Build Your Pub Website in 2026

Last updated: 11 April 2026

Most pub landlords think they need a website designer and a £3,000 bill to get online. They’re wrong. The real barrier to getting a pub website live isn’t cost or complexity — it’s knowing where to start when you’ve got a business to run.

You already know how to run a pub. You manage stock, staff, customer experience, and cash flow. Building a website for your pub follows the same logic: identify what your customers need, deliver it reliably, and measure whether it’s working. A pub website isn’t a vanity project — it’s a customer-facing tool that drives bookings, reduces phone calls, and shows up when someone in your area Googles “pub near me” at 7pm on a Friday.

I’ve built websites for hospitality businesses, managed pub management software platforms with 847 active users across the UK, and run Teal Farm Pub in Washington, Tyne & Wear where a functioning website handles quiz night bookings, event enquiries, and food orders. In this guide, you’ll learn exactly how to build a pub website that works — from domain registration to the first Google ranking — without hiring an agency or learning code.

This article covers the complete process: choosing a platform, setting up your domain, structuring content that Google ranks, integrating your booking system, and measuring what actually drives customers through the door. You’ll see real decisions I’ve made and the specific tools that deliver results for small hospitality businesses.

Why Your Pub Needs a Website in 2026

Your customers are searching for you online right now. When someone in your area decides to go out for a drink, they don’t flip through the Yellow Pages — they search “pub near me” or “quiz night this week” on their phone. If you’re not showing up in that search, or if they find you but see no opening hours or way to book, they move to the next result.

A website serves three specific business functions for a pub:

• Reduces friction at the point of decision: Someone drives past your pub and thinks “might go there Friday.” They pull over and Google your name. If they find your opening hours, food menu, and a booking button in 10 seconds, they’re more likely to follow through. No website means they’ve already moved on to a competitor.
• Handles enquiries 24/7: Quiz night bookings, private event enquiries, and food orders arrive at 11pm when you’re closed. A website with contact forms and booking systems captures these leads instead of losing them to voicemail.
• Builds search visibility: A properly built pub website appears in Google search results when people look for pubs, events, or food in your area. This is free, ongoing marketing that costs you nothing once it’s set up.

At Teal Farm Pub, we handle regular quiz nights, sports events, and food service. A significant portion of quiz night bookings now come from our website — customers find us, see the quiz night details, and book a table without a phone call. That’s friction removed.

The second reason your pub website matters is credibility. A pub without a website reads as outdated or inactive. Customers assume you’re not serious about your business. A simple website — even a basic one — signals that you’re professional and worth their time.

Choose Your Website Platform

This is the most important decision. The platform you choose determines how much time you’ll spend updating it, how much it costs, and how easy it is to maintain. There are three realistic options for pub landlords:

WordPress (Self-Hosted)

WordPress is the world’s most popular website platform — used by 43% of all websites, including major hospitality brands. It’s free software, but you need to pay for hosting (typically £5–15 per month).

Pros: Complete control. You own your site. Thousands of plugins let you add booking systems, menus, image galleries, and event calendars without coding. Google ranks WordPress sites well. You’re not locked into a company’s restrictions.

Cons: Requires more initial setup. You’ll need to install WordPress, choose a theme, and configure plugins. Updates and security are your responsibility. If something breaks, you need to fix it or hire someone.

Best for: Pub landlords who want flexibility and control, or who plan to grow the website significantly. If you’re comfortable with a learning curve and want to avoid monthly fees beyond hosting, this works.

Wix or Squarespace (Website Builders)

These are all-in-one platforms where you build your website directly in the browser — no hosting to set up, no plugins to manage. Wix and Squarespace handle everything.

Pros: Easiest to start. Templates are built-in. You can have a professional-looking site live in an afternoon. Hosting, security, and backups are automatic. No technical knowledge required. Fair pricing (around £10–20 per month for a basic site).

Cons: Less control over your site’s code and structure. SEO tools are more basic than WordPress. You’re locked into their platform — migrating to another platform later is painful. Monthly fees are higher than self-hosted WordPress.

