Winter is approaching, which means the dreaded website update season is upon us. If you’ve been avoiding your site for the past months, it can be hard to know where to start once you finally have the time.

Should you re-write your text? Does it matter that your homepage banner image is grainy? What’s the bare minimum that you should do to make sure that your website is actually useful for your customer and helping you make sales?

I get it, it’s overwhelming. And it doesn’t help if you don’t feel super confident about how to use your website platform. I don't blame you if you’d rather just put this off for another year! But I promise, it’s better to chip away at edits and updates rather than letting them pile up.

So I’ve compiled a list of five really important things to evaluate and update on your site this season. Should you do all five of them? Yes. But is doing only one of them better than doing none? Absolutely!

If you don’t have time to do all five now, bookmark this page and try to come back to it periodically throughout the winter. And sign up for my mailing list to get other tips and reminders about maintaining your website (plus you’ll get a free check list with 7 things you can do to make your site look more professional AND if you sign up by the end of the year, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win 90 minutes of free website maintenance from me…imagine…I could do some of these things for you!).

So now, here’s the list:

1) Make sure your website is secure.

If you do nothing else, do this.

Go to your website right now and look up in the address bar where your website address (url) is. If it shows a little locked padlock symbol and shows “https” before your url, you’re all set.

If it says “insecure”, shows a little lock with a slash through it, or just says “http” that means your website is insecure. 

In order to make sure that your data and your site visitors’ data is secure, you need to have a secure site. This is important no matter what, but if you are taking credit card info or other personal info from people through your site, people are going to be pretty hesitant to complete a transaction on an insecure site. As they should be.

If you have an insecure Squarespace site, follow my instructions below.

And if you have an insecure site on another platform, take a few minutes to look into how to change that. Even if you need to contact customer service, it’s worth it to make this change.

If you have a Squarespace site, SSL should automatically be set to be secure when you build your site. For some reason though, I’ve found that it’s really common for DIY Squarespace sites to be insecure. Perhaps these are older sites that were built before this was automatic, or perhaps people assume that they need to change the built in settings and end up making their site insecure accidentally…

Whatever the reason, if your site is insecure, now is the time to change it. Here’s how:

From your Squarespace main menu go to settings >> advanced >> SSL and make sure your settings look like the image on the right.

2) Ask yourself ”what’s the #1 thing I want my website to do?”

Is the primary purpose of your site to sell CSA shares? Is it to gain mailing list sign ups so you can promote your workshops or sell sides of beef? Do you want people to go to your site and then come to your stall at the farmers market?

Choose the primary purpose of your site and start thinking through how you can change your homepage and supporting pages to make this purpose clear. This will include adding a clear call to action button “above the fold” on your site that asks people to do whatever it is you want them to do. And then repeating this call to action throughout the site.

If you’re not clear on what you want people to do when they arrive at your site, they won’t be clear either and chances are they will do nothing. So, take some time to think through this question, and then make the necessary changes to your site.

3) Check to make sure you have clearly told people how they can do business with you.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes for a moment and imagine that you know nothing about your farm. You don’t know how your CSA works, you don’t know if you have a farm stand or if you sell wholesale, and you don’t know where you are located. 

Now look through your site and honestly evaluate whether or not your site answers these questions in a clear, straightforward, and easy to find way.

If you go to markets, clearly state which markets you go to. List the dates, times, and locations of each. Link to the market websites. 

If you have a farm stand, tell people how it works. Do they need cash? Is it self-serve? What are your hours?

If you sell CSA shares, clearly state the dates, prices, how to sign up. 

This may all sound obvious, but skipping these details is more common than you might think. And it really will turn people away.

I promise, if someone can’t figure out how to buy from you they are far more likely to go buy from someone else than they are to keep trying to buy from you.

4) Add a lead magnet or an opt-in gift in order to increase mailing list signups.

Having a robust mailing list of people who are really interested in what you offer is arguably the most important thing you can have to market your business. 

Have 50 turkeys to sell? Need to market your CSA shares? Are you offering a class or a workshop or a tour? Selling to a mailing list is far more effective than posting on social media. Social media is fickle (not to mention depressing) and it’s expensive to advertise. But a mailing list is a cheap and captive audience.

But how do you build this mailing list? Just saying “sign up for our mailing list” in the footer of your site might not be enough to convince most people to give you their email address. 

So we use lead magnets, or opt-in gifts. These are basically little free things (usually a pdf or other download) that you give to people in exchange for their email address. 

Your lead magnet should be something that your best customers would be interested in and something that’s compelling enough that people will give away their email address for it. A checklist, a secret favorite recipe, a guide. This is a great opportunity for you to share your expertise with your customers!

And I’ll be going into more detail about setting up your lead magnet in the future, so sign up for my mailing list to be notified when I do.

5) Swap out those grainy photos and add a photo of yourself!

Nice photos make for a far more visually appealing and professional site so if you have some higher resolution images than what’s currently on your site, now’s the time to swap them out. 

And go take a look at your about page? Is there a photo of you? If not, add one please! I get it, I don’t like having a photo of myself on my site either, but people just like to know who they’re doing business with.

And if you don’t have any website quality photos right now, make a plan to get some next year: 

• Hire a photographer, put a call out to CSA members to see if anyone with a DSLR camera would like to take photos in exchange for a discounted share, or ask around and see if you have a friend who would loan you their DSLR camera for a day or two. 

• Make a list of the images you would like to have on your website so you can have a photo shoot with intention, rather than just randomly snapping photos in hopes that you end up with some that work. It’s a bit more work upfront but worth it in the long run.

Okay, I know, those are not exactly five little things for you to work on. But like I said before, do what you can and bookmark this list to come back to later if you don’t get it all done. 

And if you’re feeling unsure about any of these tasks, sign up for my mailing list. I’m planning to provide more detailed info about some of this stuff throughout the winter. Plus, if you sign up in 2022 you’ll be entered into a drawing to win 90 minutes of website maintenance from me. Like I could do some of this stuff for you, which would be pretty great.