Customize your own truck online free

A vehicle, a menu, and a place to park—these are the essentials your food truck needs before you can open for business. Once you’re ready to expand, you might branch out by sharing your location through social media and participating in community events. But when should you add a website to the mix?

The answer might be sooner than you think. While a website isn’t quite as important to your bottom line as the creative dishes you’re serving up daily, it does provide a major opportunity to take your food truck business to the next level. According to a 2010 study from the, 78 percent of US Internet users research online before buying. Your truck isn’t selling food online, but people are looking for you there. If you don’t have a website where interested customers can check out what you have to offer and where you’re parked this week, you’re missing out on a ton of traffic and potential sales—as well as the opportunity to make a good first impression on new customers.

The FoodTruckr team has checked out hundreds of food trucks online, and we see a lot of trucks using their Facebook and Twitter pages in place of formal websites. It’s easy to understand why: social media is free to use and requires little technical knowledge to get started. You can easily use Facebook and Twitter to share photos of your food and to tell people where you’re heading next. However, these tools don’t give you the same type of control and flexibility that a website can.

A professional website boosts your credibility and draws in more customers through organic search traffic. Your website also helps you connect positively with people who aren’t familiar with your truck—and incentivizes customers who are trying to decide whether to have lunch at your truck or another. Check out the top four ways a website takes your food truck business to the next level.