While winery eCommerce has been around for a while, many wineries did not fully embrace this direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel until they were forced to during the pandemic. Some wineries have adapted quickly, leveraging modern technology and eCommerce platforms to thrive, while others have struggled to keep up with the fast-paced world of digital marketing and SEO.

Thanks to the rise of eCommerce giants like Amazon, consumers expect seamless, fast, and personalized experiences. Wineries face the added challenge of shipping regulations, compliance, and managing perishable goods like wine, but SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can help them stand out and thrive in this competitive market.

In the United States, the eCommerce share of wine sales grew from only 0.3% in 2018 to nearly 3% in 2022. The eCommerce channel promises to be lucrative, too. The top five wine and liquor online stores in the U.S. together generated more than one billion dollars in eCommerce net sales in 2022.

For long-term success, wineries need to prioritize organic search traffic. SEO offers sustainable growth, helping wineries reduce their reliance on paid ads and instead benefit from high-quality, long-lasting traffic that can turn browsers into loyal customers.

This SEO checklist will help wineries optimize their websites to rank higher in search results, grow their online presence, and ultimately sell more wine.

1. Set up Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Bing Webmaster Tools

To monitor and improve your winery’s eCommerce performance, set up these essential tools. They provide insights into how potential customers interact with your website and where your wine pages rank in search results.

• Google Search Console will help you track visibility in search results, identify potential issues like crawl errors, and understand which keywords drive traffic.
• Google Analytics offers a wealth of data on your website traffic, visitor behavior, and which products (e.g., specific wine varietals or club memberships) are most popular.
• Bing Webmaster Tools is another useful tool to ensure your winery’s website appears in Bing search results, especially for local wine enthusiasts.

2. Submit a Sitemap

A sitemap is crucial for ensuring that search engines can index all your wine product pages, wine club details, and blog content. A comprehensive sitemap will help Google and Bing crawl and understand your website better, leading to more wine products appearing in search results.

The first step in submitting a sitemap is to generate one for your site. Several online tools, (XML Sitemaps is one of them) can help you do this for free.

For a winery eCommerce site, make sure the sitemap includes important pages like:

• Wine product pages for each varietal or vintage
• Wine club membership pages
• Blog posts featuring wine pairings, events, or winemaker stories

Once the sitemap has been uploaded, you'll need to submit it to the search engines using their respective webmaster tools.

For Google, this means navigating to Search Console and clicking on “Sitemaps” from within the menu at the top left-hand side of the page. From there, click “Add/Test Sitemap” and enter the URL of your new sitemap—usually something like ‘example.com/sitemap.xml’.

For Bing, go into their Webmaster Tools dashboard, navigate to the "Sitemaps" section, and select “Submit sitemaps” at the top right-hand side of the screen. Here, enter the URL of your new sitemap before saving changes made to successfully complete the submission process.

3. Create a robots.txt File

Creating a robots.txt file for your winery website is a vital step in technical SEO—it ensures that search engine crawlers can access the site correctly.

A robots.txt file tells the search engine crawler which pages of the website it should ignore, as well as any visit rules or directives that need to be followed.

It can also help protect sensitive data (e.g., customer information) from being crawled and ensure GDPR compliance, which is incredibly important for online stores (which process digital payments).

Creating a robots.txt file is quite simple and can be done using any basic text editor or online tool - though it’s best practice to use a professional tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider if you plan on making changes to the file regularly.

Once you’ve opened the robots.txt file, there are a few main rules that you can include when writing it:

• Allow full access: If you want all of your webpages to be indexed and crawled by search engine crawlers, you can specify ‘User-agent: *’ in your robots.txt file and then follow this with ‘Allow:/’
• Block certain pages: For any sensitive pages on your website (eCommerce checkout page, for example) that you don't want to be indexed by search engines, then add ‘Disallow:/checkout/' into the robotstxt file.
• Block entire directories: You can also block entire directories from being indexed by search engines using the same syntax as above. Just use ‘Disallow:/directoryname/', replacing ‘directoryname’ with whatever directory you want blocked.

Include sitemap location: If the website has an XML sitemap, make sure to include its location (usually something like 'exampleurlhere/sitemap_index.xml') at the end of the robots.txt file so that crawlers know where they should look for such information during future visits.

