What a Cidery Website Needs

What the site is actually for

Two couples are planning a Saturday in the valley: a winery, a farm stand, and a cidery somebody mentioned. On Thursday evening, one of them looks it up.

They want to know whether it is open on Saturday, what a tasting costs, whether four people need to book, whether the dog can come, and whether there is food.

A week later, at home, one of them will want to know where to buy the cider they liked.

The site is for both moments. The orchard's story matters, but it comes after the practical answers.

Hours that follow the seasons

Cidery hours change through the year, often more than once: daily in summer, weekends into the fall, by appointment or closed through the winter.

Put this season's hours where the home page opens, in text, with the date they next change: open daily until Labour Day, then Friday to Sunday until Thanksgiving.

Keep the Google listing in step, including holiday hours on long weekends. A group that drives forty minutes to a locked gate rarely tries again.

The questions asked before the trip

• Open on the day, and until what time.
• What a tasting includes, what it costs, and whether to book.
• Groups, and how many people count as one.
• Children and dogs, and where on the property each is welcome.
• Food, whether there is any, and whether picnics are allowed.
• Getting there, including parking for a tour bus.

The fourth is easy to forget and decides whether a family, or a group with a dog, can come at all. One plain sentence settles it before anybody sets out.

The tasting room, described plainly

Describe a tasting the way staff explain it at the bar: how many ciders, poured how, roughly how long it takes, and what it costs.

Say whether the fee comes off a bottle purchase, whether larger groups get a table or a guided tasting, and how to book one.

Add the details that decide comfort: seating inside and out, shade on a hot afternoon, washrooms, and a step-free route from the parking.

Age and responsible service, said plainly

Tastings are for adults of legal drinking age, and the site should say so in one calm sentence, along with the fact that staff ask for ID.

If children are welcome on the patio or in the orchard with their parents, say so, and say where they are not, since that depends on how the cidery is licensed.

Mention what a designated driver can drink, such as the cidery's own apple juice, and that tour drivers are welcome. It is responsible and practical at once.

Many alcohol producers put an age question in front of the whole site. If you use one, make it a single tap and remember the answer.

Rules on age and advertising vary by province and licence, so have whoever advises you on the licence check the wording.

Tours, events and the orchard calendar

An orchard keeps its own calendar, and events built around it bring people back: blossom in spring, picking and pressing in the fall, music on summer weekends.

Give each event a short listing: date, time, price, how to book and what is included. Take past events down the week after, so the page never advertises June in September.

Describe orchard tours too: how long, how often, whether they run in the rain, and whether children can join.

A worked example

A family cidery on twelve acres of orchard opened its tasting room three summers ago. Its website began with an age question, then a slow video of the trees, then four paragraphs of family history.

The hours lived only on its Facebook page, which still showed the summer schedule in November, and nothing said the tasting room closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Staff saw the cost in person: groups at a closed gate on a Monday, calls asking whether dogs were allowed, and emails asking where in the city to buy a bottle.

The rebuild put this season's hours at the top in text, and a visiting page answered the tasting, group, dog, children and food questions in one place.

A where-to-buy page lists the stores and restaurants carrying each cider, kept current by whoever handles orders. The family history became three short paragraphs, and the age question now takes one tap and is remembered.

Where to buy it afterwards

A visitor who liked the cider goes home and wants more. If the answer is not on the site, the moment passes.

List where each cider is sold, grouped by town, with a note that stock varies and a suggestion to call ahead.

If you sell online, say plainly where you can ship and where you cannot, since the rules on sending alcohol differ between provinces, and that an adult will usually have to sign for the delivery.

Each cider on its own line

Buyers want each cider's facts in one place: its style from dry to sweet, the apples it is made from, the alcohol content, how it tastes, and the sizes it comes in.

Say which ciders are sold only at the tasting room, and write tasting notes people can use. Dry and sharp, with a lot of apple skin, helps a buyer choose; a paragraph of poetry does not.

The orchard story, told briefly

The orchard is what makes a cidery different from a bar, and the story is worth telling: how the trees came to be there, which apples grow, who presses them.

Tell it in three or four short paragraphs with real photographs, on its own page. The visitors who care will read it; the ones checking Saturday's hours should not have to scroll past it.

The counter-case

A small cidery with a tasting room open only on summer weekends may need little more than one page: hours, a description of a tasting, directions and where to buy.

One that sells mostly through stores, with no tasting room, needs the where-to-buy list and the cider details more than anything about visiting.

Whatever the size, answer the planning questions first, keep the hours current, and make the cider easy to find again.

What to build first

1. Put this season's hours at the top in text.
2. Describe a tasting with its price and booking rules.
3. Answer the children, dogs and groups questions plainly.
4. List where each cider is sold.
5. Give each cider its style, apples and strength.
6. List events with dates, prices and booking.
7. Shorten the orchard story and give it a page.

Step four keeps working after the visit. A list of stores and restaurants, kept current, turns one afternoon in the tasting room into a cider people can buy all year.

The same visitor, planning from a phone, comes up in what an ice cream shop website needs.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.