Farm Website Launch Checklist: Domain, Email, Google, Signage
What to check before and after a farm website goes live: domain ownership, DNS, email, Google Business Profile, social links, road-sign QR codes and backups.
A website launch is not the day the site looks finished. It is the day the domain is yours, the email works, Google knows the address, the Facebook page points to it, and the road sign has the right URL on it. Most of those are ten-minute tasks, and most of them get skipped. This checklist covers them in order, whether you built the site yourself or had it built.
Before launch: ownership
Start here, because the things that go wrong later almost always trace back to who owns what.
Domain. The domain name (yourfarm.com) should be registered in your name, in an account you control, with your email address and your card on it. Not the designer's account, not the nephew's, not the agency's. If someone else registered it for you, ask them to transfer it to a registrar account you own, or at minimum to put your name and email as the registrant contact and give you the login. We have seen farms lose a domain they had used for a decade because the person who registered it moved away and the renewal email went nowhere.
Set auto-renew on, for the longest term you are comfortable with (3–5 years costs $45–100 and removes one annual chance of forgetting). Put the renewal date in your calendar anyway.
Hosting and platform account. Same rule. If the site lives on Squarespace, Wix or a service like ours, the account should be yours, or you should have a written agreement that the content, design and domain are yours and will be exported if you leave. Ask the question before launch, not after.
Logo and photo files. Get the original logo file (SVG or a large PNG) and a folder of your full-resolution photos. Keep them somewhere that is not the website.
Passwords. One shared password manager entry, or at least a written list in a safe place, with the domain registrar, hosting, email, Google, Facebook, Instagram and ordering platform logins. Add a second person to every account that allows it. A farm whose website depends on one phone is one dropped phone from going dark in September.
Before launch: the site itself
| Done | Check |
|---|---|
| ☐ | Every page read on a phone, outdoors, in sunlight |
| ☐ | Phone number and address identical on every page, Google and Facebook |
| ☐ | Hours correct for the season you are launching in (see seasonal hours) |
| ☐ | "Get directions" button tested from a phone and lands on the right driveway |
| ☐ | Every form submitted once; confirmation email arrived at the farm inbox |
| ☐ | Order, ticket or signup flow tested with a real card for $1, then refunded |
| ☐ | Pickup locations, share sizes, prices match what is printed and posted |
| ☐ | No "lorem ipsum", no placeholder photos, no "coming soon" pages linked from the menu |
| ☐ | Page titles and meta descriptions written for each page |
| ☐ | Images under 300 KB each (see farm photos without a photographer) |
| ☐ | SSL works: the address bar shows a padlock, and http:// redirects to https:// |
| ☐ | A 404 page exists and links back to the homepage |
| ☐ | Privacy policy page exists if you collect emails or take payments |
DNS and email
DNS is the set of records that connect the domain name to the website and the email. It is where launches break.
Pointing the domain at the site. Your host or service gives you either an A record (an IP address) or a CNAME (a name like sites.example-host.com). You enter that at the domain registrar. Changes take minutes to a few hours to spread. Check from a phone on cell data, not just the farm Wi-Fi, because your router may remember the old address for a day.
Email on your domain. [email protected] looks like a business; [email protected] looks like a hobby. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both cost about $6–7 per user per month and are the standard choices. Your domain's MX records point to them. If you move the website, the MX records should not change, and if you move email, the website records should not change. Get them in the same registrar account and leave them alone.
Three records protect your email from landing in spam, and most farms have none of them:
- SPF: a TXT record listing who may send mail from your domain.
- DKIM: a signature your mail provider gives you to paste in.
- DMARC: a policy record. Start with
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]and tighten later.
If you send a CSA newsletter or order confirmations, set these up before launch. A newsletter from a domain without SPF and DKIM goes to spam for a good share of your members, and you will not know.
Forwarding. Have orders@, csa@, tickets@ and info@ all forward to the inbox someone actually reads. One inbox, checked daily, beats four that are checked never.
Google: profile, search console, analytics
Google Business Profile. Claimed, verified, hours set, website link pointing at the new site. If the profile existed before, update the website URL the day you launch. The full setup is in Google Business Profile for farms.
Google Search Console. Free, and the only way to see what searches bring people to the site. Verify the domain (your host usually has a one-click method, or add a TXT record), then submit the sitemap, which is normally at yourfarm.com/sitemap.xml. Check it once a month in season. It also emails you if the site breaks in a way Google notices.
Analytics. Google Analytics 4 is free and more than most farms need. Alternatives like Plausible or Fathom cost $9–15 a month and are simpler to read. Whichever you use, look at three numbers once a month: visitors, where they came from (Google, Facebook, direct), and which pages they viewed. If 70% of visits are on a phone, which is normal for a farm, that tells you where to spend your effort.
