Most restaurant owners don't know how many table bookings their website creates in a month. They know it's out there, nice enough, with a photo and a menu in a PDF. Whether it works for them, nobody has checked.

I've done redesigns of more than twenty Danish restaurant websites over the past year. Here's what's usually wrong, and what makes a site start filling tables.

Your website isn't a brochure

It's a salesperson working 24 hours a day without wages. The problem is that most people treat it as a digital business card. It shows up in the same mistakes almost every time:

  • The menu sits in a PDF that's impossible to read on mobile
  • The booking button is hidden three clicks away
  • The opening hours are wrong or contradict themselves
  • The site loads slowly because the images were never compressed
  • There isn't a single word about what makes this particular restaurant worth visiting

At a café in Aalborg the homepage loaded in between 10.7 and 11.8 seconds. If a page takes more than three seconds on mobile, the guest is already gone.

The menu has to be readable, not just present

Drop the PDF. At a French bistro both menus were locked in PDFs, and the homepage had 1,274 characters of text in total. When I put the menus out as plain text, the indexable text went to over 10,000 characters. Google went from having almost nothing to read to understanding what the restaurant serves.

At a restaurant in Aalborg the menu was 11 screenshots. The entire site's indexable text was 226 words. Two of the screenshots were cut off, so dishes were missing prices.

Table booking has to be visible immediately

Not in the footer, not in a submenu. A large, clear "Book a table" button at the top of every page often does more for conversion than any other single element.

And check where the button actually rings. At a restaurant in northern Denmark the site's only phone link pointed to the number for a sister restaurant. Every "call" tap went to the wrong place.

Opening hours and address have to be crystal clear

At a Mexican restaurant there were three different Friday closing times across the restaurant's own pages. At a French bistro the hours weren't on the site at all. A wrong number is worse than none, because the guest drives out for nothing and writes a review about it.

While you're there: check the homepage for old text. At a French bistro it still said "We open on 3 June!" in 2026.

Content: the words that make a guest choose you

A website without good words is like a menu without descriptions. Good copy does three things: it builds trust so the guest dares to book, it separates you from the ten other restaurants nearby, and it supports SEO without sounding like a machine.

It doesn't need to be long. Three honest sentences about why people should choose you tonight beat twenty dull ones.

SEO for restaurants: how people find you when they're hungry

People don't google "restaurant". They google "Italian restaurant Aarhus city centre" or "brunch near me". To rank locally you need:

  • An up-to-date Google Business profile that matches the website
  • Local keywords sitting naturally in the copy
  • Reviews, which you ask guests for while they're still at the table
  • A page that loads fast, on mobile too
  • Restaurant schema and FAQPage schema, so Google and AI models can read your data

At a restaurant in northern Denmark the SEO score went from 31 to 98 by fixing that sort of thing, not by making a new logo.

What I don't promise

I don't promise a first place on Google or a specific number of extra bookings. Nobody can. I remove what's actively holding you back, and build the site so it has a chance.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a good restaurant website cost?

My price for a one-pager built to convert starts at 450 USD, because I use them to build my portfolio. Cheaper solutions usually lack the elements that actually create bookings.

Should I be able to update my restaurant website myself?

Yes. The menu changes, prices rise, seasonal dishes come and go. Choose a solution where you can easily edit the text yourself.

How long does it take to build a restaurant website?

A one-pager can be ready in a couple of weeks. A larger process with custom copy and booking takes four to eight weeks.

Should my restaurant website have online takeaway ordering?

If you sell takeaway today, yes. Otherwise you lose orders to the competitor next door who already has the feature.

How do I get more reviews for my restaurant online?

Ask directly, right after a good meal, while the guest is still happy and full. A small sign with a QR code by the till works surprisingly well.

Finally

I don't do brand awareness. I do revenue, rankings and websites that sell. Go to your own site from your phone now, and book a table as a stranger would. Did it take too long? Then you know where to start.