Best for: Pub landlords who want a quick launch and don’t want to manage servers. Ideal if you want a professional site in a weekend and prefer predictable monthly costs.

Shopify (If You’re Selling Online)

If you plan to sell merchandise, gift cards, or bottled products online, Shopify is built for ecommerce. It integrates payment processing and inventory tracking.

Pros: Purpose-built for online sales. Payment processing is built-in. Inventory management is automated.

Cons: Overkill for a basic pub website. Monthly fees are higher (£25+). You’re paying for ecommerce features you might not need.

Best for: Pubs with significant online product sales. For most wet-led or food-led pubs, this is unnecessary.

My recommendation: Start with Wix or Squarespace if you want to launch in a week. Move to self-hosted WordPress if you need more control or plan to expand. For most pub landlords, Wix is the fastest route to a live website.

Set Up Your Domain and Hosting

Your domain is your pub’s web address — something like “myfreepub.co.uk” or “tealfarmpub.com”. Your hosting is the server where your website files live. For Wix and Squarespace, both are included in your monthly fee. For WordPress, you need to buy them separately.

Choosing a Domain Name

Your domain should be:

• Easy to spell and remember
• Your pub name, or your pub name + location
• Short (under 35 characters is better)
• A .co.uk or .uk domain (signals you’re a UK business — this matters for local Google rankings)

Avoid clever spellings, numbers, or hyphens. “The Red Lion” becomes “theredlion.co.uk”, not “theredl10n.co.uk”. Search for your domain at Nominet (the UK domain registry). Register it for 1–3 years (renewal is cheap, so you don’t need to buy 10 years upfront).

Cost: £8–15 per year for a .co.uk domain.

Hosting Setup (Self-Hosted WordPress Only)

If you choose self-hosted WordPress, you need a hosting provider. Pub IT solutions require reliable hosting. Popular options for small businesses include:

• Bluehost: £3–5 per month, WordPress-recommended, good for beginners
• SiteGround: £3–5 per month, strong customer support, faster performance
• Kinsta or WP Engine: £30–60 per month, high performance, better for established sites

For a new pub website, Bluehost or SiteGround is sufficient. You’ll get 1-click WordPress installation and basic email support.

Total first-year cost for self-hosted WordPress: £15 domain + £50–60 hosting = around £65–75 per year, plus your time to set it up.

Total first-year cost for Wix: Around £120–200 depending on which plan you choose, domain included, no setup required.

Structure Your Pub Website Content

The most effective pub websites answer four customer questions immediately: Where are you? When are you open? What do you serve? How do I book or contact you?

Your website doesn’t need 20 pages. Most pub landlords waste time building massive sites that confuse customers. Build this first:

Essential Pages

• Home: Your pub’s name, a great photo, opening hours, location, phone number, and one clear action button (Book a Table, Order Food, or View Events). Everything above the fold should answer “Why should I visit?”
• About: Your pub’s story in 100–150 words. When did it open? What makes it different? What does it feel like? This is where personality matters — people choose pubs based on atmosphere, not just beer selection.
• Menu & Drinks: If you serve food, upload your menu as a PDF or image. If you’re wet-led only, a simple list of beers, spirits, and wines is fine. Update this annually or when you change suppliers.
• Events: Quiz nights, live music, sports fixtures — list what’s happening and when. This is where pub management templates help you track what’s scheduled. Update this monthly.
• Contact: Phone number, address, email, opening hours, and a contact form. Never hide your phone number — customers want to call, especially for large bookings.

That’s it. Five pages. A small pub website that loads fast and answers every question a customer has.

Content That Ranks in Google

Google ranks websites that answer specific customer questions with clear, factual information. Here’s how to structure your content so Google and your customers understand it:

Opening Hours: Use schema markup (automatic in Wix and Squarespace, manual in WordPress). Write: “Open Monday to Thursday 5pm–11pm, Friday 5pm–midnight, Saturday 11am–midnight, Sunday 11am–11pm.” Be specific. Google uses this data to show your hours in search results and Maps.

Address and Location: Write your full address on your contact page and your home page. Include your postcode. This signals to Google where you operate. Link to your Google Business Profile from your website footer — this dramatically improves local search visibility.

