Restaurant website and marketing: what it needs and costs

Short answer: A restaurant website in the US needs six things: a menu typed as text with prices, your address with a map and directions, accurate hours, real photos of the food and the room, a way to order or reserve, and links to the delivery apps you use. Keep the apps for new customers, but push repeat orders to your own site, because the apps typically keep 15% to 30% of every order at the time of writing. A site like this typically costs $1,500 to $6,000 one-time, and a one-page version starts under $1,000.

Most restaurant owners we speak to ask the same question: "I am on DoorDash, Yelp and Google Maps. Why do I need a website for my restaurant?" The answer is about who owns the customer. The apps are where people find you. The website is where they check the menu, reserve a table, and order without a commission in the middle. This guide covers what your customers search for, the pages a restaurant website needs, the online ordering options and their fees, the Google profile and reviews, and what it all typically costs.

What restaurant customers actually search for

People look for a restaurant at three moments, and each needs something different from your website.

1. Deciding where to eat. "Best tacos near me", "Italian restaurant in [neighborhood]", "brunch [town]", "restaurants open now". Google shows a map with three places and then a few websites. Photos, ratings, price level and the menu decide who wins.
2. Checking before they come. "[Your name] menu", "[your name] hours", "does [your name] take reservations", "[your name] happy hour". People type your name plus one word. If the site answers in one tap, they come.
3. Acting. "Order online", "reserve a table for 6", "catering", "private dining". This is where the ordering and reservation buttons earn their place.

A good restaurant website covers all three: enough to be found, enough to decide, and one tap to act.

Pages and sections a restaurant website needs

For a single-location restaurant, these can be sections on one long page. For a larger place or several locations, they become separate pages.

Your menu: text, not a photo

Most restaurant websites we look at have a menu that is a photo of the printed card or a scanned PDF. It is blurry on a phone, cannot be changed without a new upload, and cannot be read by Google or an AI assistant when someone asks for "a place near me with good gluten-free options".

The fix is to type it out: item name, one line describing it, price, dietary marks. When you change the printed menu, change the website the same day; a guest who finds a higher price at the table remembers it.

Ask whoever builds the site to add structured data for restaurants and menus, a small block of code that tells Google your cuisine, price range, hours and menu items. Visitors never see it, but it helps Google show your details correctly and gives AI tools clean information to quote.

Online ordering: the options and what they cost

This is where the money is. The delivery apps bring new customers, and they charge for it. Here is how the options typically compare at the time of writing; fees change, so check current pricing before you decide.

The pattern that works for most independents: keep one or two delivery apps for discovery, put a direct ordering button first on your site and Google profile, and mention direct ordering on the bag, the receipt and the table tent. A customer who orders direct three times pays you the commission you would have lost, every time after that.

Reservations

For sit-down restaurants, a reservation button matters as much as the menu. OpenTable, Resy and Tock each charge restaurants a monthly fee and, in some plans, a per-cover fee for bookings that come through their networks; the amounts change, so check current pricing. Put the reservation link on the site, on your Google Business Profile, and on Instagram. For parties over eight, show a phone number and a short form.

Photos and words that bring people in

• Shoot your own food in daylight near a window, on a plain plate. A phone camera is fine. Avoid stock photos; regulars notice immediately.
• Aim for 20 to 30 photos: eight to ten dishes, the front of the building, the dining room, the bar, the patio, the team, one busy night.
• Write like you talk to a guest. "We smoke our brisket for fourteen hours every morning" beats "We are a premier dining destination."
• Put the neighborhood in the title and the first line: "Neighborhood Thai restaurant in Ballard, Seattle". This is what "near me" and area searches match.
• Answer the questions people call about: reservations, parking, kids, dogs on the patio, happy hour times, gluten-free and vegan options, large parties, private room.

