Our speciality
Websites for Thames restaurants, pubs and wedding venues
From Henley to Windsor the river is lined with places people want to eat, stay and get married. We build their websites, and keep their Google listings right through the year.
Who it's for
Restaurants, riverside pubs, hotels and wedding venues
Four kinds of place with one problem in common. The decision is made on a phone, in a hurry, before the customer has spoken to anyone.
Restaurants
A diner has usually decided before they arrive. They search the name, open the menu, check tonight's hours and look for a table, often from the pavement in Marlow or Bray. Each step is a place to lose them.
Riverside pubs
A pub's trade moves with the weather. The terrace open until nine in July is shut at five in January, and the Sunday roast needs a booking. The website and the Google listing both have to follow the seasons.
Hotels
A hotel's own site competes with the booking platforms for the guest who would happily book direct. Rooms, restaurant, bar and events each need a page and a clear way to book.
Wedding and events venues
Couples spend months comparing venues by season, capacity, price and whether the date is free. The site has to answer before the coordinator does, so the enquiry form matters more than the gallery. How couples search for a Thames wedding venue sets out the order they ask in.
The menu
The menu is a web page, not a PDF
A PDF menu has to be downloaded, then pinched and zoomed on a phone. It is awkward for screen readers and impossible to link to a single dish. A menu built as a page loads in a blink, fits the screen, can carry allergen information beside each dish and gives Google real words to read.
It also changes in minutes. When the fish changes on a Thursday, the edit is a few lines, not a trip back to a designer and a new file. Seasonal and set menus get their own addresses and stay linked, and guests who like paper can still have a printable copy.
The full list is in what a riverside restaurant's website needs before Saturday service.
What's included
The parts of a venue site that earn their keep
Booking one tap away
A booking button sits in the header of every page, on a phone as well as a desktop, and goes to whichever booking system you already use. A table is never more than one tap away.
Enquiry forms that ask for the date and numbers first
For private dining, parties and weddings, the form opens with the date, the number of guests and the kind of occasion, then asks for a name and an email. Your first reply can say whether the date is free instead of starting with three questions.
A page for every room and occasion
The terrace, the private dining room, the marquee lawn, the bridal suite. Each space has its own page with capacities, layouts and a way to ask, so someone searching for a private dining room in Henley lands on the right one.
Structured data Google can read
Opening hours, cuisine, price range, menu link and address are marked up with schema, so Google reads them without guessing. Nothing is marked up that the page does not also say in words.
Photography that earns its place
Photographs sell a wedding venue and they are the heaviest thing on the page. Each is sized for the screen it appears on, the first image loads quickly and the rest as the visitor scrolls, so the page stays usable on a weak signal at the lock or in the beer garden. Every picture carries a description for people who cannot see it.
Seasonal pages
The valley has its own calendar, and search follows it
Hospitality demand is seasonal in ways a generic site ignores. Regatta week at Henley, in early July, fills hotels and restaurants well ahead, and people start looking long before the week arrives. A summer terrace page that says what is open, when, and whether dogs are welcome earns its keep from the first warm weekend. Christmas party enquiries begin while the terrace is still in use, so that page should be live by late summer.
Mothering Sunday lunch, Easter, bank holiday weekends, New Year's Eve and the wedding season get the same treatment. One page, a date, a menu, a price where you can share one and a way to book. The pages stay online all year and are refreshed each time round, so they keep their history.
Imogen Pryce maps the year in a Thames Valley content calendar, from regatta week to Christmas.
The Google listing is the shop window
For most venues the Google listing is the first thing a customer sees, before the website. If it still shows winter hours in June, no amount of work on the site will put that right.
Hattie Clarke spent five years running front of house for riverside restaurants before she moved into marketing, and she sets listings up as a front-of-house manager would want them. Opening hours cover bank holidays, Christmas and seasonal changes, with kitchen hours kept apart from bar hours where Google allows it. The menu and booking links point at the live pages, and every review gets a reply.
Reviews are asked for within Google's rules, which means asking every customer, never paying for a review and never screening out the unhappy ones. The detail is on the local SEO page and in Google Business Profile for pubs, restaurants and venues.
How the work happens
We work around service
A venue cannot stop trading for a website project, so the project fits itself to the diary.
Calls fit the quiet hour. Nobody running a kitchen can talk at noon or at seven, so conversations are booked for the quiet afternoon and kept short.
We take a sounding first. Before anything is drawn we look at how guests find you today, whether by name, dish, occasion or town. Imogen Pryce then plans the pages around those searches, and the site launches ahead of your busy season, never in the middle of it.
Afterwards the site stays current. Menus, hours and event pages change all year. The Form covers hosting, care and small changes, and a local SEO retainer covers the Google listing.
Care is covered on the care and hosting page.
Related work
What changes when the site is right
Anonymised composites drawn from typical venue projects. The work page explains how they are put together.
Industry guides
What it costs
Priced by the size of the venue
Prices are before VAT. Your quote narrows the range once we know how many spaces and kinds of event the site covers.
Towpath
£2,400–£3,800
A sharp five-to-eight page site for one location, with local SEO and Google Business Profile set up properly.
The usual fit for a single restaurant or pub.
Reach
£4,500–£8,500
A larger site with town pages across the valley and a content plan. On the river, a reach is the stretch between two locks.
The usual fit for a hotel or wedding venue with several spaces and kinds of event.
Care and hosting on The Form is from £95 a month, and ongoing local SEO is from £650 a month.
Questions
What venues ask before they start
Can you connect our existing booking system?
Yes. The site links to whichever booking system you already use, with the booking button in the header of every page. If your current system is costing you bookings we will say so, and the choice stays with you.
What should a wedding venue's enquiry form ask?
The date first, then the number of guests, then the kind of day, such as a ceremony, a reception or both. A budget range helps if you are comfortable asking. Contact details come last, so the first reply can say whether the date is free.
How do you keep the Google hours right through the year?
The profile is set up with special hours for bank holidays and Christmas, plus kitchen hours alongside bar hours where Google allows it. The Form or a local SEO retainer then keeps the profile and the website saying the same thing as the seasons turn.
How early should we start before a busy season?
Earlier than feels necessary. Christmas party pages should be live by late summer. A page for regatta week wants to be up in the spring, because people begin looking long before the week arrives.
What does it cost?
A single restaurant or pub usually fits Towpath, £2,400–£3,800. A hotel or wedding venue with several spaces and a content plan fits Reach, £4,500–£8,500. Care and hosting on The Form is from £95 a month, and ongoing local SEO is from £650 a month. All prices are before VAT.
Start a project
Tell us about the venue
A short note is plenty. What you serve or host, where you are, and what the website is getting wrong at the moment. You'll get a straight answer within a working day.