Structured data. LocalBusiness markup with name, address, phone and hours on the homepage or Visit page. Run the page through Google's Rich Results Test. Most builders add some of this automatically; farm-specific services add the hours and product types.
Social: link everything both ways
Facebook and Instagram are where many of your customers already follow you. The website should be the place they are sent to buy.
| Done | Check |
|---|---|
| ☐ | Facebook page "Website" field is the new URL; "Shop now" or "Book now" button points to the order/ticket page |
| ☐ | Facebook "About" hours match the site and Google |
| ☐ | Instagram bio link is the website, or a link page that leads with the website |
| ☐ | Website footer links to Facebook and Instagram (icons, opening in a new tab) |
| ☐ | A pinned post on Facebook announcing the site, with a photo, not just a link |
| ☐ | Facebook Shop, if you have one, either removed or pointing at the website checkout, not competing with it |
| ☐ | Any "Linktree"-style page updated or retired |
| ☐ | Old website, if separate, redirected page-by-page to the new one (or the host forwards the whole domain) |
If you had an old domain (the-old-name.com), keep it registered for at least two years and forward it to the new one. Customers have it bookmarked and the road sign may still say it.
Signage and print: the road sign QR code
Most farm customers see the sign before they see the website. Put the URL on it, and put a QR code where someone can scan it from a stopped car or a walking path, not from the highway at 55 mph.
A few practical points:
- Make the URL short.
hollowoakorchard.com, nothollowoakorchard.com/visit-us/hours-and-directions. If a long address is needed, set up a short redirect likehollowoakorchard.com/hours. - Generate QR codes yourself with a free tool and point them at a URL you control. Do not use a QR service that routes through its own domain and charges a monthly fee to keep the code working; when the subscription lapses, every sign is dead.
- Different codes for different places. Road sign goes to the homepage. Checkout sign goes to the Google review link. Freezer sign goes to the reorder page. Add
?src=signor similar to each so analytics shows which signs get scanned. - Size. For a sign read from 3 feet away, a 2-inch QR code is enough. For a banner read from 10 feet, make it 6 inches. Test it in sunlight before printing 500 flyers.
- Everywhere else the URL goes: business cards, egg cartons, meat labels, CSA box lids, the tasting room menu, the wagon, the bottom of every email and the voicemail greeting.
After launch: the first month
| Done | Item | When |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Search "your farm name" and "your farm name + town" on Google; confirm the new site and profile appear | Day 1 |
| ☐ | Search for your main product and town ("CSA Decorah", "grass fed beef Stearns County"); note where you are, if anywhere | Week 1 |
| ☐ | Ask three customers to find the hours on their phone while you watch | Week 1 |
| ☐ | Check Search Console for errors and that the sitemap was read | Week 2 |
| ☐ | First Google Post and first Facebook post pointing to a specific page | Week 1 |
| ☐ | Review analytics: visits, sources, top pages | Week 4 |
| ☐ | Fix whatever the three customers got stuck on | Week 4 |
Backups and keeping it alive
Backups. Hosted builders and services keep their own backups, and that covers hardware failure. It does not cover you deleting a page by accident on a Saturday. Ask what the restore process is and how far back it goes. On our plans, backups are nightly and we restore on request; on DIY platforms, check whether version history exists for pages, because it varies by plan.
Off-platform copy. Once a year, export or save the text of every page and the current photos somewhere else. A Google Drive folder is fine. If the platform disappears or you leave, you are not starting from zero.
Renewals calendar. Domain, email, hosting or plan, ordering platform, SSL (if separate), any premium app. Put every renewal date and card expiry in a calendar with a two-week warning. A domain lapse is the one mistake that is expensive to undo.
A yearly spring check. Every March, before the first season: read every page on a phone, update the year in any heading, swap last year's photos, confirm prices, test the forms, test checkout with $1, update the Google profile, and update the voicemail. It takes an hour and it is the hour that keeps a site from looking abandoned by year three.
What this means for your website
A site that launches with the domain in your name, email that reaches you, Google pointing at the right place, and a sign people can scan is a site that keeps working when you are too busy to think about it. Most of the items on this list are one-time. The ones that are not (hours, photos, renewals, the spring check) belong in the calendar, assigned to a person, before the season starts.
If you would rather not own this list, our plans include the parts that trip people up: the domain registered in your name, Google Business Profile setup, structured data, hosting, SSL, nightly backups and security updates, and a monthly allowance of changes, from $49/month on Roadside. See what a launch looks like for agritourism farms, CSAs and farm stands, ranches selling meat direct and wineries, nurseries and creameries, and the full plan details on the pricing page.