An effective winery website is about so much more than a pretty design. Customers have high expectations and visit your site with preconceived notions about how the site should work. If users find your website confusing and hard to navigate, then they will leave. 

Website user experience (UX) has become an industry unto itself and is very different from graphic design. The best websites need to do both. While design can be very subjective, UX is not. At our DTC wine marketing agency Highway 29 Creative, we are devotees of the Baymard Institute– the leading web UX researchers. They publish valuable studies based on countless research and focus groups. 

The Baymard Institute recently published a comprehensive new study on niche product DTC websites and of course we devoured it. Since you are busy running your winery and might not have time to read the entire study yourself, we are going to summarize the most important learnings. Each guideline is directly applicable and actionable for wineries. 

• Your homepage needs to tease the most important pages within your website and provide buttons to dig deeper into the website.

• Full-screen, single-image homepages with no text or other content are detrimental.

• Highlight your core wines on your homepage and share examples of the different varietals/styles you offer. Have actionable add to cart buttons and links to the detail pages to learn more.

It seems a trend started years ago of having a winery’s homepage simply be a full-screen image and nothing else. Unfortunately, many other wineries decided to copy their peers instead of questioning this practice. Your homepage is the most important page on your website. It’s the most visited. The goal of a homepage is to introduce your brand to new customers, explain why they should buy your products, and then summarize the products you offer. 

With a single image homepage, wineries are missing out on the opportunity for rich storytelling and SEO benefits. Google gives special importance to your homepage and you need to ensure you have keyword focused headlines and copy on the page. 

When displaying wines on your homepage, include 4-7 different wines if possible and do your best to choose a wine from each category. For instance, if you make tons of different varietals, then highlight one of each. It’s important customers understand the breadth of your portfolio and don’t think you sell only Cabernet.

• Customers need to build trust with your brand- especially small and medium DTC brands.

• You need a page devoted to your brand story which highlights key people.

Nobody wants to buy wine from a faceless brand with no story. As a small or medium DTC brand, you have the unique opportunity to emotionally connect with your customer through storytelling. An “About” or “Our Story” page is an incredibly important tool. 

Do not fall into the trap of making your story a timeline or history lesson. No one wants a lecture. Instead tell your brand story in a way that helps the customer understand why you are uniquely qualified to deliver what they are looking for and how you can make their life better through your products. 

• Be clear and concise with your page titles in your navigation– don’t be cute or too branded.

• Add a FAQ page to your footer to answer typical questions.

• Add a Shipping and Returns page to your footer to clearly explain your shipping prices, policies, and timing.

Brand personality is very important, but not in your main navigation. I’ve seen American winery websites that use other languages in the titles or special club names. Instead keep the titles obvious like “Club” or “Membership” instead of something too specific like “Grower’s Circle.” Customers won’t know what it is and won’t click on it.

Resist the urge to have a page called “Wine” that is purely informative. You should name the page “Shop” and make it shoppable. 

A big barrier to customers converting is unanswered questions. Add a page to your footer called FAQ and have lists of questions and answers organized by topic. Have your customer service team keep a journal of questions they get so you can proactively answer them. Same goes for a Shipping & Returns page. Clearly state your prices, timing and any other details. 

• Do not display a pop-up upon page load. Wait at least 30 seconds to ensure the user is qualified and is ready to go deeper in your funnel.

• Give users a way to easily re-trigger a pop-up if they dismiss it.

• Do not have your live chat widget always present on the page and trigger automatically. Let customers trigger it from the contact page and/or footer.

• ADA compliance widgets do not need to be sticky and always present. They can be triggered from the footer and still be compliant. 

Screen real estate is at a premium and especially so on mobile. Trendy tools and ADA compliance lawsuits have spurred wineries to invest in tools, but not question their implementation.

Your site should not be cluttered by 3rd party tools fighting for attention. As a marketing agency, we believe strongly in the power of pop-ups as lead generators, but they should not trigger right away. Users find them annoying and it’s become second nature to close them without reading. Instead, wait 30 seconds or more before triggering a pop-up to let the user get to know you first.

Should a user close the pop-up, have it collapse into a small button or banner on the bottom of the page so they can easily trigger it again. After 30 seconds, a user might not want the 15% discount with email sign up. However, after 2 minutes they might be sold and want the offer. Without a persistent pop-up there is no way to call it back and the customer misses out. Klaviyo has a great tool for this!

Live chat widgets are effective and annoying. They are the equivalent of walking into a store and a pushy sales person walking right up to you asking if you need help. I’ve sold lots of wine over a chat plugin and it can be tastefully used. Instead of it always showing in the bottom corner of a page, you can customize most plugins to trigger only on the contact page or better yet, have a button on that page to let the customer initiate the live chat as a contact option. 

ADA compliance is not about avoiding lawsuits. It is about creating an accessible and inclusive web experience for all users. It’s so important. Many wineries use different plugins like accessibe.com or userway.com to embed a screen reader on their site. The issue is they are small widgets that never go away and take up valuable screen space, especially on mobile sites. To be compliant, you do not have to have a sticky widget. Instead, you can embed the widget in your footer. Users with disabilities who use screen readers will still be able to trigger when needed.

• First impressions are everything. Users make a snap judgment about your brand.

• Users can tell when you are using a website template. They typically research multiple websites when visiting wine country and judge based on it.

• Invest in custom photography and videography that shows your brand personality and products. We see the same free stock photos on too many winery websites.

• Do not try to outsmart users and use quirky page designs on your website. It will frustrate a user and they will leave the site. Stick to tried and true layouts and use imagery and graphics to personalize it.

Website users are smarter than most people give them credit for. They rarely look at only one winery website when researching a trip to wine country or trying to buy online. They can tell when you reuse stock photos or use a generic website template. It might make them question whether you cut corners in making your wine just like you did on a website. 

Your website is the most important marketing tool you have and you should invest it in accordingly. Work with a designer to create a custom website that tells your brand story.

Ensure you design within the standard web experience and do not get too creative with layouts and functionality. When faced with overly unique websites that are hard to navigate, users in the study rather leave the site then try to understand it. 

It is crucial your website is not only pretty, but functional. A streamlined UX is of the utmost importance as it can literally help you sell more wine.

Check out part two of this article, where we explore best practices for the UX of your winery’s online shop and product pages.

Simon Solis-Cohen is the founder of Highway 29 Creative, a leading digital and creative agency serving the wine industry. He challenges clients to think about the future and constantly innovate. The agency chases data, not fads, and provides one-stop shopping for wineries looking to enter or jolt their direct to consumer sales. Their approach starts by designing and building a website focused on conversion (wine sales, club sign ups & tasting room reservations) and then dives into each digital channel with consistent and effective content and messaging.