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While it’s hard to capture the cozy comfort of a neighborhood coffee shop online, a website is a valuable tool for your marketing and operations strategies.
A website provides your customers with vital information about your coffee shop, and can even act as an online store for beans and merchandise, all while providing educational and entertaining content to get customers engaged with your brand.
Goals for Your Coffee Shop’s Website Design
Start by identifying the solutions and opportunities your website is designed to provide. The first step of building your restaurant website is establishing clear, actionable goals that you can work towards.
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Restaurant Website Checklist
This template will help you update and optimize your website, so guests can easily find and order from you.
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Why You Should Build a Coffee Shop Website
Designing, hosting, and maintaining a website requires new technical skills and lots of time, right?
Not always. There are lots of ways to build a website so it becomes an asset to your business instead of a burden on your time and energy. Starting with a clear plan will help to take the guesswork and anxiety out of the process.
An attractive, functional website lets customers interact with your business from wherever they are. Just make sure that it’s mobile browser friendly. This will keep your brand top of mind and allow your guests to share info and photos from your business. Talk about great word-of-mouth!
Ultimately, the goal of a website is to work in tandem with other marketing strategies, to increase brand awareness and sales.
Coffee Shop Goals Checklist
You want your website to drive traffic to your business, so evaluate its profit potential by answering the following questions.
What do you want your coffee shop’s website to do?
What is the design of your coffee shop’s website?
How will your website fit into your marketing strategy?
Where will you host your coffee shop’s website?
When should you launch your coffee shop’s website?
Who is going to maintain your coffee shop’s website?
Coffee Shop Website Content Strategy
“Content” refers to all the visual information that lives on your coffee shop’s website, from hours to blog posts to images. Your content strategy is the plan you devise and execute in order to get that info onto your website and/or social media pages.
As you start to imagine your coffee shop’s website, consider what information you want it to deliver and what you want your customers to be able to access. Basic info like hours, menus, and specials are a must. But it’s up to you how prominently it’s displayed on your website depending on importance.
Pages and Content
There are a few standard pages for coffee shop websites, as well as additional options depending on your business model:
A homepage that directs users to content
An “about” page with hours, contact information, and your bakery’s backstory or concept
Your menus. PDF menus are increasingly popular, accessible easily through a QR code scan on a smartphone
Ordering forms for individual orders and catering
Special or seasonal information about orders
A blog
An online store
Links to affiliated programs, such as a community outreach program or classes open to the public
Often, all of a coffee shop’s information is available on the homepage, with hours, contact information, vital information about operations and a menu divided on the landing page.
This is where the basics of User Experience (UX design) come in handy. Deciding where to put your content and how your customers access information is a crucial part of content strategy.
Voice and Messaging
Content strategy is also focused on maintaining a consistent voice and messaging across all of a company’s communications. As you build a content strategy for your website, think about how content works with the vision, design, and “voice” of your coffee shop. Imbue all of your website’s content with a consistent tone and message for brand consistency.
Content Strategy Research
As your business expands, or if you’re rebuilding a website for a well-established company, you might invest in some content strategy research. Creativity can still be guided by data, and the best content strategy plans involve research using focus groups, surveys, and other methods to inform how you manage and distribute content.
Website Maintenance
Like the equipment in your coffee shop, your website has to be updated and maintained to stay in top working condition. You can outsource this to a hosting company, do it yourself, or delegate the work to management staff.
RESOURCE
Restaurant Marketing Plan
Create a marketing plan that'll drive repeat business with this customizable marketing playbook template and interactive calendar.
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We’ll handle your info according to our privacy statement.
![The Guide to Restaurant Social Media Marketing [+ 14 Examples]](https://d2w1ef2ao9g8r9.cloudfront.net/images/_576x374_crop_center-center_82_line/OTL-THUMBNAIL-1.png)
Design Your Coffee Shop’s Website
UX Research & Functionality
Human-centered design is the current model for UX (or User Experience). It’s a fancy term for ensuring that the greatest possible number of people have access to your content.
When you design your website, make sure it’s functional for users that may have little to no technical experience. It should be intuitive to all users, including those with disabilities.
If you use an online ordering system, consider providing a link on each page of your website. That way, your customer can initiate their ordering process no matter where they are on your site.
Color Scheme & Typography
Colors have psychological effects on people, and set a tone and mood. Try to find digital colors that are a close match to your established brick-and-mortar colors, to preserve brand recognition.
Color scheme influences how visitors experience your website. Be sure to choose high-contrast fonts that are easy to read on your website’s backgrounds.
The size of website text is another critical design element. Typically, sans serif fonts, those without the “flags” on the ends of letters – are easier to read digitally. Be sure that the text on digital menus is large enough to read on a smartphone screen, where most people will likely access them.
Images
Images make your website more attractive and increase its performance in search engines. Use a high-definition camera to capture snapshots of your coffee shop and menu items, and use them strategically on your website and in digital menus.
Marketing With Your Coffee Shop’s Website
Your website is a marketing tool. It lets your customers digitally access information about your business, and hopefully drives foot traffic. But for it to perform those functions, it has to be visible through search engines and social media.
SEO Strategy
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to a set of practices that allows search engines to “read” your content, and increases the chance that your content appears during searches.
At least, you want to make sure that when someone searches “Mean Green Bean Coffee Centerville, VA,” your coffee shop is the first result. This comprehensive SEO for beginners guide from Search Engine Journal will teach you about keyword research, on-page SEO, and technical SEO to ensure your website’s success.
Social Media Strategy
The best websites make their social media links readily available and obvious, prompting users to engage with other streams of content. Ideally, your social media streams will also drive traffic to your websites with links to new and updated content.
Users might not click through, but the accessibility increases the chance that your page will get a hit, that a new customer will engage and, eventually, bring new business.
Hosting and Publishing Your Coffee Shop’s Website
Your website’s “host” is the physical computer where the info for your website is stored, and the location where your visitors access that content. While you could theoretically host your own website, it’s simpler and more reliable to use a hosting service like GoDaddy or bluehost. Certain web builders will let you buy a domain name and connect you to hosts as part of their services.
Choosing a URL
Choosing the right URL for your website can be tricky. Many .com addresses are no longer available and it can be risky to choose a newer domain like .online or .live since they generally see less traffic. If you can’t get MeanGreenBean.com, try adding the initials of your city – MeanGreenBeanVA.com for example.
Web Builder Platforms
Web builder platforms are services that make it easy to design your website, by providing iterative instances of code and intuitive website building software. Choosing the right web builder for your website is important – choose the platform that offers a full range of services. Some companies offer full-service website solutions from design to publication, while others require more legwork.
How to Do Email Marketing for Restaurants
Creating an email marketing strategy for your restaurant can help you build lifelong relationships with your diners. Here’s how to use email for restaurants.
12 Best Coffee Shop Website Examples:
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