How to make a QR code for your business
Anybody can make one in a minute. The question is whether the one on your table still works in March.
A real Clay site, built from a Google listing
The generators are free and they all work, and the thing that goes wrong is never the making: it is that the code was pointed at an address that stopped existing.
A QR code is just a printed address. What decides whether it works in a year is what it points at, and whether the service that made it is still willing to redirect it. Point it at your own address, keep the address, and the code outlives the printing.
Four things, in order
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1
Decide where it lands
The menu, the booking page, the shop, or the front page. One code, one destination. A code that lands on the front page makes somebody at a table go looking for the menu.
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2
Use your own address
yourname.clay.site or your own domain. A code pointed at a shortener or a generator's tracking address stops working the day that service changes its mind, and you cannot fix a printed card.
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3
Make it, and keep the file
Any free generator is fine for a static code. Keep the file in a place you can find, because reprinting the same design later is easier than remaking it.
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4
Test it before it is printed
Not from your own phone, which may fill in from history. Ask somebody else to scan the proof and check where it lands and how the page looks on their screen.
Free ones are usually static, and that is fine
A static code has the address inside it and cannot be changed, which is exactly why it never expires. A dynamic one points at a service that redirects, which is useful and is also a dependency you cannot see.
If you use a dynamic one, make sure it is a service you pay for and can log into. The expired free ones are the reason so many table cards lead nowhere.
Where somebody is already waiting
The table, the counter, the window and the back of the receipt are the four that get scanned. A code on a poster across the room is a code nobody is close enough to use.
Say what it is for beside it. Scan for the menu gets used and a bare square does not, because nobody scans an unlabelled code any more.
What makes one fail
What it should land on
A menu page, not a PDF
A PDF on a phone is a document somebody has to pinch and drag. The whole point of the code is a page that opens ready to read.
A page that loads immediately
Somebody scanning at a table is holding their phone up in the air. A page that takes four seconds is a page they gave up on.
An address you keep
A Clay site keeps its free address even when you add your own domain later, so the printed code stays correct.
What it looks like when it is live
Drawn rather than described, the page, the address, and what it can switch on.
Questions
Do free QR codes expire?
Static ones cannot expire, because the address is inside the code. Dynamic ones from free services often do, and that is how a printed card stops working.
How small can I print it?
About two centimetres for a table card at reading distance, more for a window. Test the actual print rather than the screen.
Can I put my logo in the middle?
Usually yes, up to about a third of the width. Test it after, because the readable margin is smaller than most people assume.
Should it go to the menu or the home page?
The menu, if the code is on a table. Somebody sat down already knows where they are and does not need the front page.
What should the menu page itself be?
A page, not a document: a QR code menu that opens as a page.
Can I tell how often it is scanned?
Only with a dynamic code or a page you can measure. On a Clay site the visits to that page are in your own stats, which answers the same question without a third service.
What if I change my menu?
Change the page. That is the advantage of the code pointing at an address rather than at a file, and nothing gets reprinted.
Try it with your business
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