# Farm web sites



## steve IN (Jan 13, 2010)

I have been looking at some of your web sites. They seem very interesting. All the way fro simple to complex. I have been thinking about adding one to my operation. Can anyone here tell me if you feel they helped your sales? I have also been wondering about price and maintaining it. I have enough tech savvy to turn my computer on. Any ideas where to look for someone to set up and take care of one would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Steve


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

steve IN said:


> I have been looking at some of your web sites. They seem very interesting. All the way fro simple to complex. I have been thinking about adding one to my operation. Can anyone here tell me if you feel they helped your sales? I have also been wondering about price and maintaining it. I have enough tech savvy to turn my computer on. Any ideas where to look for someone to set up and take care of one would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Steve


Mine is mainly for my business,I didn't think my customers would be looking online for hay much.It's fairly complex with multple tabs to click on for different products.I think it turned out well.It was custom made by a local webdesigner that works out of her house.She used alot of my pics in the pages instead of a cookie cutter web page.It's also linked to my face book business page.You can do the cookie cutter pages on your own for $200-300.Like you I'm not all that computor savvy so I had her do it.My cost was around $850 for everything.She is a ph call away for any changes or help I need with it also.She did alot via email and said she has done some with out even meeting the person.If you look on the bottom of my website her contact info is there.Tell her Cy refered you,I get a little free service out of it if you do.


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## steve IN (Jan 13, 2010)

Thanks for the info. Next time my daughter is around I will try and contact her. As for the facebook page do you feel that helped your sales? I have heard people say both ways. After this winters anemic hay sales I am trying to pick up more direct sales.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

steve IN said:


> Thanks for the info. Next time my daughter is around I will try and contact her. As for the facebook page do you feel that helped your sales? I have heard people say both ways. After this winters anemic hay sales I am trying to pick up more direct sales.


I've gotten a few sales on my bussiness side but I really don't use it for hay sales.A person will have to Like the FB page to get it otherwise they have to look for it to find it.I think a FB page is a good way to connect to current customers,if they use FB.

The price is right you can set up a FB page for free.


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## PaCustomBaler (Nov 29, 2010)

Website did wonders for hay sales...a little bit for custom work. Spread our hay sales out to new areas and attract some big buyers.

Facebook page is a joke. Pointless, not sure why I keep it around.


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## haygrl59 (May 19, 2014)

Our website was one of the best things we did. We do get lots of contacts from it according to my stats as well as with our Facebook page. Having an online presence is helpful these days with all of the electronic devices out there. When I get a new customer, I will ask them how they heard about us and they will usually reply that they saw our website or found one of our classified ads (I use free ones) and then direct on to the website. I think the website helps to introduce your operation to the public. It does take a lot of work, so be prepared to hire someone or spend some time working on it yourself. I help with the hay but I also market the hay. Its a juggling act, especially during hay season but I can see my efforts paying off with a 60% increase in sales. Of course, the shortage in hay in various areas around the country helps and those folks are looking outside their immediate area for hay and having an online presence will help.


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## vtlpluyr (Mar 27, 2016)

I'm new to the hay business this year. My mother makes furniture and all sales are online - I help with her site and online presence. I made my web site in 20 minutes using GoDaddy website builder - its probably not as nice as any of your sites but I think it will do the job.

The web site is not as important as the searchability. If somebody does a Google search for hay in your region your name needs to come up as one of the top returns. GoDaddy has the utilities to allow you to do this easily. There are other companies with similar tools. Godaddy people will sit on the phone with you for as long as you need if you have problems so that is why my mother uses them.

My site is at www.ottawahorsehay.com.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

vtlpluyr said:


> I'm new to the hay business this year. My mother makes furniture and all sales are online - I help with her site and online presence. I made my web site in 20 minutes using GoDaddy website builder - its probably not as nice as any of your sites but I think it will do the job.
> 
> The web site is not as important as the searchability. If somebody does a Google search for hay in your region your name needs to come up as one of the top returns. GoDaddy has the utilities to allow you to do this easily. There are other companies with similar tools. Godaddy people will sit on the phone with you for as long as you need if you have problems so that is why my mother uses them.
> 
> My site is at www.ottawahorsehay.com.


Welcome to Haytalk, vtlpluyr. Nice site...and if I comprehended correctly, you are a 16 year old female with aspirations of earning your way through college. I'm confident that your efforts will reward you as success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration and you appear to be up for the task.

73, Mark


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## vtlpluyr (Mar 27, 2016)

glasswrongsize said:


> Welcome to Haytalk, vtlpluyr. Nice site...and if I comprehended correctly, you are a 16 year old female with aspirations of earning your way through college. I'm confident that your efforts will reward you as success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration and you appear to be up for the task.
> 
> 73, Mark


Thanks for the encouragement and the kind words!


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## Oregon_massey_fan (Mar 10, 2016)

if your up for some fairly light learning word press is always a good alternative to create your own webpages then you purchase hosting from webgator or whom ever for $6-$7/mo or you can post on the wordpress domain for free (if I remember correctly)

The nice thing about word press is its sooo popular and even if you get one started and later decided you want it even better its incredibly easy to find someone who is a word press "developer" to take it to the next level for you.

a real key when your doing something like a web page is starting in a format that wont get outdated tomorrow and is popular.

I started our farm web page in word press and its been fun because there are so may places to get help given its popularity.

if you want any info on it let me know, I can try and direct you to the right places


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