Good food is something very delightful. It is even nicer, however, when the enjoyment starts before the meal - with a visual delight. You always eat with your eyes first, right?
Patricia Spieker from Gourmet Visuals knows like no other how to perfectly present culinary delights. She created her website with Wordpress in her early years, but has recently switched to Wix with her business. She tells us why in the following conversation.
So look forward to an interview that will whet your appetite - for good food and a good website.
Helene Clara Gamper: Hello Patricia, a few weeks ago you founded Gourmet Visuals. The name is cleverly chosen and says a lot: It's about culinary delights and visual appearance, right? Tell me, what exactly we can expect from Gourmet Visuals?
Patricia Spieker: Hello Helene - first of all, thank you very much for this interview, I am very happy to be here! Your assumption is correct: Gourmet Visuals combines culinary art with visual content and offers photography, social media design, social media management and also web design for the catering, hotel, food manufacturers and food companies.
HCG: How did you come up with the idea of starting such a business?
Patricia Spieker: I've always had a passion for design, aesthetics and good food. In addition to my long career as a project manager in the digital and eCommerce sector, I have therefore completed my training as a photographer specializing in food and restaurant photography. In addition, I expanded my know-how to include the areas of social media and web design, and so I was able to combine all my passions.
HCG: The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the gastronomy and restaurant industry with full force. Where do you see opportunities for Gourmet Visuals - and above all, support for the gastronomy sector through your service? I imagine it to be very challenging at the moment.
Patricia Spieker: Yes, it is indeed - the pandemic hit the catering and hotel industries particularly hard. Nevertheless, even during this challenging time, many companies were able to convince their customers with innovative concepts. I think the most important lesson from last year is don't stop and keep moving.
Eating has a huge emotional component - it is not for nothing that it is said "you eat with your eyes first". It's about capturing this component visually and communicating it authentically to the customer; regardless of whether it is a restaurant, hotel bar or a food product. I help my customers to be noticed more intensively and to attract more guests through professional image material and a first-class digital presence via website and social media.
HCG: You previously had websites on Wordpress with “Geschmacksnote” and “Lounge 20” and also implemented your customers' websites with Wordpress. Recently, you've switched to Wix for Gourmet Visuals. Why?
Patricia Spieker: When it comes to the implementation of web design projects, there is no uniform procedure for me - every website must be individually tailored to the company, its goals and desired customers and reflect its brand values. I was looking for a tool that would enable me to implement outstanding and unique customer projects in the shortest possible time - I have now found that in WIX.
HCG: What specifically bothered you about Wordpress?
Patricia Spieker: The maintenance effort. In order to guarantee the greatest possible functionality, stability and security of the website, some plugins are usually necessary, which have to be kept up to date. Of course, this also has a negative effect on the loading speed of the page at some point and can result in high additional costs. Wordpress was also not self-explanatory enough for my customers who maintain their site to get along well with it.
HCG: How did you feel about creating your new Wix website? A lot was certainly new and a completely different environment than Wordpress.
Patricia Spieker: Definitely, but in an absolutely positive sense. The editor in WIX is very intuitive, easy to use and offers all the functionalities that I need for my own and my customers' websites. There are also numerous apps that can be easily integrated into the site that are specially tailored to my target group: online reservations, chat functions or newsletters.
"So far, everyone has been enthusiastic about the new website, as it is much more structured and neater than the old one."
HCG: What special features have you implemented on Gourmet Visuals?
Patricia Spieker: On my website, I primarily focused on visual content, such as galleries and slide shows. I like it to be neat and clean, so I decided not to include animations, which are available in all variations in WIX. I also found the FAQ app very practical, which answers the most important questions my customers have on the starting page. I am also working on my blog with tips on food photography, social media and web design.
HCG: A mobile phone website has been particularly important since September 2020. That was the time when Google switched to “mobile first indexing”. Since then, only the mobile phone version has been used for the Google ranking of a website. How have you been with the mobile version of your Wix website?
Patricia Spieker: The WIX Editor also offers everything you need for a good design on the mobile phone. You can easily switch between desktop and mobile phone view and check at any time how the design and structure of the page will look on mobile devices. If necessary, you can simply hide objects in the mobile phone version.
HCG: Speaking of SEO: A few years ago, Wix faced the issue that their websites had poor Google rankings and generally poor SEO opportunities. Wordpress was mostly highly praised in that aspect. Now that's old and gone. How do you see it, what experiences have you had?
Patricia Spieker: I find the functions that WIX offers me for search engine optimization to be transparent and easy to implement. You can easily define the SEO settings, such as title and meta description, for each page. Setting up marketing tools like Google or Facebook Pixel also went smoothly - this was much more complicated in Wordpress. As far as the ranking of the site is concerned: I haven't noticed any negative effects here at all.
HCG: How is the response to your new website? How did people react?
Patricia Spieker: So far, everyone has been enthusiastic about the new website, as it is much more structured and neater than the old one. The websites of my customers are also very popular.
HCG: If you could give points from 1 to 10, 1 point is very bad and 10 points is very good: All in all, how would you rate Wordpress and how would you rate Wix, based on your experience?
Patricia Spieker: Wordpress is certainly a very powerful tool with many functionalities - but at the price of maintainability, manageability and clarity. In addition, there are additional costs for the required plugins - that's why I would personally give a 6 here.
WIX, on the other hand, gets full marks from me: intuitive, transparent and easy to implement and support. And not to forget: fast support if something doesn't work out.
HCG: Patricia, thank you for talking to us and I wish you all the best with Gourmet Visuals and lots of fun with your Wix website.