4. Identify Crawl Errors and Broken Links

Wineries must ensure that every page on their eCommerce site is accessible to search engines. Crawl errors can prevent key product pages—such as limited-edition releases, wine club offerings, or popular varietals—from being indexed, which can negatively impact visibility and sales. Additionally, broken links can disrupt the user experience and hurt your SEO efforts, making it difficult for potential customers to navigate the site and complete purchases.

Here are steps you can take to make sure your winery's site is being crawled and indexed correctly and to identify any crawl errors or broken links:

Create and Submit a Sitemap

As mentioned earlier, submitting an XML sitemap to Google and Bing ensures search engines can access all of your winery’s pages, such as individual wine product listings, blog posts, and event details. Submitting multiple sitemaps (e.g., for product pages, blog content, and wine club pages) ensures that all types of content are properly indexed.

Look for Server Errors

If your site encounters server errors (like 500-level errors), search engines won’t be able to index certain pages, which could result in those pages not appearing in search results. Use Google Search Console to periodically check for server errors and resolve them promptly to maintain your site’s SEO performance.

Identify Crawl Errors

Crawl errors can occur when a page isn’t properly linked on your website, meaning Googlebot or other search engine crawlers cannot reach it. This is especially problematic for important pages like wine product listings or membership sign-up forms. Use tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider to identify missing internal links or other crawl issues that might prevent search engines from accessing certain pages.

Check for Broken Links

Broken links, whether internal (within your own site) or external (linking to other sites), are detrimental to both user experience and SEO. They can lead to lost traffic, especially if users encounter them while browsing wine products or reading your winery blog. Tools like Xenu Link Sleuth or Screaming Frog can help you quickly find broken links across your site. Make it a habit to check for broken links after updating product catalogs or adding new events.

Remove Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can confuse search engine crawlers and prevent the correct pages from appearing in search results. This is especially important for wineries that may offer similar products (e.g., multiple vintages of the same varietal) across different pages. Use canonical tags or 301 redirects to point search engines to the correct version of a page, ensuring that only the intended content is indexed.

5. HTTPS, SSL, and Other Technical SEO Considerations

HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) and SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificates are essential for eCommerce SEO success, especially for wineries selling online.

To build trust, your winery’s website must be secure, ensuring customers feel confident entering payment details or personal information. Installing an SSL certificate guarantees that all traffic to and from your site is encrypted, protecting sensitive data and helping you rank better in search results.

Corksy's Web Builder automatically provides SSL encryption for all custom domains, making it easy to secure your winery’s eCommerce site and ensure customer safety while shopping online.

6. Optimize Your Winery’s Site Speed

Optimizing your winery’s eCommerce website for speed is essential for providing a great user experience. If your product pages don’t load in under three seconds, customers are likely to leave and look elsewhere.

Google PageSpeed Insights can help identify areas for improvement, such as JavaScript and image compression, that may be slowing down your website.

Here are a few steps to improve site speed:

• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML: Reducing redundant coding decreases webpage size.
• Enable Compression: Gzip compression reduces file sizes, leading to faster page loading.
• Limit Plugins: Too many plugins can slow down performance, so minimize their use.
• Use a CDN: A Content Delivery Network caches static content globally, speeding up load times.
• Utilize Caching Solutions: Tools like Varnish or Memcached help pre-process pages for faster loading.

Corksy's Web Builder is optimized for Core Web Vitals, helping wineries meet speed and performance standards with advanced caching and image optimization. This ensures faster page load times, essential for keeping your customers engaged and ready to purchase.

7. Add Schema Markup to Wine Product Pages

Schema markup helps search engines understand your content better. Adding structured data, like Product Schema, to your wine product pages can enhance their visibility in search results. It can also enable rich snippets (e.g., customer reviews or pricing information) that can make your listings stand out and encourage click-throughs.

For wineries, you can also add schema for:

• Product Schema: Use this to mark up individual wine product pages, allowing search engines to display critical information such as pricing, stock availability, and customer reviews.
• Review Schema: If you feature customer reviews on your wine products, this schema helps display ratings in search results, boosting credibility and click-through rates.
• Event Schema: Perfect for marking up virtual wine tastings, wine club events, or other digital experiences, making it easier for interested customers to find and participate in these offerings.
• Recipe Schema: If your blog includes wine pairing recipes, adding schema can help these pages rank better for food and wine-related searches.

