1. Hal utama yang harus dipikirkan adalah bagaimana makanan yang Anda tawarkan dapat terlihat menarik secara visual. Memang, menarik secara visual tak menjadi jaminan bahwa makanan tersebut memiliki cita rasa yang lezat. Tapi setidaknya tampilan yang menarik akan membuat orang merasa penasaran dan menggugah selera makan.

2. Tentukan satu menu andalan dari produk makanan Anda. Buat semenarik mungkin untuk difoto, bila perlu tambahkan aksesori cantik di sekelilingnya. Intinya, tampilkan produk bestseller dan produk terbaru Anda secara mencolok.

3. Karena penjualan melalui online membuat calon konsumen tidak bisa mencicipinya, maka Anda perlu mencantumkan deskripsi detil setiap menu makanan. Mulai dari bahan dasar dan rasanya, sehingga pengunjung toko Anda bisa mengira-ngira rasanya. Selipkan juga kata-kata menggoda di dalamnya. Ini akan membuat siapa pun yang membacanya menikmati rasa makanan tersebut dan tak sabar untuk mencobanya. Agar lebih meyakinkan, cantumkan juga testimoni beberapa konsumen yang telah mencicipinya. Bila belum punya pelanggan, teman-teman bisa dikerahkan untuk memberikan testimoni.

4. Tak berbeda dengan bisnis online lainnya, manfaatkan media sosial yang sedang hits saat ini. Anda bisa membuka toko online dari blog gratis atau langsung membuat website khusus. Buat desain toko online Anda semenarik mungkin dan sesuai dengan image makanan yang dijual.

5. Untuk memasarkannya, manfaatkan jejaring sosial lain seperti  Facebook dan Twitter. Upload foto-foto makanan, lalu tagging ke beberapa teman dan kerabat. Ingat tak semua orang senang dihujani dengan tagging foto berkali-kali. Usahakan melakukannya pada orang yang berbeda-beda. Anda bisa memulainya dari sahabat-sahabat dekat.

6. Selain Facebook, Anda bisa manfaatkan Twitter. Buat akun Twitter khusus dengan nama toko online atau produk makanan Anda. Lakukan perkenalan dengan tweet-tweet tentang produk makanan tersebut, akan lebih seru jika Anda menyertakan twitpic foto makanannya. Belum ada follower? Mulailah dengan following orang lain lebih dulu. Dengan begitu mereka akan mulai melirik akun Twitter Anda. Selain itu, Anda juga bisa me-Re Tweet promo dari akun toko online Anda dari akun pribadi sehingga follower Anda akan membacanya. Ingin lebih cepat? Follow seleb tweet atau figur di bidang kuliner dan tawarkan tester produk pada mereka. Bila puas, mereka akan membahasnya di akun Twitter-nya.

7. Meskipun calon konsumen tidak bisa mencicipi produk makanan lebih dahulu, Anda tetap harus mengedepankan kualitas rasa. Sebisa mungkin usahakan rasanya selezat penampilannya. Jangan sampai konsumen kecewa, karena rasa tak sesuai dengan yang ditawarkan. Hati-hati, complain melalui jejaring sosial akan lebih cepat menyebar.

8. Sama seperti bisnis offline, konsumen bisnis online pun ingin segera dilayani. Karena itu, selalu luangkan waktu untuk melayani pesanan mereka. Segera balas komentar atau pertanyaan yang diajukan. Ini akan membuat konsumen senang, karena tidak merasa sedang berhubungan dengan mesin komputer.

9. Menggembangkan bisnis makanan online gampang-gampang susah. Walaupun sebagian besar bisnis makanan online berskala rumahan, ada baiknya Anda tetap menerapkan manajemen profesional yang berorientasi bisnis ini:
* Telepon. Cantumkan nomor kontak di website, Facebook dan Twitter. Ini membuat calon konsumen percaya bahwa produk yang ditawarkan tidak fiktif. Pakailah nomor kontak khusus yang tak sulit dihubungi. Jika tidak bersedia ditelepon, Anda bisa mencantumkan: SMS only!
* Situs. Jangan pernah menampilkan foto makanan dari situs lain yang bukan milik Anda. Jika perlu, sewa admin situs untuk membuat gerai virtual tetap menarik dengan konten yang selalu update.
* Delivery. Selain harus tepat waktu, makanan yang diterima juga sebaiknya berbentuk sama persis dengan tampilan di situs. Jika makanan tergolong jenis yang mudah hancur, Anda harus memikirkan packaging yang bisa menjaga makanan tetap utuh.
* Pencitraan. Jika Anda berpromosi dengan jejaring sosial, buatlah akun baru yang terpisah dari akun pribadi. (*/Kompas.com)

(Source: ciputraentrepreneurship.com)

1. Keep Your Mobile Site Simple, Consistent and Easily Navigable

Remember, mobile screens are much smaller to navigate than desktop and laptop screens so only give essential information you need to make the user experience pleasant and clear. Too much information can be distracting and frustrating to a viewer on such a small screen. Below are a few things to keep in mind:

• Keep your page from being content heavy with excessive information.
• Prioritize the content that users need most.
• Make sure the landing page is clean, clear and concise. Visitors can always click through buttons to access more information on a secondary page.
• Keep important features and structure consistent across the entire site (menu options, back-to-home screen, etc.)
• Lead your potential customer to the heart of the information, making a clear path to the action you want visitors to complete (buy now, rsvp, download, submit, visit, etc.)
• Make sure to use as few form fields as possible (no more than 6) to keep the page neat and streamlined.
• If your site is on the complex side, make sure to include a search bar for easy navigation.

