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What a Sydney café website needs, and what it can skip
The parts of a café or restaurant website that earn their place: real menu text, hours, Maps, bookings, plus what to leave out.
People decide where to eat on their phones, usually in a hurry, often standing on a footpath. A café website has a very short job: tell them what you serve, whether you are open, where you are and how to book or order. Everything else is optional. This post lists what earns its place on a café or restaurant website, and what you can happily leave out.
What the visitor wants in the first ten seconds
Think of the person searching "brunch near me" on a Saturday. They want, in this order:
- Is it open now, and until when?
- Where exactly is it, and how do I get there?
- What is on the menu, and roughly what does it cost?
- Can I book, or order, or just turn up?
If your website makes them hunt for any of those, many will go back to Google and choose another place.
Must-haves
Opening hours that are right
Wrong hours cost more goodwill than almost anything else. Put your hours on the site as text, including public holidays when they change, and keep them the same as on your Google Business Profile. When hours change, change them in both places the same day.
The menu as real text
A photo or a PDF of the menu is hard to read on a phone, cannot be searched by Google, and gets out of date. Put the menu on the page as text, with dietary notes such as vegetarian, vegan and gluten free marked clearly. If prices change often, you can say "prices on the day" or show a starting point, but do not hide them entirely.
Address, map and directions
Your address as text, with a Google Maps link so a tap opens directions. Add a line for anything people trip over: the entrance is on the lane, there is street parking, the nearest station is a short walk.
A booking or order button that works
If you take bookings, the button goes to the booking system you already use, and it sits on every page, not only the contact page. If you take orders through a delivery or pickup platform, link to it plainly. If you simply take walk-ins, say so.
A phone number that is tappable
On a phone, a number should open the dialler. It is a small thing and it is often missing.
Photos of your own food and your own room
Real photos from your kitchen and your room beat stock images, and they do more work than any description. Keep them light on file size so the page loads quickly on mobile data.
Your name, address and phone number the same everywhere
On the website, Google Business Profile, Facebook and any directory. Matching details help customers and help search engines tie them together.
Nice to have
- A short story of the place, only with things that are true and that you are happy to be held to
- Events, private hire or catering enquiries, with their own simple form
- Gift vouchers, if you sell them
- A small gallery that updates with the season
What you can skip
- A full-screen video that plays on load. It slows the page and many people will not wait.
- A slideshow of ten images with text on top, which nobody reads
- Pages of "about our philosophy" with no facts in them
- A news page you will not update
- Anything that makes the menu or hours harder to reach
How it shows up on Google
A few basics help a café website get found for local searches:
- A page title with what you are and your suburb, such as "Café in Surry Hills"
- Structured data for your business: address, phone, opening hours and the kind of food you serve
- A Google Maps link and matching details with your Business Profile
- A sitemap, with the site added to Google Search Console
Every Realtiq website includes these local search basics. Nobody can promise a position on Google, and a Business Profile does much of the work on Maps, but a good website linked from it helps.
What about the phone during service?
Service is when you cannot answer: hands full, noisy room. Questions about bookings, dietary needs and opening hours arrive at exactly that moment. There are two sensible options.
- Make the answers easy to find on the website, so fewer people need to call.
- Add an assistant that answers messages and calls from the information you approve, takes bookings and hands over to your team. Realtiq's chat assistant and voice agent do this. You can hear the voice agent on 0495 052 154.
What it costs
A one-page website is often enough for a café whose customers mostly need to find it and call. A business website adds pages and bookings. These are Realtiq's published prices, in Australian dollars:
Prices in Australian dollars. Every proposal is confirmed in writing before we start.
The domain, hosting and any platform accounts are set up in your name and listed in the proposal, so you can see them before you agree.
A five-minute self-check
Open your own café's website on your phone, stand outside, and try to find the opening hours, the menu and the booking button. If it takes more than a few seconds, so will it for your customers. More on this on the restaurants and cafés page.
Common questions
Does a café need a website at all?
Many do well with a good Google Business Profile and Instagram. A website helps when you want to show a full menu, take bookings or catering enquiries, or be found for more than your name.
Should I put my menu in a PDF?
Put it on the page as text. PDFs are slow to open on a phone and hard to read.
Should I embed Instagram on my site?
You can show a few photos, but do not make the site depend on it. The essentials, hours, menu and map, should be on the page itself.
Can I update it myself?
With the business website, we walk you through how to update it yourself, and website care at A$79 a month covers 30 minutes of small changes a month if you would rather not.
Talk it through, 15 minutes
Book a 15 minute call to talk through a website for your café or restaurant.