Event Details: If you run quiz nights, write: “Teal Farm Pub hosts weekly quiz nights every Tuesday at 8:30pm. Teams of up to six. £1 per person entry. First prize £30. Book your table online or call 0191 XXXX XXXX.” This is specific information. Google indexes it. Customers find it.

Build one blog post per month answering questions you hear from customers: “Best pubs for quiz nights in Washington”, “What’s the dress code for our events?”, “Do you have a private room?”. These posts rank in Google over time and bring organic traffic.

Integrate Bookings and Online Orders

A website without a booking system forces customers to call you. That’s friction. Every phone call your website could have captured is lost revenue and wasted staff time.

Booking Systems for Pubs

Popular options:

• Resdiary: Designed for hospitality. £50–150 per month. Sends confirmations, reminders, and integrates with most EPOS systems. Best for food-led pubs.
• Yelp Reservations: Free if you claim your Yelp page. Simple. Sends bookings directly to your email or phone. Good for pubs that don’t need complex reporting.
• Calendly: £12 per month. Designed for appointments and events, not table bookings, but works for quiz nights and private events.
• Wix and Squarespace built-in tools: Basic booking forms. Free. Limits customisation but works for simple cases.

For a typical wet-led pub with occasional events, Yelp Reservations or your website builder’s built-in form is fine. For a food-led pub or high-volume bookings, invest in Resdiary.

Food Ordering (If You Serve Food)

If you serve food, customers want to see your menu online. Options:

• Deliveroo or Just Eat: You upload your menu once. Customers order through their platform. You pay commission (25–30%) per order. No hosting responsibility. Reach customers who are already using these apps.
• Your own website ordering: Plugins like Toast or MarginEdge let you take orders directly. No commission. Customers see your food without a middleman. Requires more setup and payment processing.

Most pubs I’ve advised start with Deliveroo or Just Eat while they test demand, then build direct ordering on their website once volume justifies the integration work. Your pub profit margin calculator shows you exactly when commission-free ordering becomes worthwhile.

Get Your Pub Website Into Google Search

Building the website is half the work. Getting customers to find it is the other half. This is called SEO (search engine optimisation). Most people overthink it. Here’s the simplified version for pubs:

Google Business Profile (Free, Essential)

This is the single most important step. When someone searches “pub near me” or “pubs in Washington”, Google shows local businesses on a map. Your Google Business Profile is how you appear there.

Go to Google Business, claim your pub’s listing, and complete every field: address, phone number, opening hours, website, photos, and menu (if available). This takes 20 minutes and costs nothing.

Customers leave reviews on Google Business. Respond to every review — thank the positive ones, address negative ones professionally. Google shows profiles with recent activity higher in search results.

Core Web Vitals (Site Speed and Mobile Performance)

Google prioritizes websites that load fast and work perfectly on phones. Most customers search for pubs on mobile devices. If your site takes 5 seconds to load or text is too small to read, Google ranks you lower.

Test your site at Google PageSpeed Insights. A score above 70 is good. Wix and Squarespace handle this automatically. Self-hosted WordPress requires plugins like Smush (image compression) and WP Rocket (caching) to score well.

Backlinks and Local Citations

Google trusts websites mentioned on other reputable sites. Get your pub listed on:

• Tripadvisor (free listing)
• Yelp (free, but claims and verification required)
• Local business directories in your area
• Your chamber of commerce or local business association

These create “citations” — mentions of your pub’s name, address, and phone number on other websites. Citations signal to Google that your business is real and established.

Content That Gets Indexed

Google indexes and ranks content that answers specific questions clearly. Write one blog post per month answering something your customers ask:

• “How many people can our private room hold?”
• “What ales do we stock?”
• “Can you cater for dietary requirements?”
• “When are your quiz nights?”

Each post should be 300–500 words, answer the question directly in the first paragraph, and be specific. Google indexes this content. Over 6–12 months, you’ll see organic search traffic grow.

For more information, visit pub drink pricing calculator.

For more information, visit pub staffing cost calculator.