Concepts for Success: Essential elements

Planning a new website design for a small bakery can be daunting. There are many elements besides designing a beautiful, professional, secure and customer-friendly site. Above all, you have to make sure it matches the look and feel of your overall brand. Your domain name (URL) should just include your bakery company name; keep it simple.

I always recommend the .com domain to my clients as customers usually type that extension when they enter a web address. I also suggest avoiding dashes and numbers, which more than likely will confuse your customers. Here are a few more handy tips.

Be mobile friendly
Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t just good practice – it’s a prerequisite. A few years ago, mobile overtook desktop as the primary device for people searching the internet. Your site design needs to be mobile responsive and optimized for basically anything with an internet connection, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops.

The Essential elements
Home page: You should have a clean, concise and short-to-the-point home page. Don’t make it content heavy, as less than 30 per cent of visitors actually read home page content. This is your “pitch sales” page and should give a brief overview of who you are and what you do, a brief description of your products and services, and what they can find on your site.

About page:Your potential customers may want to learn a bit more about who you are and also know something about the people who are behind your company. Give your site a personal touch by including not only your profile and background but also a profile and a picture of every staff member who works at your bakery. Tell them how you got started, how long you have been baking, and what your favourite baking products are. Your customers will connect best with you when they can relate to your story. Break things down into short paragraphs, use bullet points, and highlight important words or phrases.

Menu page: It’s no surprise that a site like Pinterest is so successful. Consumers can quickly scroll through hundreds of beautiful food images. Through great photography, visitors to your site should be able to figure out right away what your bakery does. If you can afford it, use a professional photographer or take an online video course on how to take excellent food photos. Pictures coming from the latest smartphones are pretty amazing. This is where you want to show off your cakes, cookies, cupcakes, pies, wedding cakes, etc. You need to post high quality photos of your bakery products and short descriptions on your site in order to delight and tantalize potential clients. In the end, simplicity, basic colours and elegance are your best bet. When making your pictures, save them as “web” sized but at the highest quality you can. Your website will load a lot faster and you will make happy customers.

Testimonials/Reviews page: Positive comments from others will make your products or services more tangible to potential customers who are visiting you site for the first time. Include testimonials from your current customers to show that you are a trustworthy and reliable bakery shop.

Where possible, include a sentence or two with photos and the name of the customer as this will add authenticity to each testimonial. Just remember that people love to hear stories from real people.

Contact page: Let your clientele know exactly how to reach you. Include your complete physical mailing address, including postal code and city. You should also include your phone number, email address, any social media links like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc., and your bakery business hours.

Photo gallery
If you are not going to sell your bakery products online, you may still wish to showcase your products or services in a special photo montage gallery. This can be as simple as a series of photos of your best cakes and pastries as well as your staff training certificates, photos of your professional baking team at work, and some media articles and photos.

I hope this information has provided some handy tips of important assets you need to include to ensure your bakery’s new web design showcases the business
best.

Diane Chiasson, FCSI, president of Chiasson Consultants Inc., has been helping foodservice, hospitality and retail operators increase sales for over 30 years. She is recognized as the industry leader in providing innovative and revenue-increasing foodservice and retail merchandising programs, interior design, branding, menu engineering, marketing and promotional campaigns, and much more. Contact her at 416-926-1338, toll-free at 1-888-926-6655 or chiasson@chiassonconsultants.com, or visit www.chiassonconsultants.com