Wine Marketing & Website Tips

Explaining, in very simple terms, why Search Engines are important to you, what the rankings mean, how Search Engines work, choosing your keyword phrases and using them to improve your Search Engine rankings, and ways to check your progress.

Disclaimer

This article is by no means the end-all, be-all of Search Engine Information!!!! They are such complicated beasties it would be as difficult to try and totally explain them as it would be to explain the U.S. tax system!

Instead, what I’ve tried to do is focus the article on those of you who may not be very familiar with Search Engines and to give you an idea of how they work and what you can do to help your winery website’s rankings — without spending a fortune at a marketing company.

Importance of Search Engines and Rankings

We all know Search Engines are important, but you may be asking yourself "How do they effect me and my winery?" Well, believe it or not, people are actually using the Search Engines to look for new, undiscovered wineries and wines.

For example, I just checked on Google to see how many people searched using the phrase ‘buy pinot noir’, and was FLOORED! An average of 1,600 people search using that term per month! PER MONTH!!!! How do you think it would effect your pinot noir sales if you showed up in the first few pages of these results? (And to be effective, you want to show up in the first 3 pages of the results for the keywords you’ve targeted.)

But how do you get on the first 3 pages? Well, first you have to know a little bit about how Search Engines work . . . .

Explaining the Search Engine Process

How Search Engines find web pages and content to rank for their search results is they send out little computer programs called ‘web crawlers’ or ‘spiders’ who browse through websites on the internet and, based on certain words and phrases in the web page’s coding and text, rank it for the keyword phrases it feels are most relevant.

For example, if the ‘spider’ reads through your ‘Vineyard’ page and encounters the phrase ‘sustainable farming’ a lot, then it will consider your page relevant for that keyword phrase and rank you for it accordingly. Of course, this is a gross simplification of the process, and does not take into consideration how much competition you may have for these same keyword phrases, but I hope it helps you understand a wee bit about how they work.

So, what do you do with this knowledge? Why, make sure every page on your site is rich with the keyword phrases you want to be ranked highly for! Sounds easy doesn’t it? NOT!!!!

Finding Good Keyword Phrases

You may be asking yourself, "Why do I need to FIND good keyword phrases? Can’t I just optimize my site for ‘buy pinot noir’ and get ranked high for that?" Unfortunately, no. The more popular a phrase is, the more competition there will be amongst websites for space in those coveted 3 results pages I mentioned above. For example, below you can see that over 4 million web pages showed up in the results when I searched using the term ‘buy pinot noir’ — that’s A LOT of competition!

Unless you are pretty dedicated to being ranked for this phrase (and when I say ‘dedicated’, I mean with both your time and your money) your chances of showing up in the top 3 pages is pretty slim. So now what do you do?

You are going to have to get creative with your keyword phrases and narrow your focus. You want to use keyword phrases that are popular enough by potential consumers to be worthwhile, yet not so popular with your competition that it is impossible to make it to the top 3 pages.

So, Instead of shooting for ‘buy pinot noir’, maybe you should focus on ‘willamette valley pinot noir’ or ‘award winning pinot noir’. And maybe there are keyword phrases out there people are using that you never thought of! (We are so involved with the wine industry it can be impossible to try and ‘think’ like a consumer and figure out what keywords they would use to look for wine.) So, to help you come up with keyword ideas is Google’s Adword Keyword Tool. (This is actually for their ‘Adwords’ customers but anyone can use it.)

When you click on the above link, you are taken to the page where you can enter in the keyword phrases you want to use as a starting point. In the below example, I used ‘willamette valley pinot noir’.

After you click on ‘Get keyword
ideas’ the following page comes up:

What you are looking for on this page are keyword phrase ideas you can use and how popular they are (like I mentioned above, you want a phrase that is popular enough to be worthwhile in pursuing but not so popular you don’t stand a chance of ranking in the first 3 page results).

