize to show different promotions to different types of customers.

Incentivize new & established customers into ordering more items or more often, with promos.

To do that, you need to start running multiple promos at the same time to appeal to different target audiences.

For instance ...

• a first-time promo will appeal & hook new clients
• a 2+1 deal or a Buy one, get one free will attract groups, like families or friends
• a Pizza + Drink combo will encourage people to order from you during lunch or dinner & feel like they're getting great value for their money
• a % discount on cart applicable to orders over certain amounts will drive customers to buy more food, and thus increase their cart value
• a % discount on selected items like pasta, will help you attract pasta lovers, etc.

Remember, by using restaurant promotions, you can:

• attract new business
• increase customer retention

• and secure loyalty

How to start taking online orders and optimize your website for sales

Once you have created your restaurant menu, it’s time to publish it on your website so people can start placing orders.

The best restaurant websites are not necessarily fancy and crowded with information.

Customers want to be served fast and have access to relevant information such as:

• how to get to your restaurant
• how to contact you
• how to order

That’s why you need to publish the “See MENU & Order” button at the top of your homepage, so it’s the first thing hurried or hungry customers see.

To learn how to do that depending on your website builder, watch the video below:

If you don’t have a restaurant website yet, you can instantly get your own sales & SEO optimized website from us.

This will help you appear on the first page of Google for local searches and boost your online sales.

And the best part is there are no coding skills involved, you'll see.

How to accept online orders today and make money while you sleep

Now that you have published the restaurant menu on your website, accepting online orders is a piece of cake. All you need to do is download the order taking app for Android or iOS on your smartphone or tablet.

You will be able to receive and confirm orders with the tap of a button, which is a lot more efficient than having someone answering calls and manually entering customers’ orders.

Not to mention that with the option “order for later,” you can accept orders 24/7, even while you sleep - completely free of charge.