How to Find a Good and Reliable Restaurant Website Design Solution
If you haven't read the article "Ten Basic Rules to Have An Effective Restaurant Website" please do so before reading the rest of this article. Done? Good, you can continue now.
Finding a reliable out of the box restaurant website solution that can be customize to meet your needs is perhaps the best compromise between creating your restaurant Website yourself (or somebody from your team) and hiring a full- time restaurant website designer or company.
If you decide for the first choice (creating a restaurant website yourself), you have two choices:I recommend you to use pre-made restaurant web templates that you can apply to your site. These templates have been professionally designed and contains all the elements that you need to apply to your site (templates, color designs, graphic files, etc.).
These are some of the best restaurant website templates that you can find in the Web. Click on the site names to find more information and lots of templates for your to browse.
Finding a reliable out of the box restaurant website solution that can be customize to meet your needs is perhaps the best compromise between creating your restaurant Website yourself (or somebody from your team) and hiring a full- time restaurant website designer or company.
If you decide for the first choice (creating a restaurant website yourself), you have two choices:I recommend you to use pre-made restaurant web templates that you can apply to your site. These templates have been professionally designed and contains all the elements that you need to apply to your site (templates, color designs, graphic files, etc.).
These are some of the best restaurant website templates that you can find in the Web. Click on the site names to find more information and lots of templates for your to browse.
USE PRE-DESIGNED RESTAURANT-SPECIFIC WEB TEMPLATES
You can use pre-made restaurant web templates that you can apply to your site. These templates have been professionally designed and contains all the elements that you need to apply to your site (templates, color designs, graphic files, etc.).
The advantages of using templates, if you feel comfortable with basic Web development and graphic tools such as DreamWeaver, Microsoft FrontPage, XSite Pro 2, RapidWeaver, Photoshop, etc. is that you can create and manage professionally looking websites for a very low cost.
These are some of the best restaurant website templates that you can find in the Web. Click on the site names to find more information and lots of templates for your to browse.
The advantages of using templates, if you feel comfortable with basic Web development and graphic tools such as DreamWeaver, Microsoft FrontPage, XSite Pro 2, RapidWeaver, Photoshop, etc. is that you can create and manage professionally looking websites for a very low cost.
These are some of the best restaurant website templates that you can find in the Web. Click on the site names to find more information and lots of templates for your to browse.
Template Monster: They have several categories in their templates:
Regular Price: (around $65) It gives you all the necessary files but not exclusivity. This means that somebody else can design a website similar to yours.
Buyout Price: ($2750 to $3,500 ouch!) This gives you all the files. From that moment on, you own this site and nobody else can use it (they will delete it from their catalog). However, there is a caveat. If somebody else already downloaded the template, there is nothing you can do about it.
But don't worry too much. They disclose the number of downloads that people made and they are usually very low.
But don't worry too much. They disclose the number of downloads that people made and they are usually very low.
Monthly Recurrent Fee: (starting at $19.95) You pay a low monthly fee (from $19.95 to $49.95 depending on how sofisticated the site is). This fee will give you:
- Website Design optimized for your business category
- FREE Domain name and UNLIMITED hosting package.
- Easy to use editing tools for users without technical background.
- Fully licensed stock photos.
- 3 hours of professional webmaster support included each month.
Templates Box: This site contains a wealth of free and premium web templates and flash templates for building a successful restaurant web site. They also have professionally designed Full Site and Full Flash Site templates that contain all .PSD and .HTML files for every page of the site. You can subscribe as a Platinum member and get unlimited access to these templates. Their fees are $49 for 3 months access to all their templates (but not complete websites) or $79 for a whole year of access to all their templates and full sites.
Domainette Templates: This site contains ready-made web-site designs and templates that can be used as the foundation of building your restaurant website. You can replace the text and pictures in the templates with your own using the appropriate software(s).
They offer 4 major types of templates:
They offer 4 major types of templates:
Flash templates
HTML templates
HTML templates with Flash header
Flash intro templates.
For 1, 3, and 4, you will have to have Flash MX installed to edit the Flash part of the templates. For 2, you will have to have MS Frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver for editing. If you would like to edit the graphics of a template, it’s highly recommended that you should have Adobe Photoshop as well. Template prices go between $38 to $55.
Flash Templates: This site contains flash templates that are easy to customize for your restaurant website. All you have to do is insert your text and picture / logo in one of their flash templates. After that, you simply upload your flash website to your server and you will have a professional looking and appealing restaurant website.
