During the global coronavirus predicament, many food companies and restaurants have opted for take-out and delivery-only opportunities. To maintain business operations, they instigated the WooCommerce food ordering system so that customers can place orders from anywhere.
Setting up a WooCommerce food ordering classification and providing food delivery is cheaper and more bearable than managing any franchise or eatery., especially gourmet restaurants considering to shut down due to the coronavirus epidemic.
The most fabulous restaurant websites had come a long way from the days when only menu items and contact information were displayed. Its development evokes a sense of fashion in the restaurant and brings visual taste buds to customers, which they will experience during the visit. But if your competitor already has an attractive website, how do you stand out from the crowd? Simple – Get one or two free restaurant WordPress templates and setups.
Good to know: WordPress.org is a CMS system, while WordPress.com is a website builder. Confusing, isn’t it! Check out our article explaining the key differences for more info. In this article, we’ll be focusing exclusively on making a website using WordPress.org. You can create a unique style for your website by utilizing thousands of free and paid themes available for WordPress. Huge community available to support you. WordPress users can access help and support from one of the largest Open Source Open Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available. Your free website includes a subdomain (sitename.wordpress.com). You can register a new custom domain or transfer an existing one to your free site, but you’ll need a paid WordPress.com plan to use it as your site’s main address. Without a plan, your custom domain will simply redirect visitors to your free subdomain.
Luckily, WordPress has everything you need to build the perfect restaurant website. Not only are there many excellent restaurant WordPress themes to choose from, but there are also many plugins that exist to help improve the functionality of your website. By choosing the add-on that suits your needs, you can effectively spread the restaurant’s brand and fascinate more customers through the door.
This article will show you how to build your own custom WordPress-based restaurant website in WooCommerce through easy steps.
Before you start, put everything in context.
STEP #1 Purchase Your Restaurant Site Domain Name
First, you need to purchase a classy domain name that replicates the name of your cafe. If probable, choose the.COM extension because it is the most preferred extension, and by default, people will enter the extension while typing a business or search keywords in the address bar. If your desired name is taken, consider the word “restaurant” to the title.
Not all businesses that sell domain names (called domain registrars) are the matching. Some use strategies like hiding charges or peddling your information to earn extra money, which can have a long-term effect on your business.
Watch out for hidden fees.
As with any purchasing decision, the price can be an essential factor. Go ahead and buy a domain name at a very economical price. But don’t be tricked – some domain registrars bargain with profile-raising pricing at meager prices, but then they fleece a lot of charges in the agreement, lock it up, and charge higher renewal fees. In general, keep in mind that the registrar offering the lowest domain name price may have other unethical ways of earning money.
STEP #2 Hire Reliable WordPress Hosting Service
You also required a reliable server to host all the data files for your website and make them accessible for the online search. A decent clue is to read reviews of different hosting companies that support WordPress, and as you do your research, make sure your existing customers have a virtuous experience.
For testing, we chose the StartUp suite. Although for packages that are generally more optimized for WordPress, we recommend using the Bluehost plan. They are a bit more expensive but have other benefits as well, such as advanced caching (customized by SiteGround), staging, advanced wildcard SSL certificates, and free PCI compliance if you want to run an eCommerce store.
STEP #3 WordPress Installation Procedure
Start setting up your website. You need to install WordPress, configure the theme, and add the necessary WP plugins yourself. In any case, you need to build your restaurant website page and add your exclusive restaurant assets. Let’s dive into how to do this with three easy steps:
- Installing WordPress
The primary step is to connect WordPress. To do this, it is a prerequisite to sign in to cPanel using the host’s username and password. Then scroll down to the “Website Installer” or “One-Click Installer” section. Search for WordPress and select the “Install” button
enter your site name, username, and password, and then click the “install” button.
Once the installation is finished, you will see a message asking you to log into the WordPress dashboard. Browse the link and enter your login credentials.
- Installing Your New WordPress Theme
You’ll find the detailed setup in the WordPress dashboard; navigate to “Appearance”> “Themes”> “Add new. ” On the following screen, choose to upload a theme.
Installing a WordPress Restaurant theme
Click the button and select the zipped folder that holds the theme files. Click Upload. After the installation process is complete, click “Activate.”
- Install the Required Plugins
The last but not the least step is to initiate the necessary plugins. Click on the link that shows the Begin Installing Plugins.
Activating required WordPress plugins
On the loaded page, select all plugins and then click “Install” from the drop-down list.
