According to a recent article from Restaurant Hospitality, 30% of all traffic to your website comes from a mobile device.  In reality, that figure may be a lot higher, but 30% is still significant.  Here are some dos and don'ts for promoting your restaurant to mobile visitors and customers:

1. Create a mobile-friendly website.  Pssst... NetWaiter automatically creates a mobile site for your restaurant.  It's easy to use and folks love it, but it’s also a good idea to have a mobile friendly version of your existing homepage.  Provide customers easy navigation and show your critical information.

2. List your mobile site on sites such as Yelp, Urbanspoon, and Foursquare.  Your regulars may know where to find you, but others may be looking up your restaurant on their mobile device using one of these sites.

3. Keep it simple.  People care more about ease-of-use and functionality when it comes to mobile websites.  They just want them to work - so forget fancy graphics that take forever to load.  Keep it simple and easy to navigate.  Note: A mobile NetWaiter site is fast and easy to navigate.  

4. Make it easy for customers to find you.  Use a QR code on all your signage and spread the word that you have a mobile site and mobile ordering.

With more than 90 million internet-accessible Smartphones in the United States, mobile ordering and accessibility is something you don't want to miss!

This month, we wanted to highlight some NetWaiter tools available to restaurant owners. 

NetWaiter Social Widget – About a year ago, we unveiled the NetWaiter social widget.  If enabled, this field appears on the front page of a NetWaiter site, allowing restaurants to post announcements, updates, or promotions.  You can advertise the soup-of-the-day, a special on a popular appetizer, or some other message that lets your customers know what’s going on at your restaurant.  Customers can also use it to interact with your restaurant, leave comments, or giving a ‘thumbs-up’ to one of your posts.  Of course, as owner, you have control over what messages are displayed and can edit posts in the NetWaiter Management Console.

Hide / Show Functionality - Many restaurants have special dishes or items with limited quantities.  “Homemade Lasagna” is a good example.  If your restaurant were to run out of Lasagna, or any other dish, you can simply ‘Hide’ the item in your Management Console to temporarily make it disappear from your online menu.  When it becomes available again, simply ‘Show’ the item.  This prevents the need to delete and re-add items, and also keeps hidden items in the same position on your menu.

Variable Prep Times – NetWaiter just released a new feature that allows restaurants the ability to configure Prep Times based on the time and day of the week.  The normal "Default Prep Time" allows restaurants to indicate when an order could be made immediately available (i.e. 15 mins).  During rush periods, however, it may take longer for meals to be prepared.  This feature lets restaurants configure different Prep Times based on the day and time.  Is Friday at 6:00pm busy for your restaurant?  Solution: set your Prep Time to 25 minutes, rather than your normal 15 minutes.