What a Christmas Tree Farm Website Needs

What the site is actually for

A Christmas tree farm's website gets nearly all its visits in five or six weeks, from families planning an outing. Many read it on a phone in the car, already on their way.

They want to know whether you are open today, what trees you have, whether the tall ones are gone, what it costs, and whether to bring a saw.

Then the question that decides the afternoon: how to find the field before the light goes. The site should answer all of it before anybody has to phone.

The questions people arrive with

• When you are open, by date and day, and the last entry time.
• Cut your own or pre-cut, and which is available when.
• Which trees, by variety, and which sizes are left.
• What it costs, by height, by variety or one flat price.
• How to pay, when the field may have no signal for cards.
• What to bring, and what you provide: saws, netting, twine.
• How to find you, after dark, on a rural road.

The third is the one that changes week by week. The tallest trees and favourite varieties go first, and a family driving forty minutes for a ten-foot noble fir wants to know before leaving.

Dates, hours and the last tree of the day

Put the opening date, the days you open and the daily hours at the top of the home page, as text.

December light is short. With the sun setting around four in much of southern BC, the time that matters is the last entry to the field for cutting, well before closing.

Say, too, whether you close for the season once the trees are gone, so nobody drives out to a chained gate.

Cut your own or pre-cut

Say which you offer and on which days, since many farms do both and families arrive expecting one or the other.

For cutting, explain how it works: walk the field, choose a tree, cut it with a saw you bring or borrow, and carry it back to be paid for and wrapped.

For pre-cut trees, say where they came from and when they were cut. Cut this week in your own field is worth saying; trees brought in from elsewhere should be described as exactly that.

Varieties, sizes and prices

List the varieties you grow, with a line on each: the soft needles of Douglas fir, the strong scent of grand fir, the stiff branches of noble fir that hold heavy ornaments.

Put prices on the page as text, by height band, by variety or one price per tree, plus extras such as netting, drilling for a stand, wreaths and garland.

A note on measuring prevents a common mistake. Trees look smaller in a field than in a living room, so suggest measuring the ceiling before leaving home, allowing for the stand and the star.

Saws, netting and the drive home

List what the farm provides: saws to borrow, carts or sleds for hauling, a shaker for loose needles, a baler to wrap the tree in netting, drilling for pin-style stands, and twine for the roof.

Then what to bring: boots for a muddy field, gloves, an old blanket to protect the car roof, and straps if you do not supply them.

Say how people can pay. If the card reader depends on a weak signal, or the farm takes cash only, the website is where to say so, along with the nearest bank machine.

A worked example

A family u-cut farm of about twelve acres in the Fraser Valley had a one-page website listing its varieties and a phone number, with hours that said weekends in December.

On its first Saturday last season, the phone rang all morning with the same four questions, about opening, cards, tall noble firs and saws.

By late afternoon, cars were arriving in the dark at a locked back gate on a gravel road, because map apps sent drivers there rather than to the field entrance.

This year the site opens with the dates, daily hours and last entry time, followed by a list, updated every Friday, of what is left by variety and height.

Prices and payment methods are on the page as text, and the directions describe the field entrance, the last turn and the sign, with a warning not to follow the map app to the back gate.

Directions that work in the dark

Rural addresses often lead map apps to a house, a mailbox or a back gate. Put the map pin on the entrance customers should use, both in the site's map and in your Google My Business listing.

Describe the last turn the way a driver sees it: after the red barn, the second gate on the left. Say what the sign looks like and whether it is lit.

If the signal drops near the farm, warn people to load the directions before they set off.

Weather, sell-outs and closures

Snow, wind and flooded fields close farms at short notice, and a family deciding at breakfast needs to know.

Keep one dated notice at the top of the home page for the day's news, such as closed today for wind, or noble firs over eight feet sold out, and post the same message to your listing.

The other eleven months

After Christmas, change the top of the site to say the season is over and roughly when the next begins. A site announcing this weekend's hours in March looks abandoned.

Invite visitors to sign up, with clear consent, for one email announcing next season's opening.

The counter-case

A small farm that sells out to regulars every year, mostly by word of mouth, may need one page rather than a full site, provided the dates, prices and directions are on it.

A pre-cut lot in a town parking lot needs less about directions and more about hours, sizes and delivery.

But every tree seller answers the same handful of questions, and the site should answer them before the phone has to.

What to build first

1. Put the dates and hours at the top.
2. State the last entry time for cutting.
3. List varieties and prices as text.
4. Say how people can pay.
5. List what you provide and what to bring.
6. Pin the field entrance, not the house.
7. Update what is left every week.

Step six is the one that decides how the afternoon ends. A family at a dark back gate loses the last of the light, and often the tree with it.

Another trade whose customers read the site in the cold, under pressure, is covered in what a towing company website needs.

Frequently asked questions

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