Our new website and marketing strategies for this local restaurant have helped the business grow rapidly and build brand awareness.

Amie Lee, co-owner and manager of Naturally Chinese Restaurant, was looking to raise to profile of her Chinese restaurant. With a menu that uses fresh natural ingredients and seasonings and no MSG, a wide range of gluten-free options (it is the first Chinese restaurant accredited by Coeliac UK), and an extensive wine list, the restaurant’s cuisine is more fine dining than Chinese takeaway — the challenge was communicating that.

The first twelve months saw website visitor numbers rise by an average of 83% per month

We were asked to provide a new website and marketing strategies. Our new website organised the information in a more intuitive manner than the previous site, and featured large images of signature dishes to give a sense of the quality of the food. We reworked the company logo slightly and created a new colour palette to add a touch more sophistication to the brand. We also created new food photography to show off the dishes, and produced a video for the homepage. The video was intended to give an impression of the dining experience, so we focused on showing the use of fresh ingredients, the drama of the kitchen, and projecting a sense of the warm & inviting atmosphere — to communicate that it is a place to both enjoy a meal with friends or a quiet dinner for two.

A key goal was to drive more traffic and bookings to the website so as to reduce the commission being paid to third-party booking sites, so we introduced a booking system, and also mapped out some marketing strategies to encourage more visitors to the site.

Our strategy involved the introduction of a blog which would allow Amie to inform people about new menu items, seasonal offers and special events, whilst also improving search performance. Blog content includes posts about recipes, and is regularly tailored to major calendar events such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Chinese New Year. In turn that content supports a newsletter which is issued monthly, and features links back to blog posts and seasonally orientated special offers.

The newsletter subscriber numbers have now risen from around 170 to over 700

In the first twelve months of the new website monthly visitor numbers have risen by an average of 83%, with some months seeing an increase of 173% on the previous year. Both organic search and referral traffic has seen a sizeable increase, with 67 of the top 100 landing pages being blog posts, events listings, or blog related (e.g. tag archives). The email newsletter list has seen subscriber numbers rise from just over 170 when the project began to over 700. The end result has been a marked rise in bookings and a significantly more profitable business. The website and marketing strategies have been so successful that Amie is now investing in increased blogging and other marketing activity.