How to Build a Bakery Website

Owning a bakery isn’t easy. Promoting your bakery online should be. The first step to introducing your scrumptious baked goods to the online world is a website. Here, we’ll break down why you need a website and  how to build one with the help of some of the best bakery websites out there for inspiration. 

5 Reasons Why Your Bakery Needs a Website

Building a website may sound intimidating for first-timers. This is why a lot of people tell themselves that they don’t need one. The truth is, even if you make the best cupcakes in the world, you need a website.

1. Grow Your Audience

Everyone loves to say they support local businesses, but the marketing responsibility of owners is much higher than that of national chains. A website is a cost-effective way to show potential customers how cool you are. You know better than anyone how competitive the bakery business is. 

2. Expand Your Business

These days, if a business doesn't have a website it might as well not exist. 90% of diners do research online before they decide where they want to eat. If you don't have a website, that's a lot of people who are missing out on your delicious food.

3. Provide Information to Customers

A website makes it easy for customers to find information about your business in one place. Whether visitors want to look at the menu, see how late you're open, place an order, make a reservation, follow your social media profiles, or call the bakery, they should be able to do that based on the information on your website. Similarly, an announcements page can allow customers to find updates and news about your business in one centralized place.

4. Stand Out

Let the people know why they should choose your bakery over the hundreds of others that could be demanding their attention and use your website as a hub for all of your digital marketing efforts.

5. Lower Marketing Costs

A digital marketing strategy with a website as the hub is a budget-friendly approach to promoting your small business. Social media and search engine ads cost way less than billboards and TV commercials. Running social media accounts for your business is free. But they all have to lead back somewhere: a website. And a website can be built to match your budget with the features that matter to you. 

How to Create Your Bakery Website

Pick a Domain Name

A domain is the name of a website, including both the web address and the TLD. The right domain is an important part of marketing your business. The best domain name would be the name or your bakery with a keyword like the cuisine you sell or the city you're located in. Keep it short, memorable, and free of punctuation. Sav's world-class domain marketplace makes it easy with our wide selection and industry low prices. All domains purchased from Sav come with a free 30-day website builder trial, a free SSL certificate, mobile friendly optimization, SEO optimization, Google Analytics integration, and unlimited storage.

Select a Template

With our professionally designed, fully customizable templates, you don't need to know a thing about web design to make your site as mouth-watering as your food. No matter your tastes, you'll find a template to match. Just drag and drop until our beautiful AI feature is ready. Then you won't even have to do that. You'll just have to give the builder a description of what you want and it'll do it. 

Add Each Page

Home Page

The home page is the welcome mat to your website. Make a good first impression with clean, appealing visuals and your bakery’s name and tagline front and center.

Jillycakes makes a bold, fun fist impression with their homepage.

Menu

Having a full menu on your site and easy to find allows people to plan ahead. This is especially valuable for people with food allergies or any other dietary needs. It can also allow any menu item to serve as a search keyword, which would increase your search engine visibility.

Your menu page should be complete, easy to find, mobile-friendly, and visually appealing. Consider dividing it up by sections and including photos of popular items. 

SusieCakes splits their menu up into cakes, cupcakes, cookies and bars, and pies and puddings and includes sweet and whimsical photos. 

About Us

The About Us page is the place to tell your bakery's story. What makes it unique? What's your expertise? What values drive you and your business? Did you learn how to bake somewhere cool? A unique, personal narrative allows your site visitors to emotionally connect to your brand in a way that they can't connect with faceless corporations.

Brown Sugar Bakery's About Us features a bio that highlights the bakery's mission and accomplishments and photos of employees at work. 

Contact Page

Being easy to contact is essential to your bakery’s online presence. Make sure to include the following in a contact page or at the footer of your website.:

• your location
• mailing address
• business hours
• business phone number
• all relevant email addresses
• all social media links

It also might be a good idea to include a contact form so visitors can reach out to you by email without leaving the site. 

Bakery Nouveau includes contact information, links to related pages, and a simple contact form on their contact us page.

