How to Start a Restaurant Blog
Restaurant owners can boost business, introduce new dishes and win loyal customers by starting a restaurant blog for their business. Whether they've just opened or have been in business several years, owners might find it beneficial to start a blog. The blog should include as many photographs of signature dishes as possible as well as a comprehensive menu. The more specifics the blog offers, the more effective it will be for the restaurant's business. If the restaurant owner is not Web-savvy and does not want to hire out, using a blogging platform hosted on a major blogging website is recommended.
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Things You'll Need
- Digital copy of company logo
- Digital photographs of prepared dishes
- Graphics software, optional
- Scanner, optional
- Restaurant menu
Instructions
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Reserve the Web address of the restaurant blog. If you choose to host it on a major blogging platform, the address will look something like, "http://myrestaurant.bloggingplatform.com." If you purchase your own Web domain, you can install free blogging software on the domain to keep all traffic coming through your website alone. Thus, the address will look something like, "http://www.myrestaurantblog.com" or "http://www.myrestaurantblog.com/blog".
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Choose an appropriate theme for your blog. If you choose to host the blog yourself, you have more control over which page elements you can alter, remove or replace. In each case, you can always change the header of the page to bear your restaurant name and company logo.
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Add the digital copy of your company logo to the header of the blog. If you have graphics software, you can create a header from scratch and upload it to the blog.
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Create pages for the permanent aspects of your blog. The sidebar of the blog can contain permanent links to these pages, regardless of how many new posts you author on the blog. You can include a page about the restaurant's history, about the restaurant owners, which types of events your restaurant hosts, how to make reservations and, of course, a page that includes the restaurant address and phone number.
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Use the "upload media" commands within the blog post or blog page editors to upload digital photographs of your restaurant's dishes. You can resize the photographs to fit within the boundaries of the post if the photos are too large.
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Include the restaurant menu on a permanent page of the website. If you have a scanner, you can scan the restaurant menu and upload it as a PDF file to the blog. If not, you can retype the menu and create separate pages for the breakfast, lunch, dinner, beverage and dessert menus to make the menu load faster and be more readable.
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Update your blog regularly. No one wants to visit a restaurant blog and find the latest post was dated two years previous. If you add a new dish to the menu, write a post about it. If you're hosting a holiday special, include this in a new post as well. Posts don't have to be long; they need to give the reader an up-to-date status on your restaurant.
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Tips & Warnings
Allfoodbusiness.com suggests looking at other restaurant blogs for inspiration in your blog design and post ideas.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Restaurant image by René Schulz from Fotolia.com