Activate plugins
Now once all the plugins have been installed, it is time to set up your website.
STEP #4 Installing WooCommerce Plugin
It is recommended to start with a WooCommerce installation wizard with a WordPress default theme without any other eCommerce plugin. This will reduce the compatibility issues with WooCommerce throughout the process.
Adding A New WordPress Plugin
Now navigate to the WordPress dashboard for easy installation, find the plugin tab, and select ADD NEW.
You can search hundreds of plugins; just type Woocommerce in the search bar. Once you got the plugin, select and click INSTALL NOW.
Installing the WooCommerce plugin.
Once the installation is finished, click the ACTIVATION button to finalize the process; now, WooCommerce will shortly launch its configuration and restore your setup with the home setting. For this setting, you need to provide basic details about your store, such as store location, product type, categories, etc.
STEP #5 Other Required Plugins installation
- All in One SEO for WordPress
All in One SEO is one of the best choices for SEO plugins, particularly for WooCommerce stores. The idea is to jump straight to other SEO alternatives. After all, many preferred WordPress SEO plugins are available, but the all-in-one SEO pack is one of the most comprehensive SEO toolkits right now.
All in One SEO Pack has been downloaded over 30 million times and is actively installed on over a million WordPress sites. As the name suggests, this is an all-in-one SEO solution for users of all skill levels. But it hasn’t garnered as much courtesy as Yoast SEO. Have a look at the features it offers.
Main function:
- XML Sitemap support.
- Google Analytics and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP support).
- Integrate into the API with WooCommerce.
- Automatically generate meta tags.
- WordPress performance tweaks
You can also go for Yoast SEO Plugin.
- MonsterInsights – The Top Google Analytics Plugin
This plugin makes it very easy to set up and practice Google Analytics. Take the estimation out and provide factual data to business analysts to make conversant decisions and produce positive ROI.
i. Track Form Conversions
With the MonsterInsights form plugin’s help, you can trace all kinds of WordPress forms, including contact forms, signup, polls, surveys, lead generation. The plugin will automatically track form conversions and display a comprehensive report containing vital, relevant statistics based on each form’s performance. For example, you can view the total number of impressions, conversions, and conversion rates against the contact form.
ii. Ecommerce Tracking
In just a few clicks, you can check out how much revenue the store can make, along with conversion rates, number of transactions, and average order value. The plugin also displays your popular products, top conversion resources, purchase time, purchase sessions, and other statistics.
iii. User-Friendly Dashboard Reports
MonsterInsights can easily connect your website to Google Analytics, and it can also assist you with internal data insight.
Its dashboard report allows you to view Google Analytics without leaving the website. Each report is prudently designed so that users can quickly realize the insight and find actionable information to elevate their business.
STEP #6 Restaurant for WooCommerce Extension Installation
This plugin can turn a WooCommerce store into a fully functional food ordering system and present menus in an easy-to-use one-page restaurant ordering system so that customers can look, select and customize their preferred orders.
With Restaurant for WooCommerce, you can express your business name, logo, and portrayal of the menu. Use an exclusive shortcode to show restaurant menus and functions on any page or post on the WooCommerce website.
Prominent Features:
- Simple menu layout: display your menu in ascending or descending order;
- easily create restaurant menus; create online restaurant menus by transforming WooCommerce store pages to a complete restaurant page;
- Unlimited delivery choices – your Customers provide a variety of options (free shipping, express delivery, etc.) and related costs;
- Interactive mini shopping cart widget: The mini shopping cart widget extension displays your customer’s order summary. They can also rise or decrease the quantity of items in the shopping cart;
- show daily hours and restaurant status: the main menu will display as the restaurant status (open or closed) so your clients can order accordingly;
- Random Sorting and Products – Reorder the products and categories in the menu as needed. Use the drag-and-drop feature on the backend to bring your best-selling or recently released foods and categories to the top of the menu.
STEP #7 WordPress Template That Suits Your Needs
As mentioned earlier, many WordPress restaurant online themes are available, or you can utilize multipurpose themes. It is recommended that you use a niche theme, as this will make it easy to build a complete restaurant website easier. Different WordPress theme providers offer different themes with miscellaneous functions and designs at economical charges. You can choose from thousands of options but remember these three golden rules.
- Select a responsive theme, check how the design is displayed on your mobile device,
- Choose a flexible and customizable theme,
- A theme that is easy to use and implement
STEP #8 Create A Contact Us Page
The “Contact Us” page is an essential part of any website. This page will help your potential clients understand your cafe location and get in touch with you. On your contact page, you can place an address, map, and other contact information.
