Wine Marketing FAQ

SEO services can be divided into three categories.

On-Page SEO: This involves optimizing individual web pages to improve their search engine rankings.

Factors within this category include structure and content of headings (h1, h2, h3 headings), page titles, meta descriptions, and keyword usage.

Off-Page SEO: This includes activities outside the website, such as link building and social media optimization.

Technical SEO: Addressing technical aspects of a website, including site speed optimization, mobile-friendliness, and structured data implementation.

Google recommends optimizing product pages by including descriptive titles, unique meta descriptions, high-quality images, and relevant keywords.

What this means for wineries is creating product pages specific to defined keyword clusters, and then focusing your page titles, meta descriptions, image <ALT> data and all page content to those keyword clusters.

Schema markup for wine details can enhance search visibility.

Wine Chemistry can help with all of this. Visit our page dedicated to attracting more visitors to your winery’s website, and view our services.

Site speed impacts user experience and search rankings. You can see how well your site is performing by visiting Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool at https://pagespeed.web.dev/

Common causes of poor site speeds of winery websites includes large video files on the homepage, or images that are not correctly optimized for fast load times.

Besides optimizing images, wineries can improve speed by leveraging browser caching, and using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).

Wineries may choose to handle some aspects of SEO internally, potentially reducing costs. However, professional expertise is often necessary for more complex strategies and sustained success

However, regardless of your level of technical expertise, there are some actions you can take to improve your winery’s position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

1. Understand your Audience and Keywords

Identify your target audience and the keywords they might use to find wineries like yours. Tools like Google Keyword Planner can help.

2. Get an SEO Audit of Your Winery’s Website

An SEO audit of your winery’s website, will highlight the areas to focus on first for the biggest gains in traffic. This can save you a lot of time in misdirected effort, and bring you the quickest results.

3. Claim and Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Claim your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), ensuring accurate and helpful business information such as tasting room hours, the types of wines you pour, tasting fees, whether you accept walk-ins, and so on.

Additionally, add high-quality photos which accurately give users a sense of what to expect, and encourage customer reviews. This is crucial for local SEO.

4. Create High-Quality Content

Start a blog on your website. Share stories about your winery, why you chose your particular winestyles, and local events.

High-quality, engaging content attracts both visitors and search engines, and by checking your analytics on each post, you can learn what your audiences are interested in.

Pricing models for search engine optimization can be based on hourly rates, monthly retainers, or project-based pricing.

Hourly rates are often suitable for smaller projects with limited and narrowly-defined scopes.

Monthly retainers are often used when ongoing monitoring, reporting, and adjustments to the strategy are called for.

Project-based pricing is suitable for specific projects, such as a website audit, redesign, or targeted optimization efforts.

Factors which can affect pricing for search engine optimization are website size and complexity, goals and objectives, and niche competitiveness.

We offer several different SEO packages starting from a site audit, up to content rewrites and site redesigns.

Three significant SEO trends that have had an impact on how websites get ranked in search results are:

1. Core Web Vitals and Page Experience:

Google’s emphasis on Core Web Vitals, including metrics like loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, has become a critical ranking factor.

A small winery website noticed a significant increase in organic traffic after optimizing its loading speed. Pages that once took several seconds to load were revamped, leading to improved Core Web Vitals and higher rankings. As a result, the winery experienced a boost in search visibility and user satisfaction.

2. Structured Data and Rich Snippets:

The use of structured data markup, or schema markup, has gained prominence. Rich snippets, which provide additional information in search results, enhance click-through rates.

A wine blog implemented structured data for its wine reviews, including details like ratings, grape varieties, and tasting notes. The rich snippets in search results attracted more clicks, as users could quickly see relevant information. This not only improved the site’s visibility but also enhanced the user experience.

3. User Experience (UX) Signals and RankBrain:

Google’s machine-learning algorithm RankBrain helps Google understand the likely user intent of a search query. It places a strong emphasis on user experience signals, such as dwell time, bounce rate, and click-through rate.

By revamping a website’s navigation and layout based on modern best practices in User Experience Design, we have been able to increase the time visitors spend on the site, engaging with content. As a result, the site’s rankings for targeted queries improved, showcasing the impact of prioritizing user experience on search performance.

User Intent has recently become one of the most impactful concepts contributing to improving a winery’s search rankings.

Through Google’s expanded use of the RankBrain algorithm, a machine-learning tool which allows Google to accurately interpret search queries to better understand what the user is looking for, it is able to display the most relevant pages for each search query.

