Living in the Internet age today, it is difficult for many people to imagine a time when you could not research and find out all of the detailed information about a particular business or service ahead of time, from the comfort of your own home through a free website, before actually venturing out and visiting the actual place of business. In fact, it was not too long ago that a place such as a winery, was something that remained somewhat shrouded in mystery - a mystery that could only be unraveled by actually visiting it in person to behold a total sensory experience of seeing, touching, smelling, and tasting the wine for yourself, and witnessing the process of wine manufacture right before your very eyes.
Getting To Know Your Local Winery
Wine is one of those things that people tend to be very particular about. After all, wine is used to celebrate many of life’s greatest moments, or to share in an intimate gathering. Now that we are living in the age of the Internet, with ease of access to information about practically everything, you would be hard pressed to find an individual who would be willing to venture out to check out a new winery and experiment with their selection of fine wines, without first checking out the winery’s website. When it comes to buying and selling, people want to know who they are dealing with. They want to seek out as much information as they can, in order that they may be able to make much smarter and more informed decisions before they commit to buying anything. These days, if a business doesn’t have a website, it is regarded as “backward”, and people may doubt the business’ credibility, reputation, and proper standing as a veritable business, because it is somehow still stuck in the “dark ages” without a free website.
And a winery is no different.
Four Reasons Why Every Winery Needs To Have A Website
Every winery needs a free business website for many reasons, not unlike most any other business struggling to succeed in today’s global economy. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why every winery would need its own free website:
1. Not too long ago, in the early days of the Internet, having a website was a big deal. Back then, a website served no useful purpose other than to act as an electronic “business card” or an electronic “brochure”. Today, people are more apt to not even give a business the benefit of the doubt if it either doesn’t have a website, let alone if the website is nothing more than a single web page or two worth of static content. Your winery website needs to set the tone and the mood for the wine tasting experience. Many winery websites today rely on Flash intros to appeal to visitors and to entice them to come visit the winery.
2. People want to know about the winery: It’s history, it’s location, the wine pressing process, the types of wine available in its selection of products.
3. People are always looking for ways to save both time and money by shopping online. Many people are willing to buy wine directly online through the websites of their favorite wineries. So by hosting an ecommerce website for your winery, you will be able to sell your wine to a wider audience, with a potentially worldwide reach, rather than restricting yourself only to local customers.
4. Wineries face stiff competition out there. So you only get one chance to make a good first impression with potential customers. Once potential customers come to your website, you don’t want their first visit to also be their last. You want to keep in touch with them. So by hosting a website for your winery, you can use Web 2.0 social media to keep in touch with your website visitors long after they have come and gone from your website. This could be through any one of the following media formats: Facebook, Twitter, an opt-in e-mail newsletter, or a blog newsfeed.
Staying Competitive
Every business today needs to stay competitive. The battle for consumers’ wallets is being waged on a new landscape in the 21st century: The Internet. Every winery needs a free website. And it can’t be just any old generic collection of static web pages. It must be a vibrant, dynamic, and interactive website that captures the imagination of the visitor,gets them in the mood for wine tasting, and either invites them to come visit the winery, or to buy the wine directly online. After all, a winery is in the business to sell wine, right?
