An effective winery website needs to book events, sell wine and wine club memberships, generate leads and tell your brand story. Does your winery website do all of that? Most likely not. Thankfully, we have compiled a list of simple website tips to help you sell more wine.
Know your Wine Consumers
Simply defining your target market as “all wine drinkers” can make your marketing vague and ineffective. According to a comprehensive study commissioned by Constellation Wines, there are 6 types of wine consumers: overwhelmed, image seekers, traditionalist, savvy shoppers, satisfied sippers and enthusiasts. Most wine drinkers are overwhelmed by the different choices and since most wine marketers target enthusiasts, sales are lost due to a lack of communication. When you understand what your niche market desires, you can write content that more readily grabs their attention.
One-Click Purchasing
Make the purchasing process as simple as possible by implementing one-click purchasing. There are lots of laws, regulations and things to know about selling wine online so we recommend VIN65, an ecommerce content management system specifically catered to selling wines.
Stay Fresh
Unlike fine wine which gets better with age, the opposite is true for your website content. Writing fresh, unique content and blogging regularly about topics that your wine drinkers are interested in will ensure a steady revenue stream. Furthermore, Google loves fresh content so keeping your website updated means that you will appear higher in the search results.
Mobile Responsive
A responsive website means that it will adjust automatically based on your screen resolution so that there will be no panning and pinching to view everything. With Google penalizing websites that are not mobile-friendly and mobile users having exceeded traditional laptop and desktop users in 2014, your website needs to look awesome and function smoothly on all devices. If your website is not responsive, we highly recommend redesigning to avoid losing out on mobile sales opportunities.
Embrace Social Media
According to Statista, 78% of the U.S. population are on social media. That is 252.6 billion people so your target market is on social media even if you are not. Social media can help drive targeted traffic, boost SEO, promote your wine events, create positive social proof and generate media coverage. Check out our recent blog post on how to generate leads from Twitter.
Keep it Simple
Your menu needs to be easy to navigate and in a consistent place across all devices. If people have to think too much about what they are clicking on, you will lose them. The web is bursting with information so people scan rather than read content. Place your most important information first and allow for plenty of white space for breathing room. Good web design is when there is nothing left to take away or add.
Go Big & Modern
With screen resolutions getting larger and larger, responsive websites are getting wider and wider. Many websites use full-page hero images or background videos to create a strong visual experience. Modern web design is characterized as being semi-flat and minimalistic with large and unique typography.
Sprinkle in your Keywords
This goes back to understanding your wine consumers and what they are Googling for to find your website. If you write unique content that answers their search queries, they are more likely to land on you. Be sure to perform keyword research with Google’s Keyword Planner so you know the optimal keywords to focus on for each web page.
In Conclusion
Being in the midst of wine country, we work with a lot of wineries and wine marketing companies but most of these website tips can also be applied to other industries. If all of this sounds daunting, please contact us to get a free consultation to start your mobile-friendly winery website today!