You need to have a certain knowledge of Macromedia Flash to edit most Flash templates. But everybody can learn how to do that. In their site, they have a help section where you'll find helpful information about how to edit their flash websites. In our help section you will also find helpful tutorials about how to modify the websites to fit your needs. They also offer customization so that you can create a website unique to your restaurant.
If you are not familiar with flash, or don't have the time, they can customize your flash template for you at a very affordable rate of $150.00
You need to have a certain knowledge of Macromedia Flash to edit most Flash templates. But everybody can learn how to do that. In their site, they have a help section where you'll find helpful information about how to edit their flash websites. In our help section you will also find helpful tutorials about how to modify the websites to fit your needs. They also offer customization so that you can create a website unique to your restaurant.
If you are not familiar with flash, or don't have the time, they can customize your flash template for you at a very affordable rate of $150.00
FrontPage Templates: This site contains many Microsoft FrontPage templates. All of their web templates (website templates and flash templates) are completely customizable and ready for immediate download.
Their website templates are a website design coded and sliced in HTML with its source files in PSD format (Adobe Photoshop). If you are a user of Microsoft FrontPage, you should take a look at this site.
Their website templates are a website design coded and sliced in HTML with its source files in PSD format (Adobe Photoshop). If you are a user of Microsoft FrontPage, you should take a look at this site.
Let's Eat At: This site is interesting. It allows you to create a website for your restaurant, complete with professional templates, at no cost to you! However, there is a catch (there always is, isn't it?). Since nobody can make money doing everything for free, their business model is to create revenue by advertising in your site. Yes, that's right. They will create a free site for you and then place ads in your site that your customers will see. But there is yet another caveat: Your domain will be part of their name. So instead of having www.YourRestaurant.com as you domain, you will have: LetsEat.at/YourRestaurant. It is easy to remember, but I am not sure that people will find it that way.
To be honest, I rather pay some fee and own my own domain (and not bother your customers with ads in your site) than have somebody else's name in front of your domain. By the way, they allow you to own your own domain and to remove the ads from your site, but then you will have to pay a fee and it's not free anymore. I couldn't find in their site the pricing for owning your own domain and removing the ads.
This is what they say in their website:
"We pay for most costs through strategic advertisements placed on your website. We also offer a pay option for those who don't want advertisements on their site. The pay option also removes restrictions on certain aspects of the service."
To be honest, I rather pay some fee and own my own domain (and not bother your customers with ads in your site) than have somebody else's name in front of your domain. By the way, they allow you to own your own domain and to remove the ads from your site, but then you will have to pay a fee and it's not free anymore. I couldn't find in their site the pricing for owning your own domain and removing the ads.
This is what they say in their website:
"We pay for most costs through strategic advertisements placed on your website. We also offer a pay option for those who don't want advertisements on their site. The pay option also removes restrictions on certain aspects of the service."
USE A RESTAURANT WEBSITE BUILDING SERVICE WITH A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION
These could be the best solution for you if you don't want (or don't know how) to deal with the complexities of creating your own website.
There are companies specialized in providing business with very easy to use pre-configured modules and templates that you can use to build your restaurant website in no time. The beauty of this model is that they help you with the difficult part: creating and hosting the site and then you can easily edit and modify the content yourself whenever you want to change your menus, publish your newsletter or just announce a special event in the home page of your restaurant website.
There are companies specialized in providing business with very easy to use pre-configured modules and templates that you can use to build your restaurant website in no time. The beauty of this model is that they help you with the difficult part: creating and hosting the site and then you can easily edit and modify the content yourself whenever you want to change your menus, publish your newsletter or just announce a special event in the home page of your restaurant website.
Simple Web: The solution that I recommend is called SimplWeb. SimplWeb (short for Simple Web) is a service with a low monthly subscription. They give you a free month to try the service and after that you'll pay just $24.95 a month. For that low fee, they provide you with:
- Turnkey hosting on their servers.
- A sophisticated website powered by a powerful and open-source content management system (Joomla).
- Pre-configured content to get you live quickly.
- High quality templates to make your site look professional.
- Easy to use training materials on all aspects of your website.
- Lifetime upgrades when new features/extensions are added.
- Expert support and help forum.
HomeStead: Although less flexible than SimplWeb, it is also less expensive. You can try it free for one month and then after that you only pay a low $4.99 a month (and this includes registering your domain name!). They have over 2,000 templates, including many restaurant templates. You can totally customize the templates by adding your own logo, photos, etc.
They can also design your whole restaurant website if so you prefer. This is a very inexpensive and easy solution if you don't already have a website. Check them out.
They can also design your whole restaurant website if so you prefer. This is a very inexpensive and easy solution if you don't already have a website. Check them out.