As an example, consider the search queries “Pinot Noir taste,” “Pinot Noir tasting,” and “taste Pinot Noir.”

1. Search query: “Pinot Noir Taste”

User Intent: Informational
Users entering this query are likely seeking detailed information about the taste characteristics of Pinot Noir wines.

To rank for this user intent, we would recommend providing detailed flavor profiles describing the range of your Pinot Noir offerings.

2. Search query: “Pinot Noir Tasting”

User Intent: Exploratory or Event-Related
Users searching for “Pinot Noir tasting” may be interested in events, experiences, or organized tastings centered around Pinot Noir wines.

To rank for this user intent, we might recommend (depending on the nature of your tasting room or tastings offerings) describing on your events page, the actual experience of doing a Pinot Noir tasting at your winery. Including customer reviews could be helpful.

3. Search query: “Tasting Pinot Noir”

User Intent: Instructional or How-To
Users entering this query may be looking for practical information on how to taste Pinot Noir wines, possibly for personal enjoyment or learning purposes.

To rank for this intent, we would recommend creating high-quality, shareable blog content providing, for example, a how-to guide for tasting Pinot Noir, describing what to look for with this varietal and possibly how to compare it to wines made from other varieties.

Email marketing automation can provide significant benefits to wineries by streamlining communication, engaging customers, and driving sales.

There are many different ways to incorporate automation into your winery’s email marketing, the easiest possibly being automated welcome email sequences.

Content for automated welcome sequences is written ahead of time, and scheduled to be sent out on a timed basis after a new subscriber confirms their email.

A example of how to use automated sequences of 2-3 emails is the following:

1. Use the first email to thank your new subscriber for confirming their email, reiterating what kind of content you’ll be sending, and the frequency of your emails. You can also use this email to invite your subscribers to customize their preferences by selecting their preferred email topics and frequency.

2. The second email can offer new subscribers a discount on their first purchase by answering a quick, 3-question survey about their interests.

3. The third email can offer a free tasting in your tasting room the next time they visit.

These emails can be helpful in bringing new subscribers closer to your brand, inviting them to engage, and giving them reason to like you more.

Other applications for email marketing automation include auto-segmenting new subscribers, sending segment-specific content, offering product recommendations based on previous purchases, abandoned cart recovery, and customer feedback and surveys.

There are several methods for wineries to steadily grow their email subscriber lists. Many familiar and well-established practices can be easily improved for better results.

For example, many websites use a pop-up window which displays when users arrive at their website, with a call-to-action to subscribe. But Google imposes a page rank penalty for the use of this practice, as it interrupts the user experience.

For more ways to grow your following, and things to keep in mind with your current practices, read Grow Your Winery’s Following — how to get more subscribers for your winery.

Determining the ideal email frequency requires a balance between staying top-of-mind and avoiding subscriber fatigue.

According to Campaign Monitor, sending too many emails can lead to increased unsubscribe rates, while infrequent communication may reduce engagement.

It’s recommended to segment your audience based on preferences and behavior to tailor the frequency of emails for different segments.

Conducting A/B testing on different frequencies and analyzing engagement metrics can help you find the sweet spot for your specific audience.

Improving email deliverability is crucial for successful email marketing. To enhance deliverability, consider implementing double opt-in processes, which require users to confirm their subscription.

Maintaining a clean and engaged subscriber list is equally vital. Regularly remove inactive or bounced email addresses, as they can negatively impact your sender reputation.

Avoid using spam-triggering words and phrases in your email content, as these can land your emails in spam folders.

Most importantly, follow the latest requirements being implemented by Google and Yahoo in their Email Sender Guidelines.

Measuring the success of email campaigns involves tracking various metrics.

Many sources on the web tell you to track the key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and overall ROI.

Many of these metrics, however, are considered “vanity metrics” — they might help you feel good about your numbers, but do they help you to evaluate the performance of your campaigns, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions to optimize future email marketing efforts?

In order to make real improvements in the success of your email campaigns, email marketers must know how to derive actionable insights from these high level metrics.

Yes. Although the wine industry can learn from the marketing practices of other industries, there are certain qualities of the wine industry that make digital wine marketing unique.

For one, being lifestyle-focused, wine marketing is generally more effective when it builds emotional connections between the winery and its audience.

Followers of wineries generally don’t like to feel they are being marketed to, so trying to be too slick with marketing technology, if not handled with finesse, can sometimes backfire. This might arise, for example, when using cookies on websites that track users a little too intrusively.