Google Business Profile: the listing that feeds the map

The website works with your Google Business Profile, not instead of it. Claim it, keep the name, address, phone and hours identical to the website, and add the menu link, the ordering link and the reservation link in the profile fields Google provides. Then:

• Add new photos every month; Google shows the recent ones first.
• Post weekly: a special, an event, a seasonal menu.
• Mark holiday hours ahead of time. A "closed" surprise on Thanksgiving is the fastest way to a one-star review.
• Use the menu feature to list items and prices, matching the website.

Our step-by-step on Google Business Profile setup covers claiming, verification and the fields that matter for restaurants.

Reviews: Google and Yelp

Restaurants live and die by reviews, and in the US that means Google first and Yelp second, with OpenTable and TripAdvisor mattering for certain places. The flow that works:

1. Ask at the right moment: with the check, on the receipt, and on a small card at the host stand. "Loved it? A review helps a small restaurant more than you know."
2. Make it one tap: a short link and a QR code to your Google review page.
3. Reply to every review within a day or two, including the bad ones, briefly and without arguing. Regulars read your replies.
4. Never buy reviews, post fake ones, or offer a free dessert for a five-star review. The FTC's rules on reviews and endorsements ban fake and paid reviews and require disclosure of any incentive; check the current rules. Yelp also penalizes businesses that solicit reviews, and Google removes reviews it thinks are bought.

Marketing beyond the website

Local SEO for restaurants is mostly the profile, the reviews, and a website with the neighborhood name on it. Our guide to local SEO for small business explains the map results and citations in more detail.

Google Ads can work for specific searches: "catering [town]", "private dining [neighborhood]", "brunch reservations". At the time of writing restaurant clicks typically cost $1 to $4, and a small budget of $10 to $20 a day is enough to test. We can set that up; see the Google & Meta Ads page.

Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram) suit a new opening, a new menu or an event, targeted to a few miles around you.

Text messages are effective and heavily regulated. The TCPA and carrier rules require written consent, an easy opt-out and quiet hours; fines are per message. Check the current rules before you send anything. We do not offer text-message platforms; a specials page, weekly profile posts and an email list cover most of the same ground.

Mistakes restaurant owners make

1. Menu as a photo only, or no menu at all "because it changes".
2. Old prices on the site, discovered by the guest at the table.
3. Wrong holiday hours, on the site and the profile.
4. No order or reservation button on the first screen.
5. A slow site with a full-screen video that people close before it loads.
6. The delivery app link first and the direct ordering link buried.
7. Ignoring reviews, when a reply takes two minutes and shows forever.
8. The domain owned by a former designer or an app, so you cannot move later.

What we charge

We are a small team based in India and we work with US restaurants by email and video call. Our packages fit restaurants as they are:

• Starter, $799 one-time. A one-page site with your menu as text, photos, hours, Google Maps location, and call and email buttons, phone-friendly and live in about five business days.
• Business, $2,999 one-time. Up to six pages: home, menu, order and reserve, gallery, catering or events, and contact. We write all the text from your menu and a short call. Contact form and call button, basic Google search setup, live in about ten business days.
• Growth, $4,999 one-time. Up to twelve pages for multiple locations or an events and news section, full SEO setup for every page, speed tuning, and three months of free small changes.
• Google Business Profile Setup, $399 one-time and Profile Care, $299 per month for weekly posts, review replies and new photos.

Ordering and reservation buttons link to the tools you already use; their fees are paid to those companies. The Growth Bundle at $3,499 covers a six-page site, profile setup, one ad campaign and basic SEO together. Details are on the business websites page and the pricing page. No long-term contracts, and everything stays in your name.

The short version

A restaurant website does one job the apps cannot: it turns someone who found you into someone who reserves, orders direct or walks in, with no commission in the middle. Put the menu in text with prices, show hours and a map, use your own photos, put your direct ordering and reservation links first, and match everything to your Google Business Profile. Keep the delivery apps for discovery and push regulars to order direct. A one-page site starts under $1,000 and a full site typically costs $1,500 to $6,000, plus a domain at around $12 to $20 a year.