Reviews and Testimonials

Reviews make the service industry go 'round. It only makes sense to highlight yours. r. With a simple plugin, you can connect your website to Yelp. Including positive press coverage of your bakery is another great way to offer social proof of your food’s quality. 

Frequently Asked Questions

If your customers are asking the same questions over and over again, an FAQ page is a great way to cut down on the time and effort you spend on customer service. Some websites also call this a help center or a knowledge base.

To get started on this page, gather up the questions customers and potential customers ask you often. Especially if they aren’t already answered elsewhere on your website. It may be sparse at first, but that's all right. As more questions pour in, keep adding to the page.

Online Ordering

In the past two years, to-go orders have become the unexpected backbone of the food service industry. This is why a user-friendly online ordering system or online store can make a huge difference in your sales.

Milkbar offers both local delivery and nationwide shipping. 

Images

A photo gallery is a great way to sell your experience before the people visiting your site set foot inside. This is your chance to draw people in with photos of your most mouth-watering pastries, inside of the bakery, and your customers enjoying themselves. You could even offer a peek behind the scenes with some photos of the kitchen and the staff hard at work. All of these enticing visuals will get visitors' mouths watering. 

Ladycakes divides their photo gallery by cake category

Make it Accessible on Any Device

How many times have you been out and about, gotten hungry, and looked up "food near me" on your phone? Other people are going to do the same. That's why it's extra important for any bakery website to keep its mobile visitors in mind. All Sav websites include mobile-friendly design, but there are still a few things you can do to make your website fit well on a small screen.

• Use readable fonts
• Avoid large blocks of text
• Keep your design simple
• Optimize your images
• Space out links
• Avoid pop-ups

Build Your Online Presence

A good website and a good online presence go hand in hand. 

Social Media 

Active social media profiles are a low cost way for small businesses to advertise to the people who want to buy exactly what they're selling. Facebook and Instagram advertising algorithms are famously effective at targeting potential customers based on their interests. Twitter allows businesses to see the public's opinion of them and respond to customers' concerns. YouTube ads are great for a visual medium like food. 

Newsletter

A once a month email newsletter is a great way to engage with your most loyal customers. Include a sign-up form in your contact page. It’s also a good idea to invite customers to sign up when they place an order by offering them a discount or some other reward in exchange. 

Event Calendar

An event calendar is a great way to let your customers know about special events, when you’ll be closed for holidays, planned menu changes, or any other important dates. 

Search Engine Optimization

If you don't know what Search Optimization (SEO) is, it's the use of keywords to move your content further up the Google search results page. SEO allows small companies to stand a chance competing against big corporations despite the difference in funds and advertising reach.

It may seem tedious, but with the SEO features that come with many website builders, you don't have to be an expert to pull it off.

Blog

A branded blog, like the one you’re reading now, is a key part of any content marketing strategy. With a little Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy branded blog posts bring people to your website who might not have otherwise found it. 

Blog posts can also beef up your social media calendar and establish you as an authority in your field. Food-related businesses are especially blog-friendly because people love to read about food. 

Make it Pretty

Website design and visuals matter. The fonts, color palette, images, and buttons you choose go a long way in creating a great user experience. Standard, readable fonts are essential for functionality and mobile-friendly optimization. Using bold colors with high contrast will make your website look and function great. Images can communicate things that words can’t. The size, shape, and color of CTA buttons can affect how likely visitors are to click through.

Add an SSL Certificate

An SSL Certificate provides an extra layer of security to your site. It is highly recommended for any site that collects information from customers and search engine algorithms prioritize sites that have it. And, of course, the certificate prevents that embarrassing "not secure" warning from popping up next to the URL. That's why all domains registered with Sav come with free SSL.

Test the Website

The final step for creating a website is to test it. How does it look on desktop and mobile? Do all the links work? Can a user easily place an order and contact the business? Have someone else who wasn’t involved in building the website test it out to make sure. 

How Sav Can Build Your Bakery Website

Sav’s straightforward pricing and user-friendly interface, make it easy to choose a website builder plan that meets your needs and budget. Your business will grow in ways you never imagined in no time. What are you waiting for? Start building your website today!