Mobile Phones users now 29% of all restaurant website visitors

Restaurant Website Visitor Report Mar 2013

Marketing4Restaurants regularly reviews all of the information from all of our customers’ websites to provide them with insights as to how to best market their Restaurant or café online and the March 2013 report has some very interesting insights.

The main points are that:

  • Mobile phone traffic is now 29% of all visitors;
  • Safari is by far the most popular browser for all restaurant visitors; and
  • Direct entry is now the most popular method for people to find a restaurant website.

The team has analyzed the data from all of our customers’ websites to see what the current trends are in online restaurant marketing.  All data was aggregated, anominized and then analyzed to determine what insights can be gained and how we can help our restaurant owners to find more customers.  Data from March 2013 was compared with data from May in 2012.  The analytics which we provide our customers, which we call Sexy Metrics, helps our customers to better target their marketing and ensures that scarce time and money is spent with the greatest return.

Mobile Traffic increasing rapidly

Over the last 10 months, traffic from mobiles increased dramatically and now makes up 29% of all traffic to restaurant websites.  This was made up from 22% for iPhone and 7% for Android.

This has major implications for restaurant owners as less than 10% are currently optimizing for mobile.  Some of the problems encountered included Flash components which do not work, text which is not readable on mobile screens and PDFs which are difficult to navigate on a mobile phone.  Navigation has to be significantly simplified on a mobile.

The rise of iPhones has seen Safari become the most popular browser for restaurant websites, making up 50% of all browsers.  Internet Explorer decreased significantly from 39% to 19%

For Restaurant Owners:  This information highlights the importance of having a mobile optimized website.  Restaurant owners should check what their website looks like on iPhones and Android.  Any Flash components should be removed and it is critical that important information like contact details, online booking and the menu are quickly and easily available on a mobile phone.  We have spoken about the dangers of using Flash on restaurant websites before. Owners should check to see what their website looks like on Safari, the Apple browser because half of all visitors are using it, either on a Mac, on an iPhone or an iPad.


Is Poor SEO Killing Your Restaurant?

Too many times we see customers with websites that are costing restaurants thousands of dollars every month through poor design, poor messaging and poor SEO. If your website could be improved to bring in 200 extra visits per month and just 10% of those made a booking, and each booking was for 2.5 seats on average at $50 a seat, you would have an extra $2,500 in revenue a month. A 30% food cost, that is $1,750 in profit extra a month. This ignores those customers coming back as regulars – which is more profit.

Remember, if these customers aren’t finding your Restaurant, they are finding your competitors.

Get one of our obligation free 7 point website SEO audits to see what you can get your web developer to fix to increase your revenue today.