Steps to Add Schema Markup:

1. Identify the Type of Content to Mark Up: Decide what you want to add schema to (e.g., product pages, reviews, events).
2. Generate the Appropriate Code: Use tools like Schema App or Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to generate the correct schema code for your content.
3. Test the Code: Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to ensure that your schema code is error-free and properly implemented.
4. Publish the Code: Once everything works correctly, add the schema code to the section of the relevant pages on your website.

How Corksy’s Web Builder Simplifies Schema Markup:

With Corksy’s Web Builder, adding schema markup to your winery’s website is easy. The platform automatically supports structured data, ensuring that your content is compliant with search engine guidelines and displayed correctly in search results.

8. Identify and Remove Duplicate Content

Duplicate pages can cause significant SEO issues for your winery’s eCommerce site. If search engines detect multiple pages with the same or very similar content, they may struggle to determine which version to prioritize, potentially resulting in lower rankings or none of the pages being indexed properly.

To avoid this, you'll need to add canonical tags to any duplicate pages. Canonical tags signal to search engines which page is the preferred version, helping them identify the correct URL to index and rank. This prevents search engines from treating the duplicated content as competing pages.

Adding canonical tags is simple:

• Include the canonical tag in the section of each duplicate page using the rel=canonical attribute. For example:

This tells search engines that the original page (https://example.com/page1) is the one to index, ensuring that only the correct version is ranked.

Once you’ve implemented canonical tags, it’s important to ensure that there are no pages excluded from search engine indexing. Run a website crawl using tools like Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl to check for any pages that may have been blocked in the robots.txt file or noindexed in the section.

If any pages are excluded, verify whether they should be blocked from search engines. Correct any unintentional exclusions to make sure all relevant content is properly indexed and discoverable by potential customers.

9. Ensure the Site is Mobile-Friendly

More than 40% of wine eCommerce purchases are made on mobile devices. Having a mobile-friendly website is non-negotiable. Responsive design ensures that customers can easily browse your wine catalog, sign up for wine clubs, and complete purchases on any device.

10. Perform Keyword Research

When performing keyword research for wineries, focus on keywords that attract serious buyers, such as:

• Specific wine varietals (e.g., “buy Cabernet Sauvignon online”)
• Wine club memberships (e.g., “best wine club for red wine lovers”)
• Wine gift ideas (e.g., “wine gift basket delivery”)

Targeting long-tail keywords (keywords with more than three words) can help you rank higher for searches that convert into sales, as they usually represent more specific buyer intent.

Tips for Effective Keyword Research:

• Identify Your Niche: Start by researching your specific niche within the wine industry and identifying relevant keywords that are most aligned with your winery’s products or services.
• Analyze Competitors: Look at how competing wineries are using keywords in their product descriptions, titles, and content. This can give you insights into what’s working for others in your market.
• Monitor Search Trends: Use tools like Google Trends or Buzzsumo to track keyword trends and topics related to wine. This will help you stay on top of seasonality and emerging interests in the market, such as holiday wine gift searches or trending varietals.
• Use Keyword Research Tools: Tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush can give you valuable data on keywords being used by competitors or other wineries. They also show search volumes and keyword difficulty, helping you find opportunities for high-impact terms.
• Understand Buyer Personas: To build a solid keyword strategy, understand your customers' lifecycle and how they search for products. Are they long-time wine club members, or are they first-time buyers looking for specific gifts? Tailoring your keywords to different buyer personas helps capture more targeted traffic.
• Focus on Long-Tail Keywords: Long-tail keywords often have lower search volumes, but they target customers who are further along the buying funnel. These keywords are more specific (e.g., “best Cabernet Sauvignon for a dinner party”), making them easier to rank for and more likely to convert.
• Topical Research: Don’t limit your research to just keywords—focus on broader topics relevant to your audience. Use topical analysis to uncover issues or trends (e.g., “how to store wine properly”), then optimize the right content or product pages to capture this interest.
• Put Yourself in the Buyer’s Shoes: Think about how your customers search for products. What questions or phrases are they using? Are they looking for wine pairings, gifts, or a new wine club? Understanding these questions will guide your keyword strategy.
• Use Customer Data: Use insights from customer data to refine your keyword strategy. Knowing how your customers search for wine online—whether it’s specific varietals, reviews, or pairing suggestions—helps uncover relevant keywords organically.