The “Contact Us” page should also include a form for customers to provide comments or suggestions. It is recommended to use GravityMore services to add a contact form in WordPress.
Besides, you can also customize contact forms with hundreds of options and add different social media icons and link your official social pages, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
STEP #9 Building Loyalty through Restaurant Gamification
Use gamification to build loyalty. This is one of the most collective examples of restaurant gamification: collecting points every time you shop or stamping your coffee card every time you buy coffee or any beverage.
The rule is that once you get five stamps, you will get free drinks. It’s called gamification because it’s like carrying out five levels and getting rewarded for it. These days, we have become bounty hunters for rewards and discounts.
If you’re ready to get started but want to know how to start the rewards program, visit myCred. This is a WordPress-based customer point management system and can help restaurants to create a glimpse of experience and ensure that visitors come back repeatedly. myCred can quickly build a loyalty program or gamify your restaurant website, which can intensify typical customer value with less marketing effort.
Check myCred’s membership Club offers here
STEP #10 Choose The Finest Payment Gateway For Your Restaurant
Finding a payment processor for an eatery is never easy. There are many options, prices vary widely, and terms of service are often challenging to interpret. If you already have an access to point of sale (POS) system and don’t want to upgrade, you need a processor to work with your existing system.
Square is an inclusive payment gateway or virtual terminal. It derives as an essential part of a bigger eCommerce solution. The versatility of Square is aligned to foster customer payment and omnichannel buying experience. Square’s core strategy is to collect payment through POS, credit cards, and smart payment devices.
To skip the transformational process and jump-start with digital payments. It would be best if you worked with a payment plugin like WP EasyPay, & WooSquare Plus, a well-known option that led your digital strategy and delivered instant customized square payment processing, leveraging sales, service, customization, and insights.
FINAL STEP: Maintaining Your Restaurant Site
Since you are the owner of the restaurant website, you need to keep it running. You have to take on two practical responsibilities when managing your website: updating WordPress and changing the content. The update is the simplest, and it only takes 5 minutes to complete. Whenever WordPress publishes an update, you will receive a notification in the WP admin panel. The same goes for all plugins that need to be updated.
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We all like to experiment with different types of content from time to time. Storytelling is one of them. It’s fun for us, the creators, and for our readers because storytelling is one of the most engaging content formats[1], especially if it’s visual. The good news is that Google Web Stories for WordPress gives you the chance to be a storyteller, too.
In this post, we’ll show you a step-by-step guide on how to integrate Google Web Stories with WordPress in order to create beautiful and catchy stories for your blog.
Let’s dive in!
What are web stories?
As a content creation option, “stories” caught popularity on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. They are visual posts, often seen as slideshows, that tell a short story or present something. A web story consists of images combined with animations, text, and various effects.
If you’re active on at least one popular social media network, you certainly are familiar with the Stories concept. You might have even created your own stories throughout the years.
With Google Web Stories for WordPress, you can create visual stories via your WordPress dashboard that you can embed in your blog posts. It’s a great addition for storytellers who love to communicate through more than just words.
How to create Google Web Stories for WordPress
Now that you know what Google Web Stories are, we’ll show you the complete tutorial on how to create and publish stories on your WordPress website.
1. Install Google Web Stories plugin
The first thing you need to do is to install the Web Stories plugin via your WordPress dashboard. The plugin is free.
Once you activate the plugin, you’ll see a new entry in your WordPress dashboard menu, called Stories.
Before creating your first story, go to Stories → Settings and configure the options that you need based on the goals you want to achieve with the web stories. You can set the Google Analytics tracking, custom logos, video optimization, and monetization.
2. Create your first story
To create a new story, go to Stories → Add New and, in front of you, you’ll see a black editor.
The editor has a simple interface that is easy to grasp:
- To the left, you have all the elements that you can feature in a story (mostly media elements and layouts).
- In the middle, you have the canvas where you need to drag and edit your elements.
- To the right, you’ll see a sidebar with the customization options for each element you add to the canvas and the document’s settings before publication.
In the Google Web Stories editor, you can upload your own media files, but you also have access to a large library of free images, videos, and GIFs that come with the plugin.
Another cool thing about Google Web Stories for WordPress is the pre-made layouts that you can use to quickly create interactive stories.
3. Add a background
To add a background to your story, you need to click on the white canvas and pick your favorite color from the right sidebar.