After looking at the keyword results Google gave me I found several phrases I hadn’t thought of! One of these is ‘willamette valley vineyards pinot noir’ and with it averaging 260 searches a month, this would be a great phrase to pursue for your website! You KNOW at least 260 people are using it to search with per month, and when I searched for it using Google it returned only around 50,300 results. This may SEEM like a lot, but with a little work optimizing your site you have a good chance of rising to the top.

Take your time and have fun using this AWESOME Google tool! You may be surprised at the keyword phrases that pop up and the more specific keyword phrases you find the better your chances of showing up in the top 3 pages of the search results.

Where To Put Your Keyword Phrases

Now that you have your list of keyword phrases, what do you do with them? I’m going to go over where you need to insert these words and phrases and once you understand how this works, either you or your web designer can put them into action.

Home Page

Search Engines consider your home page to be the most important page on your entire site! (This is the page that comes up when people type in www.yourwebsite.com.) Because of this, you need to make sure your home page is chock full of keyword rich text! So, if you have an intro page that only includes a graphic and/or Flash animation with a link to the rest of your site, you could be missing out on many Search Engine opportunities.

Spangler Vineyards is an example of a winery who knows what keyword phrases they are targeting and do a great job of making sure their home page is rich with them. ‘Distinctive Red Wines’, ‘Vibrant White Wines’ and ‘Wines in Southern Oregon’ are all keyword phrases used in their main header and are popular enough terms to be searched for in the Search Engines but not so popular they’re impossible to get ranked in. These phrases are also used in the text that follows which makes the Search Engine ‘spiders’ think this page is even more relevant for these keywords — thereby increasing their chances of being ranked high.

Keywords In The Code

Something you may not be aware of is that much like the wiring for your home is hidden in the walls, the coding for your web page is hidden behind the visible face it shows to the world. To the right is an example of the coding that makes up a web page.

Those of you using Mozilla FireFox, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer can view the coding by pulling up a web page, right clicking anywhere on the page (except on an image or flash animation) and selecting ‘View page source’ or ‘View Source’ from the window that pops up. This will open up another page that includes all the coding for that page.

Why do you need to know this? Because within this coding section are some very important areas to the Search Engines: your Meta Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords and Header Tags.

Meta Titles

Meta tags are snippets of code at the top of your page that can be used in a variety of ways. You want to use them to give your page a Meta Title, a Meta Description and Meta Keywords.

Below is an example of the meta tags on my home page focusing on my primary keyword phrase of ‘winery website’

As you can see, ‘Winery Website’ is the first phrase in my title, and focus this even more by including in my meta description the type of wineries I prefer to work with. If you are wondering why I did not include my company name in the title or description, this is because the keyword phrase ‘winery website’ has a lot more competition for high rankings in the Search Engines then ’4 the Grapes’. And ’4 the Grapes’ is used often enough in the site that I rank high for my company name anyway — make sense?

VERY IMPORTANT: Be sure to reinforce the keyword phrases used in your meta tags on the rest of your page! If you were using the above meta tag examples for your page, you would back them up by having ‘Winery Website” in your page header and also use it in the regular text of the page. This way the Search Engine spiders who are browsing your page can see you really do have relevant content for these keywords and will factor this in during rankings

Header Tags

Header tags are the HTML tags used to code the headers on your page. The Search Engines consider <H1> to be the most important heading on your page and the higher the ‘H’ tag the lower is its importance.

As you can see in the above example, I reinforced my relevancy for the keyword phrase ‘winery website’ by including it in my <h1> tag.

ALT Tags

Alt tags are part of the image coding describing what the image is about. They are mainly for folks who have their images turned off or for the seeing impaired, but the Search Engine spiders read these descriptions too and you can use them for your keyword phrases.

In the example to the left, the alt tag describes this picture as "Abacela, a southern oregon vineyard" which will help their ranking for ‘southern oregon vineyard’

Other Factors That Effect Your Search Engine Rankings

I know I’ve already given you a TON of information, but I promise, we’re almost done! The Search Engines consider 2 other factors when ranking your site.