2. Provide an Easy Scroll Experience

Do not set up your user experience to be a “pinch and zoom” situation. You will lose most customers with all of the hassle this creates, especially if you are asking them to fill out a survey or extended form field.

Use checkable boxes and scrolling menu bars to simplify the data entry process. By reducing the content on your page, you have the option to make the text size a little bigger (i.e. legible on a small screen). This makes the essential information on the page accessible in one easy vertical scroll.

Also, make sure the action buttons are of a decent size and have enough space in between each for easy navigation with fingers. Always keep in mind you are making a page where visitors will be using their fingers instead of a mouse arrow.

Sample screenshot from 1800 flowers’ mobile shopping experience. Notice the clear organization of categories, consistent menu bar at the bottom of the page and generous space between buttons with larger, legible font.

3. Keep the Font Size Legible and Large

The goal should be to draw the average viewer in with easily legible text, eliminating the need to zoom in on the screen. You don’t want your viewer squinting to read text or unable to discern the letters so we suggest using at least a 14 point font size. Keep the fonts structured and less stylized. Here are some beautiful, more design savvy fonts that are legible and will look fantastic.

4. Talk in Sound Bites

Keep your text short, sweet and to the point. Make it catchy. Create memorable phrases that your audience can easily tweet out and repost. You can also include a short testimonial from a satisfied customer. Your mobile landing page is where you should consider using the following:

• Titles
• Slogans
• Mission Statements
• Short Descriptive Phrases
• Action Buttons
• Scroll Menus (keep your content in lists)
• Bullet Points (instead of paragraphs)

Here are a few examples:

• “Danny’s is the best pizza in town!” – customer testimonial
• Enter to win a year’s supply of our new products! – new store contest
• Business is what we do – corporate slogan
• Sign up for neighborhood discounts today! -local business deals
• Save big on your next meal! -download coupon for a restaurant
• “Keeping you one step ahead of the rest” – shoe company slogan
• Want clear and healthy skin? Get 25% off our most popular package. -skin care company
• BUY NOW, REGISTER, RSVP, ENTER, DOWNLOAD, etc.
• Sleek and Sophisticated. Be on every turn of the society pages. – luxury brand designer
• “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete.” – Nike’s mission statement

Notice the short and punchy description lines, clear action buttons, clean backgrounds and complimentary photos and text color in these examples.

5. Let the Imagery Speak

In a visually tight space like mobile, image choice is a great way to quickly sum up your message. The right image can speak volumes evoking a visceral experience and connection from your viewer that might not be possible to do with only text on the smaller mobile screens. When choosing imagery, here are a few things to remember:

• Choose an image that will draw your audience in and incorporate a matching seamless background.
• Another option is to use a non-distracting photo or abstract image as the background of your page.
• Avoid choosing harsh and clashing colors for your image or background. Neon yellow and other similar color are hard to look at on screen and do not make your page pleasant to view.
• Do not let the background visually compete with the text, so make sure the text color is easily visible on the background and does not get lost in a pattern.
• Always remember to size your photos for web and compress them so your viewers will enjoy faster image loading time on the site.
• Keep a complimentary color palette in mind when creating your page. It is important to use colors that are complementary to the imagery you have chosen, creating a visual experience that is pleasing to the eye and not too distracting.

Here are a few more examples of complimentary photo, text and background usage. Choosing an image that picks up a color in the logo is always a nice touch.

6. Make Sure it Scales

It is a shame to have a beautiful page that does not scale to all of the different mobile devices out there. There are over 500 different screen sizes between Android, iPhone, windows, blackberry and tablets, making it a challenge to have a truly mobile optimized device ubiquitous landing page.

Try to follow these three guidelines for scalability:

1. Make sure your page scales to both landscape and portrait views.
2. Avoid coding your mobile site in Flash or using Flash video if you can because it does not load on all devices (mainly iPad and iPhone).
3. It’s recommended to create your mobile site in HTML 5 because it solves many problems of flash on mobile.

Finally, Google announced last September that websites that are optimized for mobile will factor into ad quality. So if you want to keep your Quality Score up and continue to run a smooth Adwords campaign, you should probably start thinking about making some well designed mobile landing pages immediately!

7. Set Up Your Own Analytics

It is a good idea to set up a plan for tracking your analytics in advance. One stunning reason why is thattwo thirds of mobile traffic does not allow third party cookies. This can make it really difficult to track the effectiveness of your mobile advertisement performance.

For example, iPad and iPhone do not allow cookies unless you turn them on manually. And you can’t assume that consumers will turn them on.

The solution to this is to use analytics software that uses 1st party cookies to track visitors. Ultimately, you should track conversions and conduct A/B or multivariate testing to improve your site’s goal performance.

8. Make Interface Actions Easy

Remember, your visitors are viewing your page on a phone and there are plenty of easy action options to provide for them.

Consumers search locally all the time so make it easy for them to find you and connect. When using icons and action buttons, make sure to use universal symbols so your visitors can easily understand what to do and where to do it on your page.

Consider including:

• Click to Call
• Maps
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Foursquare
• Email
• Linkedin
• Tumblr
• Form Field Submissions
• 1 Stop Checkout
• Visit a URL
• Play a Video

This is a good example of mobile friendly, universal menu and content buttons.