Speaking to BigHospitality at Restaurant magazine's Digital Innovation Forum, Sutton explained that users should be able to interact with a mobile website in the same way that they would on their PC web browser.
“On mobile websites and apps my key piece of advice is don’t think of them as any different to your desktop computer in the sense that anything you can do on desktop you should be able to do on mobile,” she said.
“There’s no point now in saying that you’ll just have something on desktop or you’ll just have something on mobile. People expect to be able to do something the same on desktop and on mobile so that’s including more detailed information; that would be my top tip.”
Both mobile and desktop websites should contain the same information to ensure the customer can always find what they need.
Sutton said: “Vital information on a website for restaurants in particular includes answering basic questions such as menus, prices, location, business directions, opening hours, reviews, and discounts that you are offering.
“I would definitely recommend everyone to make sure they have claimed their business location and put all of the information on there.”
As for what restaurants should put on their menus, she says that Google has a tool that can track what is currently popular.
“One of the tools I would suggest using in terms of finding ingredients to put in your menus is Google Trends,” she said.
“It enables people to look up what people have been searching for, so you can look into the food and drink category and look at rising groceries and ingredients. If you’ve got a hunch that something might be popular then put it into Google trends and see how many people are searching for it.”