SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Locu, maker of the popular menu dashboard for local merchants, today announces a new integration with Automattic’s WordPress.com, the world’s leading web publishing platform. WordPress.com customers can now easily embed Locu menus on their sites using a simple Locu shortcode, enabling them to be more easily found by millions of customers across the Web (for instructions, click here).
With 61 million websites using WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress, and over 100,000 new accounts created daily, WordPress has become the CMS of choice for websites of all sizes.
WordPress.com recently rolled out a new vertical product at WordPress.com/restaurants specifically aimed at helping its restaurant customers build websites that can be easily accessed from both desktop and mobile devices.
“We are very excited about the integration with Locu,” says Raanan Bar-Cohen, SVP Commercial Services at Automattic. “With Locu’s easy-to-use WordPress.com shortcode, restaurants can more easily deliver an engaging menu experience directly on their WordPress.com sites to further connect with their consumers.” See some examples of WordPress.com Locu shortcode implementations here and here.
Restaurants adopting Locu’s WordPress.com solution will benefit from all the capabilities within Locu’s menu management system, including:
- Beautiful Menu Templates: Locu’s menu templates are versatile and can be customized to meet restaurants’ unique brand requirements – with or without the help of a designer.
- Printed Menus: Locu’s system generates printable menus and helps restaurants achieve consistency in their online and offline presences.
- One-Time Setup: No technical skills are required and after the one-time setup, all menu updates appear instantaneously everywhere.
- Enhanced SEO: Automatic embedding of menu and price list metadata into the body of the website, increasing the likelihood of items being found online by potential customers.
- Higher ROI from WordPress.com: Leverage your website to reach more prospective customers and stay connected with current customers.
- Free Advertising: Locu distributes restaurants’ menu data to hundreds of partners, including OpenTable and Citysearch, generating millions of additional menu view per month.
“The launch of our WordPress.com integration is a big step towards further helping restaurants better manage their online presence”, says Rene Reinsberg, CEO at Locu. Locu’s basic service is free to restaurants, with additional features, services and support available for a low monthly subscription. More than 15,000 local merchants have signed up for the service since it launched in early October last year.
About Locu
Locu's vision is to better connect local merchants with consumers. Locu reduces the cost and headache of menu and price list updates and helps local merchants build business by staying connected to current and prospective customers. Locu's API gives developers access to the world's largest real-time, structured repository of local business offerings data. The data comes directly from merchants using Locu’s dashboard at Locu.com and Locu's patent-pending technology platform that digitizes and structures real-world content. Locu was started by MIT graduates and is backed by General Catalyst Capital Partners, Lowercase, Lightbank, SV Angel and angel investors. Locu has more than 15,000 customers and has offices in San Francisco, CA and Cambridge, MA.
About Automattic
Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com, the simplest, most secure way to start web-publishing immediately on the open source WordPress platform. Automattic offers a network of web services for online publishers including WordPress.com, VIP Hosting and Support, VaultPress, Akismet, VideoPress, Polldaddy, IntenseDebate, Gravatar, and more. The Automattic network attracts over half a billion worldwide unique visitors every month. For more information, visit http://automattic.com.