Second, being in hospitality, our job is to make our patrons feel welcomed, by communicating with them according to their needs and their level of understanding. We can’t afford to be as technical in our language as other industries can.

The wine industry, as you know, is heavily saturated and operates in a highly competitive marketplace.

Wineries which are able to stand out have done so by understanding and communicating exactly how they uniquely fit their audience’s needs.

Here are some things you can do to get you there:

 1. Identify your goals.

You may have several goals, such as increasing online sales, growing your wine club membership, or getting more traffic to your website. Each goal should be specific, measurable, attainable … (SMART goals, remember?)

2. Understand your brand.

Spend some time forming a clear picture of wh0 your audience is, and what your winery represents to that audience. Conducting a positioning exercise can help you gain some clarity.

3. Define your strategy.

Your strategy will be guided by both your goals and your brand positioning. For example, if you’re seeing poor performance at your online store, you might look at improving your website’s user experience, rewriting your site’s content to resonate better with your audience, or simplifying your checkout process.

4. Focus on the long term.

Every strategically driven, goal-focused action you take today will cumulatively improve your winery’s prospects in the long term. Every dollar you spend on your marketing today will bring larger returns over time.

Every effort matters. Just stay focused on your goals.

SMS marketing, or text message marketing is being praised as the next big thing in marketing.

But be careful — SMS marketing has its downside, including the possibilty of losing valuable customers.

Before getting started with SMS marketing, wineries must understand that, like email marketing, SMS marketing is opt-in only. Meaning, that your recipients must give their permission for you to send them text messages.

Some of the positives of SMS marketing include:

• High Open Rate: SMS messages are usually read within minutes of being received. This allows wineries to deliver timely promotions or event notifications. 
• High Engagement: SMS messages are more likely to be seen and engaged with compared to emails. People tend to check their text messages promptly, increasing the chances of your message being noticed.
• Personalized Communication: SMS allows for personalized communication. Wineries can send targeted offers, promotions, or event invitations based on customer preferences and behaviors.

The downsides of SMS marketing include compatability issues, regulatory compliance, and limitations of the medium itself, but by far the greatest negative factor related to SMS marketing is the intrusiveness.

Customers may react negatively if they feel their privacy is being invaded or if they receive messages at inappropriate times. This can be damaging to a winery’s brand.

It’s impotant to weigh these factors in your decision to use SMS marketing.

The most effective way to retain club members longer than the current industry average is with a new member onboarding program.

Besides a new member onboarding program, there are many things your wine club can do to keep your members engaged, ranging from how you communicate with them, to the types of perks you offer.

Here are 10 ideas for increasing club member retention >

A new member onboarding program is simply a set of steps that your wine club defines as the process of welcoming new members to your wine club and helping them understand how to get the most from their benefits.

Wine club onboarding programs have been shown to increase club member loyalty (and retention) by making them fans of the brand early on, forming a personal connection with new members, and to set expectations of the club (which you can then repeatedly exceed).

To learn more about how wine club onboarding practices set the stage for club member loyalty, check out this article about best practices for wine club onboarding programs >

Positioning wine brands effectively has many benefits:

1. You can reduce your winery’s competition
2. You can help your online visitors know what they’re getting if they purchase your wines, and
3. You can reduce your marketing costs by being at the forefront of your audience’s mind, by leading your category.

Read more about positioning wine brands here >

Category, as it relates to wine marketing, refers to the group of wines or wineries that you are being compared to.

This may be the result of intentional efforts on the part of your winery in branding and positioning efforts, or in the absense of any wine positioning, it will happen by default according to how the market perceives you.

The loftiest goal of positioning wine brands involves identifying or defining a category that consumers care about, and in which your winery can be a leader.

Brands live in the minds of your audience and storytelling can make a brand come alive.

Forbes calls storytelling one of the most powerful marketing techniques used by successful brands.

To connect with your audiences and visitors on an emotional level, your story needs to have an impact. Many of the most impactful stories are simple, easy to remember, and easy for your audience members to share with others.

Additionally, your winery’s story must be personal and compelling. Describing your vineyard soils is neither of these, but sharing the experience you had as a child spending summers in your grandfather’s vineyard is a scene your audience can transport themselves to.

Lastly, the most favored stories are ones that are uplifting. Details about how you overcame adversity and setbacks and are now able to share that with others is a great story to share.

Read this post for information about the 7 best opportunities for using storytelling to build your brand.