#1 is how often you update your web pages (especially your home page). You see, they think if a website is updated often then the site owners are ‘obviously’ on the ball and should have their keyword phrases ranked higher then a website that’s been sitting, unchanged, for months. (I always recommend to my clients they update their home page regularly with the latest wine releases, new reviews and awards and listing any events they will be having.)

And #2 is how many outside websites are linking to yours. The Search Engines feel a site that has a lot of links leading to it from other sites MUST be important, so they will rank this site higher then a site that has no other sites linking to it. There are many ways to get other sites to link to yours but here are just a few to get you started:

• You can ‘trade links’ with other websites. For example, set up a ‘Visit’ page on your website and ask the various businesses you want to include on this page if they would link to you if you link to them.
• You can start playing with social media websites like Twitter and LinkedIN and post links to your site there.

How to check your progress

For my Grand Finali, I’m going to let you know a little secret on how to track your progress in the Search Engines — Web Position. This program will look through the Search Engines you specify for the keyword phrases you set to see if, and where you rank. It is a WONDERFUL tool and is considered the industry standard software for Search Engine marketers everywhere. You may think because of this it would be pretty expensive, but you can buy the ‘Standard Version‘ for about $150 and they do offer a free trial. Below is an example of one of their result summaries for my own site:

I hope I haven’t completely overwhelmed you, but by breaking down all the different elements of the Search Engines I’m hoping you have a better understanding of how they work and some solid ideas you can implement on your site to improve your own Search Engine rankings.

Regularly sending out eNewsletters is a PROVEN technique to instilling loyalty in your site visitors and turning potential customers into actual customers. But, if you don’t already have a huge list of subscribers to start with, how do you go about growing your list?

Growing your Winery Email List

• Have your ‘Subscribe to our eNewsletter’ form prominently displayed on your homepage and, even better, on every page of your website.
• Add to your list the email addresses of all the people who have ever purchased your wine online.
• When people order your wine over the phone be sure to ask for their email address and include them to your list.
• Have a ‘Guestbook’ or sign-up sheet always available in your tasting room and on your table at winery events where people can give you their name and email address.
• When discussing your wines with an interested party, ask them if you can add their email address to your eNewsletter list.
• If you belong to a regional winery/wine growing group such as ‘Dundee Hills Wine Growers Association‘ that collects site visitor emails, ask the website administrator to send you a list of all their email subscribers.
• Offer the chance to win a prize by subscribing and be sure to include the price (so they understand the value they are getting), a picture and, if possible, testimonials of how wonderful it is.

  Some potential prizes could be:

  • a cork-screw
  • a tasting kit (aka tasting flight) Since you probably can’t send wine, this could include a wine opener, logo glasses, wine glass sheet along with notes and a pen (maybe even some cheese?)
  • a logo wine glass
  • Some of your branded apparel
• Give new sign-ups an incentive to join by offering something they can download after signing up. (and be sure to include the price and, if possible, testimonials of how wonderful it is)

  Some examples could be:

  • A collection of recipes that can be paired with your wine in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.
  • A wine and food pairing booklet in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.
  • Maybe a ‘how-to’ manual on hosting a wine tasting? (Which of course would be in pdf format so they can be downloaded after subscribing.

  I know coming up with this material make take you some time, but it would be so worth it in the long run because not only does it increase your eNewsletter sign-ups, but it helps to build brand loyalty. Even better, once these digital files are put together, it will cost you nothing for them to be downloaded!

• Use Twitter to collect email by:
  • Including something in your Twitter bio like "subscribe to our eNewsletter to get more indepth info"
  • Responding personally to new ‘Followers’ with a ‘Thank you for following me, if you want more information be sure to sign-up for my eNewsletter’

Ideas for Using Your List

You want to PUBLISH REGULARLY (weekly or monthly) so your recipients have more opportunities to get to know you.  Since I know how difficult it can be to come up with fresh material for a regular eNewsletter, something I’ve done to help me out is keeping an idea file where I can store anything and everything that could be of interest. 

