Keys to a Successful Winery Website

Having recently launched the R. Stuart & Co. Winery Website I thought it might be instructive to go through some of the key elements that we feel all winery websites should have, using the example of the R. Stuart site.

While this is, by no means, an exhaustive list of every feature we packed into the site, it does cover the most important. I hope you find it useful!

Wine Detail Page

While it seems obvious, many wineries forget that their website’s primary purpose is to introduce (and sell!) their wines to a passionate audience. You’ll see sites that are so jumbled up with things like Flash splash pages, music pairings, and navigation systems that bury the wine pages that it’s almost criminal (a crime against the wine). We focus on the wine. Each wine detail page is easy-to-read and offers layers of information for both the wine newbie and wine geek alike. These include: a detailed description, a large “buy now” button, previewable and downloadable tasting notes, spec data for the vineyard, vinification, and final products, a Google vineyard map, and photos.

The Store

Speaking of selling wine, we created a custom Volusion store (the store used by both Barack Obama and John McCain in the 2008 election and by the new Kangaroo) for R. Stuart which gives users a standardized (Amazon.com-esque) shopping experience. The store can handle quantity discounts, free shipping, price groups for the wine club, and gives a number of opportunities for marketing including coupon codes. It’s also PCI compliant and hosted on Volusion servers so critical data and transactions are ensured to be safe.

Contact Information in Obvious Locations

There is nothing more frustrating that going to a winery’s (or any company’s) site and having no clue where they are located or how to contact them. You are then forced to find the “contact” dropdown item where they may or may not have what you’re looking for. With R. Stuart, we placed the pertinent info in the upper right of every page. It’s also at the bottom of every page, in the footer. Another bonus, pull up the site on an iPhone and the phone number is automatically a link to call.

Blog / Social Media

While wine is the product and, if it’s tasty can sell itself, a good dose of personality is also required. Enter social media and the blog. We place the social media all in one spot (the jquery drawer on the left of the site) so that users aren’t distracted by it, but can easily access it at any time. The blog is integrated into the site and is divided into three sections: winery postings (From the Winery), trade postings (On the Road), and recipes. We give the power to the winery staff to update the blog (and all content, for that matter) themselves. The more they blog, the more they look like a happy, vibrant business and the more it helps their searchability. Oh, and check out a recipes page and note the “Share and Print” button. You can easily print any page of the site (practical for recipes) and even instantly create a PDF of it. Very cool.

Trade Page

Every winery should be as accomodating to trade as it can. We gave trade a one-stop page for all necessary information. This includes: contact information, distributor list, winemaker bio, logo art, and tasting notes, label image, and bottle image for each wine.

Simple Navigation

This isn’t so much a wine-specific feature, but a website feature in general. We subscribe to the philosophy that less is more. This is particularly the case when trying to relay a large amount of information in an easy-to-understand manner. Navigation needs to be obvious and consistent. If a user doesn’t know exactly where a link is going to take them, they aren’t going to click (example, if you have a blog, call it a blog for goodness sake…don’t try to be cute or clever with its name).

Calendar of Events

Most wineries have a calendar of events but make two major mistakes with it: 1) It’s rarely updated so it looks like your winery doesn’t do any events and/or 2) The calendar is difficult to navigate. We created a simple and clean list of events which quickly gives the user all of the necessary details. If the user wants, she can click “Calendar” to see the classic calendar view. Clicking on any one event brings the user to a detailed event page where they can comment on the event or share it via their social networks.