Top Features for Restaurant Discovery & Review Platform to Pick The Right Solution

You can call the trend of online customer reviews overrated but reviews websites are here to stay. With its amazing features, Online Restaurant discovery and review platforms have become one of the most popular business model of India.

As compared to traditional online restaurant discovery guides, review websites show the highest growth in recent past and has created a buzz for similar clone scripts. The success story behind such business model continues to inspire budding entrepreneurs in India. This detailed blog post listing features is for entrepreneurs who want to build online restaurant discovery platform by partnering with best web design development firm.

Differentiating Features of Online Restaurant Discovery Platform

1. Easy Search

Most of the listing websites do not give visitors interesting business search options. Websites like Zomato and FoodPanda however has made business search very simple. Any new startup can also make this possible with a well organized database optimized to give most relevant results for any query. The website can allows visitors to search for restaurants on the basis of:

• City and locality
• Business name
• Cuisine and dish
• Type of restaurant: dine in, take away, home delivery
• Visitor rating
• Cost of eating
• Popular searches

Website users can also get directions to the restaurant from their current location with the help of maps integrated within the system.

2.  Search Engine Optimized

Most of the traffic received by such platform is via search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. So, if you want to build a clone, build a search engine friendly platform that makes your portal appear for all relevant searches. Any platform can dominate searches for restaurants, nightclubs and food joints because of following points:

• Keyword optimized URLs with business name or category to make sense to the user as well as the search engines.

• Search engine friendly CMS to input all the information in the business listing
• Keyword optimized tags and data, for example, Sunday Brunch, Breakfast places, caterers.
• Organized website information architecture – All the content submitted by a restaurant owner is manually updated in the system so that the content is added in the most relevant categories and linked well to similar businesses.
• Regular updates of information – All the information is verified and updated at least once in 3 months
• Proper internal linking of the information so that every user browses multiple pages every time he visits.
• The website’s content has been optimized for keywords in multiple languages as the website is multi linguistic.

3. User Generated Content

User generated content brings credibility to a website. All other content is considered promotional and rarely helps in building trust. Not just gathering content but making it part of the main website database can differentiate the platform from a normal listing website or online directory. Here is how the content should be managed and presented to the users:

• Registered users can write reviews (at least 50 characters long to avoid spamming) to contribute to the community and bring more business to business owners.
• Strict automatic and manual moderation system to avoid spamming in the reviews section. Businesses and users will show interest in such a website only if spamming can be controlled. Else, it will be like any other online directory.
• Registered users can also upload supporting images with a review. These images then get integrated with the list of featured images of the business.
• Other users can leave comments on someone else’s review and uploaded images.
• Reviews are further categorized on the basis of date, rating and credibility
• Users can also suggest changes in business information updated post confirmation.
• Top restaurant listing on home page based on popularity with the users

To avoid creating large restaurant database and content for your clone, discuss the details of user generated content with your website design & development firm.

4. User engagement

The website should have inbuilt options that enhance user engagement, making it much more than just a reviews website. This would also help it become a community or social media platform where food enthusiasts interact on a regular basis. Here are some of the features required to be incorporated in system:

• • Any registered user start as a foodie, and further progresses to big foodie, super foodie, and finally, connoisseur, as they write more reviews and gain followers. This encourages users to participate more, and ensures that the effort of a user gets noticed.
  • City specific ‘Top Foodies’, ‘Leader Board’ depending on points earned, ‘Write for a bite contest’ where the best reviewer wins restaurant vouchers and ‘Hall of Fame’ listing based on their ranking, reviews and followers.
  • A company blog to share important information and engaging content with the website visitors.
  • The website should be dynamic and there must be extensive social media integration at every step to encourage the user to share information about businesses, reviews, photos and personal profiles on Facebook and Twitter. They can also invite their friends to join the platform.
  • The users can also have the option to share a profile through another website like their personal blog. This brings further traffic to the main website organically.
  • Option to follow other users and influencers to get regular updates about them automatically
  • Any updates in a user’s personal profile are notified to the user through the registered email address. The kind of notification that a user wishes to receive can be altered through the user profile dashboard settings.
  • Suggest other businesses based on the search preferences of similar users and location
  • Registered users can create a wish-list of the places they might wish to visit in future.
  • There is an option where a user can leave feedback for the website. This helps in troubleshooting and there is always scope of improving the platform based on the received feedback and suggestions.

5. Beneficial for Businesses

A food tech startup needs to undergo substantial growth in order to stay relevant. This will also help bring more business to the food industry. Any clone cannot even dream of growth by ignoring these benefits for business owners.

• A featured service page that carries all verified details and is completely free of cost. This information can include business name, location, contact details, map location, menu with pricing, photographs, received reviews and ratings, featured events, etc.
• Businesses can see reviews and promote them through other platforms to generate more business. They can also invite more reviews by promoting their profile.
• Business gets listed in relevant categories and is optimized for relevant searches.
• Business owners can promote special events and generate awareness to sell more tickets via website.
• The business has an option to respond to every review received about its business. This helps build a relationship between the reviewer and the business. This is especially beneficial to sort issues when a business receives a negative review.

6. Advertising Option for Businesses

Businesses can place a banner advertisement on the platform if they wish to. Usually, new businesses avail this option to get noticed amongst target audience. Established businesses also advertise to generate more sales.

• The advertisement can be shown according to the location preference of the local business.
• Business owners regularly get updates about the number of clicks from ad.
• Businesses are also updated about how many people actually go ahead and call them to place an order. The phone numbers and calls are recorded and can be heard anytime through the dashboard.
• Businesses can also enhance their business page for an additional cost. This prevents other businesses from advertising on their page. Instead the visitors see the Facebook news feed of the business in the profile.

Also Read: Website Features List to Launch Best Clone of Restaurant Review System

7.  Additional revenue sources

The demand of an online restaurant discovery and review system clone script has come up in the market because this business model has the capability to generate millions in profits every year and expand like wild fire. Below are few more money-making features;

• Selling city specific food guides to its visitors. For this, the platform can have a dedicated payment gateway.
• The restaurants, night clubs etc can promote their event tickets on the platform. The website can then diverts that traffic to 3^rd party sites and earns a commission on every sale.

The website need to scores big on user experience and visitor engagement. So, if you are planning to launch a clone, then, make sure that your team of website designers and developers cover that as well.

The online restaurant discovery guide also needs to have an impressive mobile application and attract huge amount of traffic from it. In case you want to know the best way to launch an online restaurant discovery and review system clone, fill this form to arrange a FREE consultation session with our online experts.

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