Your agritourism website as a welcome mat
“Visitors are coming to your website with specific questions: ‘Can I trust this place? Is it worth the trip?’ Your website will be their first impression, and it needs to answer those questions. Good user experience means making it easy, clear and inviting,” said Molly McManus, the agritourism and marketing coordinator with CCE Broome.
For an agritourism enterprise, a positive user experience is critical for converting web traffic to farm visits. Web users are quick to judge. According to McManus, 75% of people decide whether a business is credible based on its website alone. Visitors are also highly skeptical and ruthlessly screen pages: If a page fails to communicate its value within the first 10 seconds, they’ll click away immediately.
The Home Page
“This is going to be the most important page on your whole website. This is going to be the page where they’re deciding, in those 10 seconds, whether to stay or leave,” McManus said.
The home page should read like a scannable brochure, not a novel. The top should feature one strong photo or video, and it should be authentic – a real photo of the farm, animals, offerings, staff or visitors. The top should also include a short headline (often called a hero section) that showcases your goods and/or services in a way that makes visitors want to take action.
It can also be effective to include a call-to-action (CTA) button at the top, but avoid vague labels. For example, if it’s U-pick apple season, use a “Book your picking time now” CTA rather than a “Plan your visit” CTA.
Including the seasonal hours on the home page is also important. “Including your hours right there builds instant trust because it helps signal that you’re current, you’re open and you’re paying attention to your site,” said McManus.
The home page should include icons that lead to separate pages. These will generally match the headings of the main navigation bar. This might include an “Experiences & Activities” page, a “Plan Your Visit” page and an “About” page.
Too many options, McManus explained, can lead to decision fatigue. She suggested keeping the main navigation bar to six pages to avoid overwhelming visitors with options.
Experiences & Activities
The “Experiences & Activities” page needs to be specific. “Farms will sometimes list their activities in one sentence,” said McManus. She’s seen websites that say, “We offer hayrides, pumpkin picking and a corn maze.” This approach leaves out important information a visitor needs to know. They will want to know details about the length of the hayride, what is included in admission, whether advance reservations are required and what ages activities are appropriate for. Including this information may help prevent time-consuming phone calls and emails. Some visitors won’t bother calling at all.
“If they can’t find the right information on your website, you’ve just lost a potential customer,” McManus said.
Plan Your Visit
A well-designed “Plan Your Visit” page maps out the logistics of a farm visit. It should be current and easy to read and include hours, admission prices, an address linked to a map, parking information, what to wear or bring, pet policy and weather or cancellation policies. It can also include a list of frequently asked questions.
Accessibility information is often overlooked, said McManus. This information will help visitors with disabilities plan ahead. If the business is in a rural location, it can be helpful to include a nearby highway, landmark or other point of reference to help visitors avoid getting lost.
About
An about page ideally shares your story with customers. “This is what separates an on-farm experience from a theme park,” said McManus. People book agritourism experiences because they want to form a connection with where their food comes from and the people who produce it. A few paragraphs and a photo of the people behind the operation can help foster trust.
Other Content Considerations
Real photos – not stock photos – are an important part of the user experience. Consider asking visitors to share photos that can be included on the website. Be aware that uncompressed large images are the number one cause of slow website load times. If a page takes more than three seconds to load, visitors will likely leave the site. There are free online tools that compress images for web use. McManus recommends against slow-loading slideshows.
“One good photo is more impactful than six slow-loading ones,” she said.
The website should also be designed deliberately for smartphone users. According to McManus, more than 60% of web searches take place on smartphones. Design pages to scroll up and down rather than left to right, and use a font size of at least 16 points.
Wide layouts or images that force horizontal scrolling are a challenge on narrow phone screens. Make sure touch targets, like CTA buttons and phone number links, are easy to tap. Buttons must be large enough to tap with a finger. The phone number should open the dialer when tapped; if users have to copy and paste the number to call it, you may lose potential business.
Finally, remember that a website should build trust and credibility. McManus said, “Think about what you’re asking of a visitor. You’re asking them to take time out of their day, drive to a place they may have never been, spend their money in this economy, bring their family. They need to feel confident it’s going to be worth it before they’ve ever been there.”
Use reviews and a Google Business Profile to help build transparency. An up-to-date, user-friendly website will bring both credibility and customers to your actual welcome mat.
by Sonja Heyck-Merlin
