The Big 10: Optimizing for the web

Miller Plant Farm hasn’t always had a website. In fact, it’s a fairly recent development.

After graduating from Penn State University in 2005, Dustyn Miller joined the farm. He says that his first main objective when coming aboard was to get the company online.

In the last year Miller's has overhauled the site with more current software.

Miller Plant Farm was founded as a vegetable transplant facility for commercial farmers. Over the course of nearly 90 years of existence, the company has added a garden center and expanded its retail ornamental offerings. But Dustyn felt that a strong digital presence could really help boost overall sales.

“Over the past 10 months, our website has had an average of 18,024 page views per month,” he says. “This actually shows a growth of about 180 percent over the previous 10-month period when the page views averaged 9,987 per month.”

Miller Plant Farm conducts no sales through its website. Instead, it serves as a storytelling and connection device. And gardeners, both savvy and raw, can get tips from experienced, professional growers.

Miller says that the company employs a web service provider, Hoffman Web Solutions. Hoffman specializes in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which pushes Miller’s content to the top of web searches on engines like Google. That means that users who need info on “onion spacing” are more likely to come to Miller for their information.

“It’s not uncommon for us to field questions from folks across the country, just because they found our website having information relevant to their web search,” he says.

The website also has improved Miller’s wholesale operations.

“We list the commercial varieties that we stock on our website and upon simple form completion all of our wholesale price and varietal information is quickly accessible to customers,” he says.

Miller’s wholesale vegetable transplant business focuses on regional markets. Despite that, the farm frequently receives requests from potential customers in the Midwest and beyond. Almost all of them say the discovered Miller the same way…the website.
 

Staying Social

The company also maintains a thriving social media presence on Instagram and Facebook. Facebook is a cost-effective method of relaying immediate information to customers. It’s a great avenue to increase brand recognition, Miller says. He also notes that Instagram allows the company to share images of products with potential customers.

“Visual marketing is highly effective,” he says.

The company is not involved with Twitter because they don’t feel they’d be able to use it as intended. Miller says that the company only wants to participate in marketing efforts that can be 100 percent effective. An outdated social media page is equivalent to a messy storefront, he says.

But he’s quick to note that “social media has been a great aid to our marketing efforts. We are able to reach hundreds or thousands of customers with a single post.”