Top Tips

Website Design Tips for Hotels, Restaurants & Bars

Welcome to Ignite's Tips Of The Week!

Double Bookings Through Your Website: Restaurant Show Presentation

Our Managing Director Paul West will be presenting with myself at The Restaurant Show next Tuesday 11th October.

The Next Generation? Take Advantage of Technology!

I popped down to the New Designers exhibition last week to see the new graduate talent. Some beautiful design work - I came away feeling inspired with a handful of business cards in hand.

Google+ Profile for Hotels & Restaurants?

Should your hotel or restaurant set up a Google+ account? Not yet according to Google. They are currently working on Google+ business accounts that will be much more suitable. Ignite's advice is to hold off setting up an account for your business until Google have done this.

Lunch with Ignite

Here's a novel idea... for those who love eating, are tired of boring food at lunch and want to learn more recipes - start a lunch club at work, we have and it's brilliant. I joined relatively recently and I like to think I've cooked up a storm - we'll be blogging our recipes and giving some insights to what people thought. Check back regularly, because if all goes to plan there should be a new recipe every day... we'll try and keep it interesting!

Don't 'Takeaway' An Opportunity

Takeaway menu re-prints are a pretty regular occurrence for some restaurants.

Don't Dilute Your Brand

Sam's recent blog 'Marketing on a Shoestring' has some great ideas for getting your brand out to people. It is really important however to make sure that you take good care of your brand and don't dilute it. Having brand guidelines and sticking to them is important especially when designing in-house.

Marketing on a Shoestring

So it feels like we're starting to head out of the recession, cross fingers the recent optimism is for a reason and here at Ignite we're definitely witnessing a changing landscape.

Cracking Christmas

Few operators this year will be dreaming of a white Christmas, but plenty will be dreaming of making a profit. So how can you make sure that your Christmas and New Year is a cracker? (These puns are beyond my control!)

15 truths about your restaurant website that you may not know: Part 1

Twitter - 21 tips on getting it right

So you've read the news (twitter, twitter, twitter), listened to the hype (twitter, twitter, twitter) and you've set yourself up an account. Now what? Let your account sit dormant and wonder what all the fuss is about? You could, but Twitter has the potential to be very powerful to the hospitality industry and in my opinion its here to stay. Not to sound cliched but the sooner you get involved with medium such as twitter the less likely you are to get left behind!

How to set up a Twitter account

It's relatively simple to set up a twitter account, but it's not always clear what you should do to get going properly. We've given a step by step guide to get you to this point. Happy twittering!

Telling, not selling

I was reading up on email newsletters today to see what works and what doesn't and something popped up that I found really interesting - partly because it's something I've always believed in but also because it's something I've reacted to in the same way.

Makeover Magic

Spring has been great weather wise so far, lifting everyone's spirits out of the doom and gloom of the constant reminder of the recession. Why not bring some of that spring vibrancy inside and have a look at freshening up your interiors?

Mythology unravelled, you can make sushi too!

I'm a big lover of Japanese food, and an even bigger lover of the mythology behind it. You must have seen the episode of 'The F Word' where Gordon Ramsey goes to a Japanese restaurant to learn the art of sushi? The real point that caught my attention, apart from the head chef berating Gordon - hard to not smile, was the rice washer, who'd been doing as much for 3 years! Apparently this is a typical feat for anyone wishing to become a sushi pro. Fantastic. Talk about dedication.