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I think high Yelp ratings do far more than any other web presence. A website with a menu is essential though, because when I Yelp a restaurant I always pull up the link to see what I can order. I think restaurant Facebook pages are frankly a waste of time and money, and a Twitter feed is not necessary unless you are a food truck to post locations and times.
Pictures of the food, what it actually looks like when you order it and it's brought to a customer. (not some dressed up version of it).
Pictures really do it for me though. If something looks good to me, it usually is. You can't have your customer smell it or taste it through media, but you can have them see it. When I buy cookbooks, I gravitate towards those with pictures and pick out recipes to make based on that. Some restaurants I know also post pictures of their dishes on their facebook / website and I find that super helpful in not only deciding to go there or not, but what dishes I want to try.
But above all else, ONLINE MENUS NEED TO HAVE PRICES. They are worthless to me, otherwise. And if I get there and the prices are not what was advertised on the menu on the website, or if the offerings are different, I'm probably not going to return. Keep your site up to date.
I don't need to have pictures of the food or even prices on the website. I just want to see if there's something that appeals to me and that will suit any dietary restrictions of others in our party.
Honestly I don't trust restaurant photos of their dishes on their own website, particularly Chinese restaurants. So often it looks phony and you just know your food's not going to look like that. So many people post photos of their food on Yelp--I'm liable to trust that more as it's more recent and not a marketing ploy.
Ditto what TabulaRasa said about PDF menus. Don't make us download those.
I don't need to have pictures of the food or even prices on the website. I just want to see if there's something that appeals to me and that will suit any dietary restrictions of others in our party.
^^^^ This. More important to me than pictures or prices is whether or not there is something I can eat that is more substantial than some lettuce on a plate. Descriptions of the entrees (if not obvious from the name) are really important to me. The chicken entree with the fancy name may sound good, but it's meaningless if I don't know that it's breaded and will make me ill.
I don't prefer menus that download as a PDF when I'm using a mobile device. I prefer if the menu can just be viewed onscreen without a download.
Most of the websites I've seen with a PDF menu also have the onscreen menu, with an optional link to the PDF.
I was just making the point that pictures of menus aren't helpful. They're usually blurry or poorly lit. If there's going to be an image of the menu, PDF is superior to photos.
If social media is your gastronomic guidestone you are in trouble.
I usually know what i want to eat and don't want/need a liberal hand steering me to a festive rainbow colored joint they highly recommend.
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