Seth Godin [1] recommends [2] that we start the year by running a Google search on ourselves.

How do you want your farm to be seen by customers who will idly search for you on the web? That search may come at a pivotal time in their local food life.

Let's say your small farm sells at farmer's markets. Picture a customer who has just started coming to the market and has bought food at different stands, but really likes your stand because you are friendly / organic / helpful / sustainable / tasty / attractive (pick one or more).

This customer is interested in your farm enough to remember the name, so they are sitting at work near the end of the day and they are considering a trip to the farmer's market that evening. They type your farm name into Google, not necessarily expecting anything to come back.

Do they find a professional, active website that explains the farm philosophy, encourages feedback, and gives the customer a view into the work that is done on the farm?

Does this fictional customer go to the farmer's market that evening? If so, what stand do they visit?

If you don't like what you see, plan what you are going to do about that in 2008. Start a blog [3], learn basic web design [4], or get a Small Farm Central site [5].

Photo by: asifthebes [6]