Think of your home page as the primary piece of real estate on your website. More than any other page, more customers will bounce (leave) your website after viewing the content of your home page. As a result, any information on this page needs to help you win new business.

In order to make your home page count, avoid filling it with this mediocre content (content that doesn't efficiently convert visitors into customers):

1. News about your restaurant. While it might be cool that you were recently featured in a newspaper, it's usually not a priority that your customers know this.
   Your life story. A few sentences might not hurt you, but really you should put this content on another page.
2. Pictures of yourself or your staff. This can be great for building customer loyalty, but it's terrible at winning new customers. Feature pictures of your food instead.
3. Any Flash-based content or animations. These are annoying. Steer clear.
4. A bunch of text. Use images and one-liners as much as possible.
5. Hiring information. Potential customers don't care that you are hiring (in fact it's usually a turn off). Hide this information on a careers or hiring page.
6. Private event information. Anyone looking for this information will go to your navigation menu and click "Catering" or "Private Events". They won't scan the home page looking for this information. Use this space to win new business before focusing on winning private event business.
7. Background Music. In fact, your entire website should be free and clear of any music. It's really, really annoying.
8. Anything that doesn't sell. Ok, so I'll admit that this is kind of a catch-all. But seriously think about everything on your homepage from a new customers perspective and ask yourself the question: will this encourage me to try this restaurant?