If you want your background to be completely filled by an image, you can either upload your own image or choose from the plugin’s photo library. You can do both via the left sidebar.
To make the image fill the entire canvas, click on Fill as in the screenshot below.
4. Add text
To add text to your story, you can click the T symbol in the left sidebar and pick a preset font and style. Once you click on it, the text element will show up over your background. The text preset styles are diverse and very useful if you’re out of creative ideas.
Create Wordpress Site On Ubuntu
To adjust the text, drag the corners of the text box (to make it smaller or bigger). To customize the color, font, opacity, position, and animation, click on the text and select your favorite styles from the right sidebar.
5. Add shapes and layouts
In addition to images and text, Google Web Stories for WordPress lets you make your stories even more engaging by offering a nice library of shapes and animated layouts that you can use if you don’t have the time to create a story from scratch.
You can browse through the beautiful pre-made templates, add them to your story pages, and customize the text and colors.
If your content requires it, you can also insert shapes that you can animate and customize.
6. Add multiple pages to your web story
Once you’re familiar with the editor’s elements and interface, it’s time to create multiple pages for your story. The plugin’s checklist prior to publication (which you can find in the right sidebar, at the top) actually recommends that your story has between four and 30 slides.
Right below the canvas, you have a few options to delete or duplicate the page you’re currently seeing, add a new page, redo/undo actions, and play the story.
You can add as many pages as you want by clicking on New Page and designing it just like you did with the first one. If you want to use the same layout on all pages, you can just duplicate the page and change the text/colors afterward.
How To Create A Free Website
If you don’t like the outcome of a page or you just changed your mind about its design, you can delete it and add another one in its place. To change the order of the pages in a story, drag and drop them as seen in this picture:
7. Publish the web story
When your story’s design is ready, there are still a few things to take care of before publishing.
Click on Document in the right sidebar and make sure to fill out all the suggested settings before publishing. It’s basically the same procedure you follow before publishing a WordPress blog post.
You can schedule the publication date for the story, upload the cover image and your logo (this could be your profile picture if you’re not posting the story on behalf of a company), write the story description, set its slug, make the story slideshow automatic or manual, and type the duration between slides.
The last step before publication is to consult the checklist that offers advice on the story overall and on each page alone. Some are high-priority indications, while others are just recommendations (they are up to you).
When every detail is ready, you can preview the story on different types of screens and publish it.
Where to use your Google Web Stories on WordPress?
![Create wordpress site without theme Create wordpress site without theme](/uploads/1/3/7/5/137541382/785404882.png)
![Site Site](/uploads/1/3/7/5/137541382/675624346.png)
You can insert a story anywhere on your website, be it a post or a page. Go to the post or page where you want to insert the story, add a new block, and select Web Stories.
Here, you have a few options: either display all the latest stories, make a selection of a few stories only, or enter the URL of a single story that you want to embed.
To get the URL of the story that you want to embed, go to Stories → My Stories on your WordPress dashboard. Next, click on the three dots next to the story’s name and then on Copy Story URL.
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Go back to the post and copy-paste the story URL to the Web Stories block, then embed.
If you want to showcase multiple stories, you have the option to choose from a few layouts:
- Box carousel
- Circle carousel
- Grid
- List
You can also use the web stories as widgets in your site’s footer or sidebar. Go to Appearance → Widgets on your WordPress dashboard and click on Web Stories → Add Widget.
In your theme’s widget area, you can select the order of the widgets with drag and drop and also customize the Web Stories widget by setting the layout, the number of stories, their order, and other options.
This is how a widget featuring web stories will look in the footer.
Conclusion on Google Web Stories for WordPress
If you’re a fan of storytelling, you will probably love to create web stories for your blog.
On the other hand, if you’re wondering why you should publish web stories on your site, we’ll give you a few reasons for that:
- They make your content engaging (you can combine images, animations, videos, shapes, fancy typography, and catchy layouts).
- You get to diversify your blog content.
- They are a good substitute for a post (when you don’t know what to write).
- You can monetize them via affiliate links.
- You can turn multiple stories into a beautiful storytelling article.
- They will be recognized by Google and will appear in the search results.
- Through the Google Analytics feature, you can learn more about the viewers of your stories.
- They look great on mobile (and load faster due to the AMP integration).
What do you think about sharing web stories on your website? Have you tried Google Web Stories for WordPress yet? Let us know in the comments section below.
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[1] https://www.quantified.ai/blog/storytelling-22-times-more-memorable