Your website is your digital home – the place all other roads lead to. An ad, a post, a Google search: eventually the curious customer ends up with you, and then it has to be easy to understand what you offer and how to buy.
You don't need a big, expensive site. You need one that does its job.
Isn't Facebook or Instagram enough?
No – and the reason is simple: on social media you're renting the ground. The algorithm decides who sees you – even among your own followers, only a fraction sees each post. The account can be locked or disappear, and everything you built goes with it. Anyone without the app hits a login wall. And Google and AI assistants struggle to find you there – they read websites, not feeds.
The website is ground you own. The address is yours, the content is yours, and everything you point there keeps working no matter what the platforms decide.
The rule of thumb: always point home. The link in your profile, the call to action in the ad, the QR code on the sign by the road – all of them should lead to the website. Never the other way round: don't send customers from the website out to social media, where they get stuck in the feed instead of with you.
What has to be there
| Page | What it does |
|---|---|
| Home | A clear pitch and a button: buy, book or order |
| Menu / range | As text, never just a PDF – search engines and AI read text |
| Buy / book | A couple of clicks away at most |
| About | Your story, your place, the hands behind it |
| Contact | Address, map, opening hours, phone |
| Photos | The food, the place, the atmosphere – real, not glossy |
| Reviews | Social proof that sells |
| FAQ | Answers to what people wonder – and good for AI search engines |
Three things often forgotten
Mobile first. Most people find you on their phone. If the menu is hard to read or it takes many clicks to buy, you lose the customer. Test your own site on a phone as if you were a stranger.
Write for those who search. Use the words your customers actually use ("farm shop", "organic", place names). It helps Google show you to the right people.
Write for AI. More and more people ask AI assistants ("where's a good farm shop near Visby?"). A page that answers with concrete facts gets cited. That means: a clear "About" with real details (when you started, what makes you unique, where the ingredients come from), a thorough FAQ, and a menu as text. The source material Generative search optimisation – 5 things walks through this step by step.
Three ways to get a website
You can get there in different ways – choose by time, budget and appetite:
A word on the AI route: in tools like Lovable you describe the site in plain text ("a simple site for my farm shop with opening hours, our range and a find-us button") and get a finished site of your own with hosting included – and you ask for changes the same way. A good choice if you want something of your own without learning a site builder.
If you hire someone: write a clear brief – about the business, goals, audience, a couple of competitors you like, which pages are needed, which features (booking, ordering, newsletter), your brand, and who writes the copy and takes the photos.
Do this next
Download the Checklist: Your website and review your own site (or plan a new one). Ask yourself: what information is missing to help a curious customer decide? Keep the fix list and work through it.
This was the last step in the marketing section – you're now visible where customers look. Next section: Sales – where the interest turns into deals: channels, price, the sales conversation and terms.