Restaurant Website Checklist: 12 Things It Needs

By the Webbit team · Updated September 28, 2026

A restaurant website has four jobs: show the menu, take the order, tell people where and when you're open, and make the food look as good as it tastes. These 12 things decide whether it does those jobs. Each one comes with a quick check you can run on your own phone.

Google can index PDF files, so a PDF menu isn't invisible. But a menu written as a web page reads better on a phone, can link to each dish, is quicker to update, and can be the menu address you give Google in your profile and in your structured data.

Check it: open your menu on your phone. Can you read the prices without zooming in?

An order button at the top of every page

The order button is the most important link on the site. Put it in the first screen of every page, and make it open your menu, not a list of apps.

Check it: count the taps from your homepage to a dish in the cart.

Pickup and delivery, stated plainly

Say what you offer, where you deliver and when. A guest shouldn't have to start an order to find out you don't deliver to their street.

Check it: could a new guest tell within a few seconds whether you deliver to them?

Address, hours and contact details that match Google

Your site and your Google Business Profile should agree, down to holiday hours. Google asks restaurants to list the hours when diners can sit down and eat, or takeout hours if there's no dine-in, and its local ranking tips include keeping special hours up to date. Our guide to showing up on Google Maps covers the rest of the profile.

Check it: put your site and your Google profile side by side and compare every line.

Your real name, written the same everywhere

Google's guidelines say your business name should reflect the real-world name you use on your storefront, website and stationery. Use that exact name on the site, in the page title and on your socials, without a slogan or a city added on.

Check it: search your name. Does every result spell it the same way?

Real photos of your own dishes

Stock photos show someone else's food. Use photos of the dishes on your menu today, taken in good light, with a short description of what's on the plate.

Check it: is every photo on the site a dish you still serve?

Built for phones first

Google says it uses the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking, and asks that the mobile site carry the same content as the desktop one. If the full menu, the hours or the order button only show up on a computer, Google and your guests both miss them.

Check it: open the site on your phone and on a laptop. Is anything missing on the phone?

Fast, by Google's measure

Google's Core Web Vitals set the targets for a good experience: the main content loads within 2.5 seconds, the page responds to a tap in under 200 milliseconds, and the layout scores under 0.1 for shifting while it loads. Google says good Core Web Vitals align with what its core ranking systems "seek to reward".

Check it: run your homepage through Google's PageSpeed Insights, which reports on both mobile and desktop.

Restaurant structured data, with nothing made up

Structured data is code that tells Google what a page is about. For a restaurant, Google requires a name and an address, and recommends details such as the menu address, opening hours, price range and cuisine. Google doesn't guarantee that these features will show up in search, but the markup is a small job to add.

Don't mark up star ratings you control. Google says that when a business controls the reviews about itself, its pages are not eligible for review stars.

Check it: paste a page into Google's Rich Results Test and see what it finds.

Your own domain

Use yourrestaurant.com, not a page on a platform's domain. Google's Business Profile guidelines ask for a website that represents your individual location, and your own domain keeps the links and search traffic you earn.

Check it: does the address bar show your restaurant's name?

Your story, in a few lines

Who cooks, what you're known for, what brings people back. Keep it short, near the top, and in your own words. It's what makes you a place and not just a listing.

Check it: after reading it, could a stranger say what's different about you?

A reason to come back

A first order is only the start. Offer a text or email sign-up at checkout and a simple reward for repeat orders, so the next order comes to your site and not an app. Our guide to getting more direct orders covers what to send.

Check it: after a guest's first order, what brings them back?

Build it yourself, or have it built

A do-it-yourself builder hands you a template. Then the work is yours: the copy, the photos, the menu, the ordering setup, the structured data and every update after launch.

Webbit works the other way round. Our AI reads your menu, photos and hours, then designs the site around them, in four steps. We pull your menu, photos, hours and links, and read whatever site you have now. We design one page built on your brand. Ordering goes live, and orders come to you. Then menu changes and fixes are part of the plan, and on Growth, so are SEO and campaigns. Here is how it works.

For a picture of the result, Bruno's Pizza, the made-up restaurant in our demos, opens with "Wood-fired pizza, made to order." and an order button at the top, with the Margherita at $18, the Pepperoni at $21 and garlic knots at $9 on the menu.

Common questions

Is a PDF menu bad for Google?

It isn't invisible, because Google can index PDFs. A menu written as a web page is simply easier to read on a phone, easier to keep current and easier to link to from your Google profile.

Do I need an app?

Not to take orders. A fast mobile website takes orders with nothing to download. An app is worth a look later, once guests order often enough to install one.

How fast is fast enough?

Google's targets for a good experience are the main content loaded within 2.5 seconds, a response to taps in under 200 milliseconds and a layout shift score under 0.1.