Here are some things I’ve come up with you can use in your eNewsletters (I know some are pretty obvious, but I hope I’ve included some stuff that was new :

• Post any wine awards and/or good reviews along with a link to where they can actually purchase the wine (if you have a shopping cart).
• Include any new wine releases along with tasting notes, food pairings and a link to where they can actually purchase the wine (if you have a shopping cart).
• Any wine sales and/or special offers such as free shipping. (And I always thought it would be good idea to offer a special ’2 day sale’ just for your eNewsletter subscribers to see if it increases your sales any.)
• Let your subscribers know about any upcoming events.
• Offer seasonal packages.  Examples of this could go on forever (Christmas, Valentines Day, etc…) so maybe shake it up a bit with a little known special day?  For example, did you know December 5th is Prohibition Day?  This is as good a reason as any to offer a ‘Happy Prohibition Day’ package!



• Winery specific information
  • Let folks know when and what you are bottling — and include pictures!!! (Remember, you want your recipients to get to know you and what better way to do this then with pictures.)
  • If you use one of those traveling bottling trucks, maybe let your subscribers know about it and explain how they work (I know I was fascinated when I first found out about the traveling bottling trucks and was amazed how they fit all that equipment into a truck!)
  • Let them know when you are barreling down.
  • Let folks know if you are considering using any new techniques or equipment such as oak alternatives or screw caps — and ask their opinion!!  Make them feel involved in the decision.
  • Let your subscribers know about any new personnel you’ve hired or any new milestones you’ve reached. For example, ‘Our 10 Year Anniversary’, or ‘We’ve just added a new winemaker, John Smith, to our team.  He is know for his . . .’
• Vineyard Updates
  
  • Let them know when bud break happens and include pictures with captions.
  • Do the same thing for veraison explaining what it is and include pictures with captions
  • Of course harvest is always a great time (if you aren’t too busy ) to let your subscribers know what is going on.
  • Consider letting them know about canopy management, what it entails, why it is done and, as always, include pictures with captions
  • If you do anything special with your vineyard, include that in a eNewsletter. For example, Domaine Drouhin has a ‘green harvest’ during the summer where they thin a lot of their clusters, and Sokol Blosser is certified organic which entails a lot specific vineyard practices they need to do in order to maintain their ‘certified’ status.
• Unique ways to use your wine
  • Pouring your desert wine over berries for a sweet treat!
  • Instead of buying ‘cooking wine’ in the grocery store, suggest they use some of your wine and why.
• And then of course you can always throw in recipes to be paired with your wine.

What to Use to Send Out Your List

I recommend NOT using your regular email program to send out your eNewsletters — it can really tie up your server and the more sign-ups you get the more unwieldy it will be to handle everything.  So I suggest using Vertical Response or Constant Contact to send out to your list.  The reason for this is:

• They are very inexpensive.  If you plan to only send out eNewsletters sporadically, then your best bet is to use Vertical Response because they charge per email address and you can send out to about 1,000 emails addresses for only $15.  Constant Contact charges a monthly fee so they are good for those of you who plan to send out eNewsletters regularly.
• They provide the coding for your web designer to add to your website so every new subscriber will automatically be added to your eNewsletter list.
• They make it easy to prepare and send out your eNewsletters and you can even schedule them ahead of time
• And I saved the best for last!!!  They can actually track how many of your eNewsletters were opened and, if you included links in the eNewsletter it can even tell you what links were clicked on along with how many times.  This information is PRICELESS for figuring out how successful your eNewsletters are!

What Is A Good Open Rate?

For those of you who ARE tracking your eNewsletters, I thought I’d throw in this interesting bit of information I discovered today:  According to Donna Gunter of ‘Get More Clients Online’, "a good open rate is considered to be 30-40%, which means that between 30 and 40% of your list is actually reading your broadcast."  This may not seem like a lot, but considering how busy everyone is now-a-days, and how many eNewsletters they must get, its impossible to think all of your eNewsletters are going to be read by everyone.

As always, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts. So if you have an idea for winery eNewsletters (whether its growing your list or ideas on what to write about), please feel free to comment this blog or email me directly.