Internet Strategies to Improve Farm Business Management

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Choosing Your Content

Once you've decided that you want a website, you'll need to consider its content. The following list illustrates some of the content you may consider including on your website:

Your company logo
Contact information
A short description or history of your business
Your company's vision and/or mission statement
Descriptions and/or photos of your product. If you provide a service and your customers feel it's important to know the equipment you work with, discuss that on your site.
A frequently asked questions (FAQ) page or section
Information on how to purchase your products or hire your services
Forms or links that allow for sending email to you
Information about special projects that you are doing
Calendar of events
Ideas/suggestions on uses for your product (if applicable)

Brad Hollabaugh shares that when his business first developed a website they wanted to give their customers a place where they could go to find information regarding the business's location and learn about the company. Their website contained a home page, an "About Us" page, and a weekly update page sharing what was happening at the retail market. These pages were developed with a purpose of providing an information resource for their customers, a contact point, and a way of finding them.

Kim Tait advises farm business owners to look at other websites to help determine content for their own site. She notes that she uses her site to share information with the public as well as conducting e-commerce transactions.

Stick with content that pertains to your business. If you can't think of a good reason for including something on your website, don't include it. When you have developed a list of the content you want to put on your business website ask for feedback from employees or other people familiar with your business. They will be able to tell you whether something is appropriate to include and may also suggest items that you hadn't thought of. Initially, having a group of people associated with your business work together, or brainstorm, on web content may be a useful approach to developing a list of possible content.

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These materials were developed as part of the Southern Rural Development Center’s National e-Commerce Extension Initiative. They are based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Award No. 2005-45064-03212

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Southern Rural Development Center.