Overview of the Barn2Door Website Design & Build Process
At Barn2Door, we know how important a Farmer’s Brand is to attract and keep customers. Each Channel—website, mobile, email, newsletter, social—will drive its share of sales. A website is an ideal channel to showcase your brand and tell your Farm’s unique story. A professional, consistent Brand experience and store access across all Channels is crucial, as potential customers may visit one or many of your Channels before purchasing.
Visitors’ #1 priority when visiting a website is to navigate to shop from your Store. Our Design Team will build you a custom website that beautifully represents your Farm Brand, prioritizes usability best practices, and makes it easy for visitors to navigate to shop from your Store.
Building a custom website can be very costly—often thousands of dollars. To ensure a Farmer can represent their Brand powerfully and consistently, Barn2Door subsidizes the cost of the website design and build for your Farm. We have streamlined the process to keep costs down while also giving you a beautifully branded website unique to your Farm.
If you want a complex website that includes more than eight tabs, lots of content, and will require multiple rounds of design edits, then we recommend you employ a website agency to build you a site for your Farm. (Note, the Top 100 Farm websites average 7.7 pages). If you choose to work with a website agency, then Barn2Door will not be hosting your site, and you will be responsible for ongoing hosting fees, security, and privacy. If you have an existing website or plan to hire a website agency, we can link your Barn2Door Farm Store to your existing website.
Website Design Process & Timeline
First and foremost, our Team will begin building your Farm Store before the rest of your site. Farmers can start taking orders and drive sales with their Store without a published website. Your Farm Store is an asset that should be leveraged through email, newsletters, and social media, so our priority is to make sure your Store is up and running as soon as possible.
Your Farm Onboarding Manager (FOM) will send you a Pre-Build Checklist, where you will submit photos and information about your Farm’s unique story and products. After onboarding, you will be handed off to your Farm Account Manager (FAM), who will then be your primary point of contact through the website design process. Your Account Manager will confirm your Domain information first, then conduct a website intake to dive into your brand, gather your ideas, feedback and priorities for your Farm website.
After your domain information is transferred and website intake is completed, a Barn2Door designer will draft your website and then present an initial draft during a website review meeting to collect your feedback and edits. In the weeks following, the designer will do one round of edits, complete a content pass, and finish a pre-publish checklist before your site goes live.
Once your website is published, your domain will be connected and your Barn2Door Account Manager will show you where and how to log in, so you can make content and photo edits on your own. Barn2Door also offers Bootcamps where you can learn more about the basics editing, improving and managing your website on an on-going basis with “Contributor Access.” After initial publication of your website, annual Barn2Door customers can enroll in Academy classes to learn more advanced editing capabilities, including navigation, page layouts, and additional pages. Note, the Barn2Door Academy is a prerequisite to receiving “Administrative Access.”
Your website with Barn2Door includes more than design work and development. All Farm websites include five (5) core pages—Home, About Us, Products, Contact, and Store. Depending on your Barn2Door subscription plan, your site may also include additional pages such as Events, Jobs, FAQs, Press, Gallery, Recipes, Blog, and Resources. Please note that while we can add a Blog or Recipe page, migrating that content from another site will be your responsibility. We wrote an eBook to summarize the best practices from the Top 100 Farm Websites based on sales volume. Learn what tactics they’ve implemented to succeed online:
In addition to a beautiful website and online Farm Store, Farmers also receive peace of mind with Barn2Door’s team providing security and ongoing support. Beyond the website pages and Store, you’ll receive a Security Certificate for eCommerce (an SSL certificate), a smooth domain connection, website hosting at no extra cost, implemented SEO best practices, editorial access to update your content and images, and ability to view your site analytics.
Some of the more frequently asked questions about the website design and build process are about domains and the publishing window. Domains are like phone numbers, you own it, pay for it (separately) and it follows you wherever you choose to host your website. If you do not yet own a domain for your Farm, we suggest looking at www.godaddy.com, www.namecheap.com, or www.squarespace.com.
You don’t need a logo for a Barn2Door website build, and we can add it at any time (if you do get one eventually). Barn2Door offers in-house Farm logo creation (one-time payment of $499) for Farmers who run their business on our platform. Learn more here: barn2door.com/marketing.
It’s rare that a Farmer doesn’t like the website we have built for them. In the case that a Farm is dissatisfied, we can build another from scratch, but simply can’t absorb that second cost. A flat $500 fee for design services will be charged if you request Barn2Door to build a second site for your Farm (after the initial 90-day onboarding). Because your website is a service subsidized by Barn2Door, you cannot keep your website if you choose to cancel your service. (Note, this is consistent with other web hosting providers).
Your website does not need to be published for your Store to go live. Most of our Farms begin taking orders on their Store within days or weeks of signing up with Barn2Door. We integrate with Stripe to securely process payments through your online store. It is a violation of Barn2Door Terms of Use to introduce other 3rd party payment options on your site to purchase your Farm products (or actively direct visitors to other third-party online payment vendors). Note, an Amazon Seller cannot send a buyer to a 3rd party site and or 3rd party payment option either.
At Barn2Door, we strive to provide all the tools and support that Farms need to succeed online, including a consistent, professional brand presence on web, mobile, social and email. We’re thrilled to support 1000’s of Farms online across all 50 states and make it easier for their buyers to connect and shop. If you’re interested in Barn2Door’s services for your Farm, you can watch how it works in 5 min.