Best practices to keep a healthy online presence for your Vineyard

As a vineyard owner, most of your time probably goes into managing your operations of growing, harvesting and winemaking. Management of your website, content, online messaging, social media etc are probably irritants that you wish you did not have to deal with.

As a small agency that helps niche clients with their online presence, we’ve put together some best practices to follow for your vineyard’s online presence. Simple stuff that you should take into account and execute to whatever extent possible. We’ll take you through these best practices as simply as possible:

Your Vineyard Website

It’s not enough to just have a website. It needs to look good, it needs to present information clearly, it needs to be easy to navigate, it should be responsive and it needs to create a strong first impression. Otherwise, you’re just competing for the attention of the same audience alongside another few hundred businesses. 75% of the consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design.

Security

While your website may cut it, in terms of design and content, there are a bunch of other things that you need to keep in mind. Security has become important and if your site is not SSL secured, your visitors may see a warning to not browse your website, so make sure you have the SSL certificate in place.

Responsiveness

According to reports, 57% of internet users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobile. Gone are the days when websites were viewed only on the Desktop, now visitors want to browse on their phones, IPads, and other devices, all of which need a certain amount of technical enabling.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the top tools used for monitoring, tracking and analyzing traffic on your website. It gives you insightful data about your website visitors, their behaviour on your website and how they are getting to your website. Any business that is looking to grow in the digital space should definitely be using Google Analytics.

Google My Business

Google My Business connects you directly with your customers, whether they are looking for you on search or on maps. Bottom line is your business must be listed in Google My Business if you want to be found online in a local search. A fully complete and optimized Google My Business page can increase the overall success rate.

SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization, when implemented correctly, can pay dividends over a long period of time. Optimizing your website will help deliver better information to search engines so that your content can be properly indexed and displayed within search results.

Blogging

In a largely static website, every changing content brings in repeat visitors and continuous traffic. A good quality, informative and interactive blog adds a lot of value to your online presence, and as a Vineyard owner, you can write about a variety of topics concerning your processes, your harvest or your brand of wines.

Outreach from your Winery

Outreach has gained a lot of importance in the recent past, and every business wants to ensure they have an outreach strategy in place, lest they get ignored completely by their audience. Needless to say, this has only added pressure on small businesses to keep up with the outreach game, but it can be limited and restricted to the most effective mediums.

Social Media

If you feel you have an audience on certain platforms on social media, stick to those and do a good job with your posts. If Instagram has more like-minded wine lovers, then go for it, start your page and start engaging with your audience. If you have an important event or announcement, Facebook groups in your area are a great way to reach the right people.

Email Marketing

Email & newsletter marketing is a direct way of reaching your current clients and potential clients. Use a good quality email marketing platform to keep your audience informed and posted. Build a list of your loyal buyers and keep them posted on the latest happenings in your vineyard. Email marketing helps you build a loyal audience over a period of time.

Support Material for your Brand of Wine

Every peripheral support material that you need for your brand of wines should have consistency in following brand guidelines and coherence. It helps with the credibility of your business, and helps you in establishing brand recall.

Stationery

Ensure that branding on your business cards, stationery, writing pads, or any other material is consistent and follows a defined protocol. It’s okay to keep it simple, but consistency and high quality in these items is of paramount importance, it demonstrates professionalism and helps attract new clients.

Collateral

All your collateral for your business should be consistent and follow a similar design protocol. Irrespective of whether you’re producing flyers, brochures or pamphlets, the common thread of design, fonts, placement and layout must be consistent and in line with all your branding and online presence.

Presentations

You may use presentations to send corporate information to prospective distributors or customers. Ensure that your presentation template is fixed and follows the brand’s guidelines. Inconsistency in look and feel reflects poorly on your brand.

Infographics

Infographics are a great way to get the gist of your processes, systems, methods or functions across to your audience. They lend clarity and definition, and project your wine brand as a structured and serious one. Make sure you stick to simple infographics but use them effectively.

How We Can Support You

Over the last two decades, we’ve helped countless clients with their online presence and managed their design, development and digital activities, and enabled them to focus on their business effectively. After all, you need to focus on what you do well, and we can help you with the stuff that we do well!
If all the information on this page resonates with your needs, we'll be happy to run a review of your website, branding and overall online presence. We will then give you structured recommendations on how you can strengthen your online activity.
Our contracts vary from $1000 to $5000 per month, and we devise your online maintenance plan based on your need, audience and budget. If you’ve enjoyed reading these best practices for your Vineyard and wine business, let’s talk about how we can add value!

Case Studies

To get a fair idea of what we mean by 360 degree support, take a look at these case studies for clients where all their online needs are taken care of by our team, within monthly maintenance contracts. Once we understand the client's business and approach, we're in a strong position to turn things around quickly, deliver more than expected, and give our client sound advise.

Testimonials

We support and service scores of small businesses across the globe and are happy to have happy clients! We'd love for you to speak to a few of them and get direct feedback on how we have helped them with their online management needs.

RedAlkemi delivered excellent branding work and was easy to deal with. I'd recommend their work and would be happy to engage them for future projects.

Neryl East
Australia

Love their work, they have done several jobs for us and we will continue to hire them for future work. Highly recommend!

Thomas Heimann
USA

Fantastic project execution from RedAlkemi team, they went above-and-beyond. Great communication. Would highly recommend using them for WP projects.

Twan Vollebregt
Switzerland

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