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Checklist 2026: How to Audit Your Restaurant Website in 30 Minutes (35 Points)

By Pablo Bouzon · 6 May 2026 ·9 min read
Checklist 2026: How to Audit Your Restaurant Website in 30 Minutes (35 Points)

Most restaurants with a website think it’s working fine. When we audit them, the pattern repeats: they’re losing 30–50% of potential bookings to errors that could be fixed in an afternoon. This guide gives you the exact checklist to see, in 30 minutes with free tools, where your bookings are leaking away.

You don’t need to be technical. You do need a stopwatch and a real 4G phone (not fibre Wi-Fi), because almost everything your actual customers experience happens on a connection slower than you think.

Block 1 · Performance (5 points · 5 minutes)

  1. Run the homepage through PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev). A mobile score below 70 = a problem. Note down the LCP (Largest Contentful Paint).
  2. LCP > 2.5s on mobile = you’re losing ~25% of visitors, according to Google’s own public data. Most restaurant websites built on generic templates sit at 4–6s.
  3. Images in WebP/AVIF, not uncompressed JPG/PNG. Right-click your main photo → “Inspect” → check the URL: if it ends in .jpg with no ?fm=webp parameters or srcset, it isn’t optimised.
  4. No Google Fonts blocking render. If your website loads fonts.googleapis.com, it slows down First Contentful Paint. Professional websites self-host fonts (@fontsource/* or a similar mechanism).
  5. CDN in front of the origin. Free Cloudflare covers 80% of cases. Without a CDN, visitors from another city load 1–2s slower. Check with whatsmydns.net: if your IP is always the same from multiple locations, you’re not on a CDN.

Block 2 · Technical SEO (5 points · 5 minutes)

  1. Unique title and meta description per page. Press Ctrl+U on each main URL. If you see “Home – Restaurant” on all of them, your SEO is broken.
  2. Accessible sitemap.xml at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml and declared in robots.txt. Submit it in Google Search Console (free).
  3. Correct canonical. Every page should have a single <link rel="canonical"> pointing to itself. SaaS templates often point everything to the homepage — a serious error that kills the SEO of internal pages.
  4. HTTPS with no mixed content. Check the browser padlock. If it’s broken, some images or scripts are loading over http://. You lose ranking for it.
  5. Schema.org LocalBusiness with complete NAP. Paste your URL into search.google.com/test/rich-results. If “LocalBusiness” or “Restaurant” doesn’t show up as a detected item, search engines don’t understand what your business is.

Block 3 · Local SEO & Google Business Profile (5 points · 3 minutes)

  1. Verified Google Business Profile listing. Without a verified listing, you don’t appear on the local map — the single most important digital asset for a restaurant. Full guide in Google Business Profile for restaurants.
  2. Identical NAP across your website, GBP and directories (PáginasAmarillas, TripAdvisor, El Tenedor). A single comma out of place already breaks the consistency Google looks for.
  3. The “Book” button on GBP points to your own system, not TheFork. This avoids paying commission on customers who already searched for your name directly. Comparison of options in TheFork alternatives.
  4. Correct hreflang if you have ES + EN versions. The <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x"> tag must be present on both versions and correctly point to the other.
  5. A geo-targeted page (not just the homepage). If your website doesn’t have a page optimised for “restaurants in [your neighbourhood/city]”, competitors with local SEO will outrank you. See the pattern across our 17 city pages, e.g. restaurant web design Madrid and similar.

Block 4 · Conversion and bookings (5 points · 5 minutes)

  1. Clickable phone number in the header, not buried in the footer. Click-to-call doubles calls on mobile.
  2. WhatsApp Business with a wa.me/<your-number> link. 70% of Spanish restaurants still don’t use it properly. Quick template: “Hi, I’d like to book a table for X people on Y at Z”.
  3. Booking system built into your own website, not an external link. Every jump to another domain costs ~30% conversion. If you’re paying commission per booking, see the CoverManager vs TheFork comparison and moving off TheFork without losing customers.
  4. Menu visible without scrolling on the homepage. If a visitor can’t see “Menu” / “Carta” in the first 600px, you’ve lost them. The menu is the most visited page (45–60% of internal traffic).
  5. Clear primary CTA (a single highlighted button per page: “Book a table”, “Order online”, “Call now”). Three different CTAs on the homepage compete with each other and drag down overall conversion.

Block 5 · Hospitality-specific (10 points · 7 minutes)

  1. Multilingual menu if your area gets tourism (ES/EN at minimum, +DE/FR depending on your market). Not browser auto-translation — real text in HTML so search engines can index it.
  2. Allergen labels visible per dish. Spanish regulation RD 126/2015 requires it. A separate tab or an icon next to the dish name.
  3. Commission-free online ordering, as an option. If you’re going to sell your own takeaway or delivery, avoid paying 25–35% to Glovo/Uber Eats. Comparison in Glovo alternatives.
  4. Optional deposit via Stripe for large-table bookings, private events or critical dates (Christmas Eve, Valentine’s Day). Cuts no-shows by 60–80%.
  5. Clear walk-in vs booking distinction in the main button. Restaurants with both a bar and tables need separate flows.
  6. Cancellation policy visible before confirming the booking. Reduces disputes with customers and negative reviews along the lines of “they wouldn’t let me cancel”.
  7. A photo of every signature dish (not generic stock imagery). Websites with their own photography convert 2x better than those using Unsplash.
  8. Up-to-date opening hours on the website + GBP. If your template still shows “covid” hours or hours from two years ago, that’s a lost customer. Seasonal changes should be updated the same day.
  9. Push notification opt-in in the management app so the team gets the booking instantly. Without this, online bookings arrive by email and small spikes get missed.
  10. A page per venue if you have more than one. A single page listing three addresses generates zero local SEO and confuses Google. Each venue = a separate URL with its own LocalBusiness schema.

Block 6 · Legal and accessibility (5 points · 5 minutes)

  1. Legal notice, privacy policy and cookie policy accessible from the footer. LSSICE fines for not having them: €30,000–150,000.
  2. Cookie banner where rejecting is as easy as accepting (GDPR + AEPD 2024). If “Accept” is a big green button and “Reject” is a grey link, the AEPD considers it non-compliant.
  3. Form with an explicit privacy checkbox (not pre-ticked) and a link to the policy. Without this, every lead you collect is illegal and can be fined.
  4. WCAG AA contrast minimum (4.5:1 text against background). Quick test: webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker. Light grey text on a white background is the most common error.
  5. Images with alt text, videos with subtitles, working keyboard navigation (Tab moves through the page in logical order). Beyond WCAG, SEO rewards this too.

How to use the result

If you’ve ticked more than 8 failures, your website is actively losing bookings and it’s worth prioritising fixes. The right order:

  1. Blocks 1 and 4 first (performance + conversion) — effect within 7 days.
  2. Then blocks 2 and 3 (SEO + local) — effect within 4–8 weeks.
  3. Blocks 5 and 6 — before any paid campaign or before a legal audit.

If you want a professional second opinion on your current website (free, no obligation), request an audit. If you’re already convinced and would rather have a new website designed with all these points covered from day one, plans from €49.99/month are here.