Family Food Health Home Money Style More Home » Internet » How to Start a Restaurant Referral Website More Articles Like This How to Start an Online Referral BusinessHow to Start Racking up ReferralsHow to Start A Contractor Referral BusinessHow to Advertise Your Referral LinksHow to Start an Adoption Referral Agency How to Start a Restaurant Referral WebsiteBy Crystal Bonser,eHow Contributorupdated: November 8, 2010I want to do this!What's This? 
With enough promotion, a restaurant referral website can turn into an online community.restaurant image by Andrzej Thiel from Fotolia.comA restaurant referral website is place on the net where people can go to recommend restaurants and learn about restaurants that are recommended by others. A referral website relies heavily on user activity because they are the main creators of the website's content. If this is something that interests you, keep in mind that promoting your website will be a time-consuming but necessary job in order to make your website a success.Difficulty: Moderately EasyInstructions1Create your website from scratch or sign up with an Internet host that provides a free website builder. Examples include Bravenet, Webs or Yola. A part of creating your website is choosing a domain name. You can use a free sub-domain (for example: www.your_website_name.your_web_host's_name.com) or purchase your own domain for a fee of $10 to $20 per year. Sub-domains look unprofessional so it is in your best interest to pay for your own domain name. When choosing a name, think of something that is short and easy to remember, but also indicates what your website is about. For example, www.restaurantfinder.com or www.restaurantreferal.com.
2Design your website. If you are using a website builder you will be prompted to make certain decisions, such as your website's theme, color palate, layout, page names and so on. You want your website to be user friendly, so be sure to lay out your pages in a logical order. Do not add unnecessary flash, such as talking characters or blinking graphics. Not only are they distracting but also can cause websites to load slower and this can be very frustrating for many Internet users.
3Add a forum for your website visitors to refer restaurants and comment on their experiences at specific establishments. Many website hosts offer free forums for you to add to your website. However, they are either branded (e.g. "Free forum offered by Bravenet") or ad-supported, meaning that ads are placed on your forum that you do not control or profit from. Almost all free forums have the option of upgrading to a paid version, which will remove all branding and advertisements. Again, for a more professional look, it is best to upgrade your service to the paid version. Also, your forum should contain some direction for users. For example, you could add a note to the top of the forum asking users to insert the name of the restaurant they are referring or commenting on in the topic section. This way, when users visit the forum, they can easily scroll through the list of topics and see all the names of the restaurants that are being referred to without having to look through each discussion.
4Add content. The forum will be the main feature of your website; however, it is best to have additional content as well. This is especially true in your website's infancy stage when you have little activity happening on your forum. For example, the home page can describe the purpose of the website, an embedded map can be used to help users easily locate restaurants of interest and a calendar can be used to list special events happening at specific restaurants. Embedded maps, calendars and hundreds of other features can be added to your website for free through websites such as Widgetbox, Bravenet and Google Desktop Gadgets.
5Promote your website. This is perhaps one of the most important aspect for all website developers. It is crucial for a website that relies on visitor activity. There are many ways to promote your website, including paying for online advertising space (such as Google AdWords), posting your link on as many message boards and blogs as possible, adding your link to website directories, submitting your link to Internet search engines and telling everyone you know about your website.
References Bravenet: Web Tools and Web Hosting for Webmasters Webs: Create Your Own Website for Free Website Beginner: Simple Tips to a Professional Looking Website Yola: Watch Your Business Grow. Create a Free Website Today. ResourcesGoogle: AdWordsGoogle: Desktop GadgetsWidgetbox Photo Creditrestaurant image by Andrzej Thiel from Fotolia.com
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