When your season opens, everything online has to be right.
Families plan a farm day on their phones: opening hours, tickets, what's ready to pick, and how to find the right gate. Penguina checks all of it on your website and on Google, Apple Maps and Bing before your season starts, tests your ticket and booking pages regularly, and compares each season with the same weeks last year.
Seasonal rushes, visitors who plan online, families who run it.
A farm attraction can earn much of its year in a few weekends. If the website or the Google listing is wrong on one of those weekends, there's no making it up in March.
earned by US farms and ranches from agritourism in the 2022 Census of Agriculture
of farm businesses in England had a diversified activity in 2024/25, such as letting, tourism or retail
Short, busy seasons
Strawberries in June, pumpkins in October, trees in December. Every weekend in season counts.
Visitors plan online
Opening times, prices, parking, dogs allowed or not. If the answer isn't online, families pick somewhere that has one.
Family-run, flat out
In season you're picking, serving, parking cars. Nobody is checking the website at 7am.
In one sentence: farm websites rarely break in the quiet months; they break on opening weekend, when traffic spikes, details change daily and the owner has no time to look.
Where do farm websites lose visitors?
- Last season's hours, still on Google. Your site says open Saturday, Google says closed for the season, Apple Maps says nothing at all. Families go where the answer is clear.
- A ticket page that buckles on opening day. Timed-entry tickets for a pumpkin patch or corn maze sell in a rush. If the page is slow, or says "available" when you're sold out, you get angry messages instead of bookings.
- A map pin on the farmhouse. Sat navs send visitors up the private lane instead of to the car park. That's a bad start and a bad review.
- "What's ready" pages that are weeks old. Pick-your-own visitors want to know if strawberries are still going. An old update wastes their trip and your goodwill.
- Weather closures that only reach Facebook. Mud, frost or a storm. If the closure isn't on your website and Google, people drive out anyway.
- Heavy pages in weak signal. Visitors often look you up again in the car, near the farm, on one bar of signal. Big pages simply don't load.
Your season, step by step.
Protect keeps the site up when the crowds arrive. Capture helps people find you, book and turn up at the right gate. Compound brings them back next year.
| When | What we do | Pillar |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks before opening | Season hours set on Google, Apple Maps and Bing. Ticket and booking pages tested on a phone over mobile data. Map pin checked. Prices and "what to bring" updated with you. | Capture |
| Opening weekend | We keep a close watch on your site. Ticket page and forms tested. If something breaks, we fix it quickly and explain what happened, in simple words. | Protect |
| During the season | "What's ready" and closure notices updated on your site and Google when you tell us. Your enquiries and group bookings named. On Grow, review replies drafted for you to approve. | Capture |
| After you close | Your monthly page compares the season with the same weeks last year, not with last month. Review requests and next-season invites on Full Care. | Compound |
Monday, 8:00
Hi Ellen, a big opening weekend. The ticket page held up.
- Online all weekend, watched day and night
- Ticket page tested Friday and Saturday morning
- 14 group and school booking requests. Same week last year: 9
- Needs you: Oakfield Primary, 60 pupils, waiting since Thursday
- Sunday's mud closure, sent to us Saturday, posted on your site and Google
- 6 new reviews. 2 mention the corn maze. All replied
Compared with last season, not last month.
A quiet February never looks like failure in our reports. We compare your weeks with the same weeks last year, so you see how the season is really going. Group and school bookings are named, because one class trip can fill a weekday.
- Compared with the same weeks last year
- Closures and changes posted when you tell us
- One short note, readable in the farm shop queue
See the weekly note and monthly page
Names and numbers changed for illustration.
Grow, because your hours live in more than one place.
For farms, the biggest leak is usually details that differ between your site, Google, Apple Maps and Bing. Keeping them in line is listings care, and it's part of Grow.
Keep
$100 / month
For a farm shop with steady hours and a simple site.
- Site watched through busy weekends
- Forms tested regularly
- Your enquiries by name
Grow Recommended
$250 / month
For seasonal attractions, pick-your-own and riding centres.
- Everything in Keep
- Season hours kept right on listings
- Ticket and booking leaks fixed
- Review replies drafted for you
Full Care
$500 / month
For bigger attractions with families who come back every year.
- Everything in Grow
- Last year's visitors invited back
- Review requests after visits
- Pages for each season and event
Farms and rural businesses we look after.
Every farm business below gets the same seasonal care.
Farm stays
Direct bookings instead of platform fees, and a site that holds up in peak season.
Everyone in this group
Details that matter for farm websites.
Special hours, not just normal hours
Google lets you set special hours for holidays and one-off days. We use them for bank holidays, late openings and early closes, so the hours people see on the day are the hours you're open.
Riding centres may need a licence number online
In England, businesses licensed to hire out horses for riding or lessons must show their name and licence number on any website they use. Rules elsewhere differ. We add yours where you tell us it needs to appear.
Breweries and cideries: age and alcohol rules
Tasting tours have age limits and advertising rules that vary by country and state. We keep your site wording as you and your licence require, and never add claims you haven't approved.
Closures must travel fast
Tell us by WhatsApp or email and we post a closure on your site, and on Google where you've given us access. For opening weekends, send us planned changes in advance and we'll have them ready.
Questions from farm owners.
Something else? Ask in the chat, email hello@penguina.website or WhatsApp us.
We're only open part of the year. Is a monthly plan worth it?
Most farms find the months before opening matter as much as the season itself. That's when hours, tickets and directions get set up right. Because we're month to month, you can choose what suits you, and we'll say so in your first fix.
We sell tickets through a ticketing company. Can you still help?
Yes. We don't replace your ticketing system. We check that the links and buttons on your website lead to it correctly and work on phones, and that what your site says matches what's on sale.
Can you update "what's ready to pick" for us?
Send us a WhatsApp or an email and we'll update it. On busy weeks it helps to send tomorrow's news the evening before.
Will you run our Facebook page?
No. We don't do social media. Many farms post closures on Facebook first. We help the same news reach your website and Google, where most first-time visitors look.
Can you get us more school and group bookings?
We can't control numbers. We can test your group booking form, name each request in your note, and flag anyone still waiting for a reply. On Full Care we add a clear page for schools and groups.
The farm is passing to the next generation. Who should own the website?
The business should, not a person who might leave. We move the domain, hosting and logins into the business's name and keep a register of every key.
Something wrong with your website right now?
Sources for the figures on this page
Not sure where to start? Send us your website.
We look at it the way a customer would, find up to 3 real problems, and fix one of them free. No call needed.