11. Focus on On-Page SEO

Optimizing your winery’s product pages for search engines is crucial for increasing visibility and driving sales. Here are the key components of on-page SEO to ensure your pages rank well:

URL Structure

Make sure your URLs are descriptive and keyword-rich, incorporating categories and subcategories where relevant (e.g., "example.com/reds/cabernet-sauvignon-2019"). This helps both search engines and users understand what the page is about.

Product Titles

Use relevant, descriptive keywords in product titles that clearly explain what the product is (e.g., “2019 Sonoma County Pinot Noir”). Ensure that your titles highlight important information like the vintage, region, and varietal.

Meta Descriptions

While Google often rewrites meta descriptions, it’s still important to include engaging meta descriptions that highlight the unique qualities of your wines. These should entice users to click on your product listings.

Product Images

Optimize all product images by including descriptive alt text and captions. For example, add alt text such as “2019 Sonoma County Pinot Noir bottle” to ensure your images are discoverable in search results.

Open Graph Tags for Social Media

In addition to SEO, incorporating Open Graph tags is essential for optimizing how your winery's content appears when shared on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Open Graph tags define the title, description, and image that show up when a link to your product page is shared, making it visually engaging for users.

For example, when someone shares a link to your Cabernet Sauvignon product page, the Open Graph tags can ensure that the post automatically displays the correct title (“2019 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon”), a compelling description, and a high-quality product image. This improves engagement and helps drive traffic from social media to your eCommerce site.

Single H1 Tag

Each page should have only one main heading tag (H1) that indicates the primary topic of the page, such as “Sonoma County Pinot Noir 2019.” This helps search engines identify the most important content on the page.

Internal Linking

Link relevant pages within your website, such as wine club memberships or related wine products. This helps both users and search engines discover more of your content.

Breadcrumbs

Use breadcrumbs to make navigation easy for users. This allows them to quickly move between product categories or return to your homepage from deeper product pages.

12. Perfect Your Site Structure

A well-structured website is essential for both search engines and customers. A clear and logical site structure helps search engines crawl and index your pages effectively, while providing users with an easy and intuitive experience that encourages them to explore your winery's offerings.

Here’s how to create a solid website structure for your winery’s eCommerce site:

Organize by Categories

Group your wine products into logical categories, such as Red Wines, White Wines, Rosé Wines, and other relevant sections like Wine Club, Events, or Blog pages. This organization helps visitors quickly find what they’re looking for and improves SEO by creating clearly defined content areas.

Page Grouping and Cross-Linking

Group similar pages together (e.g., wine varietals, wine gifts, blog posts) to create a cohesive user experience. Utilize cross-linking between related pages to reduce the number of clicks needed to reach important content. For example, link from a blog post about food pairings to specific wine products.

Avoid over-linking only within your site, as Google may penalize excessive internal links. Make sure to focus on meaningful connections between pages.

Create Subcategories

For better organization, consider adding subcategories under your main wine categories. For example, under Red Wines, you can create subcategories like Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, etc. This makes it easier for customers to filter through your products.

Optimize the Search Bar

Ensure your search bar is prominently displayed and easily accessible. This allows customers to quickly find products or content, especially when your site has a large selection of wines, blog posts, or events. The search results should be fast and relevant.

Enable Filtering and Sorting

Allow users to filter and sort wine products by criteria such as price, vintage, region, or grape varietal. This feature makes it easier for customers to narrow down their choices based on their preferences.

Product Pages

Make sure product pages are well-organized with clear descriptions, high-quality images, and relevant product details. This not only enhances user experience but also ensures that your products are easily indexed by search engines.

URL Optimization

Keep URLs short and descriptive, using hyphens instead of underscores. For example, use example.com/red-wine/cabernet-sauvignon instead of longer, less meaningful URLs. Keywords in URLs can help SEO but are not always necessary for branded products.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy refers to the structure and naming conventions of your categories and products. Ensure that your taxonomy is logical and easy to navigate, allowing customers to quickly find what they are searching for. A clear hierarchy helps with both user experience and search engine crawling.

13. Focus on Off-Page SEO

Once your winery’s eCommerce site is optimized on-page, it’s time to focus on off-page SEO, which primarily involves building backlinks and leveraging external content to boost your site’s authority and visibility.

Backlinks

Backlinks are one of Google’s top ranking factors, making them essential for your winery’s SEO. They signal to search engines that your site is valuable and trustworthy, helping improve your rankings.

