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I like the idea of a website builder for restaurants because the majority of their websites suck - they're either flash OR they want you to download a PDF. Howe

I like the idea of a website builder for restaurants because the majority of their websites suck - they're either flash OR they want you to download a PDF. However, there are a lot of competitors in this space such as: http://www.happytables.com/ http://www.happytables.com/ - who are using a Wordpress Backend which I'm pointing out because http://en.wordpress.com/restaurants/ http://en.wordpress.com/restaurants/ - Wordpress are offering designs for Restaurants as well http://www.letseat.at/ http://www.letseat.at/ http://www.bistrosquare.com/ http://www.bistrosquare.com/ http://www.restaurantors.com/ http://www.restaurantors.com/ However, I noticed that you actually launched on HN, 192 days ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4483473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4483473 - which I'm assuming didn't give you a massive uptick in the signups that you wanted which is why I have a few suggestions: First of all your website is a little bare, I would add more content etc onto the site, with additional pages etc. Likewise, I'd also make it clearer that you can click on the tablet etc to view the demo restaurant websites as well. Have a look at your rivals (some of who I mentioned above) and you can see that they all have a considerable amount of content on their websites which encourage non-technical users (the ones with 100 toolbars on their browsers) to trust them more than you. Likewise, you don't really have what I call an “Effective SEO” plan in place so you should start to get this going as quickly as possible - some of your rivals have been covered by high authority websites as well meaning, you need to get this started ASAP. The “Effective SEO” plan goes back to the earlier point about lack of content on your website as well, which is something you definitely need to add. Once you have done that you need to focus on the following: - Advertising & Partnerships With Sites In Your Niche - Off-line Marketing (inc. word of mouth & traditional ads) - Bloggers & Other Webmasters Within AND Outside Your Niche - Online Communities e.g. Relevant Forums etc - Social Media Channels - Twitter, YouTube etc - Capture Future Leads (Newsletter Subscribers etc) - Effective Site Branding

pfui 14y ago
Would you happen to know any such sites for NGOs?
- itsprofitbaron 14y ago
  It depends on the niche as NGO's still provides a large scope. For instance if your NGO's is a non-profit I would immediately go to: http://www.google.com/grants/ http://www.google.com/grants/ and apply for the $10,000 per month Adwords Grant. After that I would start by reaching out to sites listed in: http://nonprofit.alltop.com/ http://nonprofit.alltop.com/ and http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/05/08/the-worlds-best-non-profit-blogs/ http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/05/08/the-worlds-best-non... I would reach out to them with the intention of getting a post written about the non-profit in them and/or offer them a guest post to post on their websites.
- cowholio4 14y ago
  I am currently, working on something that does that. We have a couple clients now and we do the full website that includes Donations, Photos, etc. We are trying to avoid the hackernews traffic right now as we improve our product for our current customers. You can PM me on twitter for more info. https://twitter.com/cowholio4 https://twitter.com/cowholio4
noeltock 14y ago
Thanks for highlighting our product happytables, you're bang on with a lot of comments relating to SEO. We'd be doing a disservice to small businesses if all we did was give them the tools to create a website (as opposed to also helping them grow their business). I'll try to get a post together in the next few days summarizing our latest iteration and lessons learned. Cheers, Noel
sktrdie 14y ago
Thanks and I gotta say, all that competition wears me out a bit. But I think you're right, I need to look for a better niche. Maybe minimalism and cheapness can be my target audience? :-) By the way, my email server was going crazy so I disabled it for now and activated all accounts by default, so you should be able to register fine if you were having problems earlier!
aoetr 14y ago
So this thing is 192 days old? Seriously? Did the guy go surfing for those 6 months or what? I mean, this thing lacks utterly basic features like the ability to buy your own domain, the ability to show a photo gallery of your restaurant, and some actual customizations so your site doesn't look like all the others. The site is really cool for a proof of concept, not a relatively mature site.

pfui 14y ago

Would you happen to know any such sites for NGOs?

itsprofitbaron 14y ago
It depends on the niche as NGO's still provides a large scope. For instance if your NGO's is a non-profit I would immediately go to: http://www.google.com/grants/ http://www.google.com/grants/ and apply for the $10,000 per month Adwords Grant. After that I would start by reaching out to sites listed in: http://nonprofit.alltop.com/ http://nonprofit.alltop.com/ and http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/05/08/the-worlds-best-non-profit-blogs/ http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/05/08/the-worlds-best-non... I would reach out to them with the intention of getting a post written about the non-profit in them and/or offer them a guest post to post on their websites.
cowholio4 14y ago
I am currently, working on something that does that. We have a couple clients now and we do the full website that includes Donations, Photos, etc. We are trying to avoid the hackernews traffic right now as we improve our product for our current customers. You can PM me on twitter for more info. https://twitter.com/cowholio4 https://twitter.com/cowholio4

noeltock 14y ago

Thanks for highlighting our product happytables, you're bang on with a lot of comments relating to SEO. We'd be doing a disservice to small businesses if all we did was give them the tools to create a website (as opposed to also helping them grow their business). I'll try to get a post together in the next few days summarizing our latest iteration and lessons learned. Cheers, Noel

sktrdie 14y ago

Thanks and I gotta say, all that competition wears me out a bit. But I think you're right, I need to look for a better niche. Maybe minimalism and cheapness can be my target audience? :-) By the way, my email server was going crazy so I disabled it for now and activated all accounts by default, so you should be able to register fine if you were having problems earlier!

aoetr 14y ago

So this thing is 192 days old? Seriously? Did the guy go surfing for those 6 months or what? I mean, this thing lacks utterly basic features like the ability to buy your own domain, the ability to show a photo gallery of your restaurant, and some actual customizations so your site doesn't look like all the others. The site is really cool for a proof of concept, not a relatively mature site.