Here are key strategies to build backlinks for your winery:

• Partner with Wine Influencers and Bloggers: Collaborating with influencers and bloggers for product reviews or wine tastings can earn valuable backlinks. Their audiences are often highly engaged, which also drives relevant traffic to your site.
• Secure Press Mentions: Aim to get your winery featured in wine publications or local newspapers. Press coverage not only increases your visibility but also generates high-quality backlinks from reputable sites.
• Collaborate with Complementary Businesses: Partner with restaurants, wine accessory shops, or food bloggers for guest posts or collaborative content. A partnership with a local restaurant, for example, can lead to cross-promotions that benefit both parties and create links back to your site.
• Focus on Link Quality: A single backlink from a high-authority site, such as a trusted wine blog, is more valuable than numerous low-quality links. Ensure that backlinks are from relevant, authoritative sources.
• Target Branded Keywords: While building links, incorporate branded keywords, such as your winery's name or signature products (e.g., "Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon"), into anchor texts for better ranking.

Content Marketing for Off-Page SEO

Content marketing amplifies your off-page SEO efforts by creating shareable content that others can link to. The goal is to create valuable, engaging material that attracts both customers and backlinks.

Here are some content marketing strategies for wineries:

• Product Reviews and How-To Guides: Publish product reviews, wine pairing guides, or tutorials on how to host wine-tasting events. These are valuable pieces of content that others may link to from their own blogs or websites.
• Social Media: Platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook are essential for driving traffic and creating backlinks. Engaging content that gets shared can organically generate links back to your site.
• Email Marketing: Use email newsletters to distribute your content, whether it’s new blog posts, event invitations, or special promotions. Encourage your audience to share the content on their own platforms.
• Public Relations and Press Releases: Use press releases to announce new wine releases, upcoming events, or other major news. If picked up by media outlets, press releases can create valuable backlinks.

Off-Page SEO Monitoring

It's important to track the effectiveness of your off-page SEO efforts. Tools like Ahrefs or Moz can help you track backlinks and monitor domain authority, while Google Analytics will provide insight into referral traffic from external links.

14. Clear FAQs Go a Long Way for Wine eCommerce SEO

Having a well-structured FAQ section on your winery’s website helps address common customer questions, such as wine shipping policies, club membership benefits, and event details. An optimized FAQ page can also increase the likelihood of appearing in featured snippets on search engines, driving more traffic to your site.

Here are some tips for creating an effective FAQ page that enhances both customer experience and SEO:

• Focus on Common Customer Questions: Quantify the most frequently asked questions from your customers and provide clear, concise answers. Topics like shipping policies, wine club perks, or event details are key areas to address.
• Use Natural, Descriptive Language: Describe the features and benefits of your wines and services in a way that feels natural. This helps customers understand your offerings and boosts SEO by using relevant keywords.
• Include Internal Links: Use the FAQ section to guide visitors to other relevant pages on your website, such as wine product pages, wine club memberships, or event sign-up pages. Internal links not only improve navigation but also enhance SEO.
• Build a Knowledge Base: Expand on your FAQ answers by linking to a more detailed knowledge base or blog posts for deeper context. This can provide additional value to your visitors while strengthening SEO.
• Keep Responses Short and Direct: Keep FAQ responses as brief as possible while ensuring they fully answer the question. Search engines favor concise, relevant answers for featured snippets.
• Add Visuals for Context: Where applicable, add images or videos to your FAQ answers to enhance the user experience. For example, use a video to explain how wine club memberships work or how to properly store wine after purchase.

By optimizing your FAQ page with clear answers and strategic internal links, you’ll improve both the user experience and your SEO rankings. An effective FAQ section can drive more traffic, reduce customer service queries, and even help your content appear in search engine featured snippets.

Conclusion

SEO for wineries is a long-term investment that pays dividends over time. By optimizing your eCommerce site for search engines, you’re setting your winery up for sustainable growth, ensuring that your products reach the right customers, and building a loyal customer base that will keep coming back for more.

Using a platform and web builder that has built-in SEO tools, like Corksy, can streamline the process and make it easier to implement the strategies outlined above. With Corksy, wineries can focus on crafting great wines while the platform handles the technical details of SEO, ensuring that your eCommerce store is visible, fast, and optimized for success.

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