Even if you live in a rural area you can significantly increase the income from your farm with a website. This statement sounds hard to believe, especially if you live in a small rural community where unemployment if high, but this statement is not only true but achievable.

Several years ago we decided to diversify our income sources by starting to sell our plants, herbs and other products that we grow not only at our farm but also online. With limited computer expertise we spent a lot of time, money and energy before we learned how to operate a successful online business. Three years later, our online stores now make up a significant percentage of our annual income and help to insulate our farm from any ups or downs that our local economy may experience. Our three websites are: Farm Fresh Living, Stargazer Perennials and The Fly Fishing Place. 

At the request of many emails, we tried to write down a simplified version of how we started our internet business. After experimenting with many website programs and online products such as Yahoo and others we finally selected a product line by High Mountain Domains. High Mountain Domains is what is known as a complete online website hosting company that literally offers you a one stop shopping for domain names, website programs, shopping carts, SSL certificates, merchant accounts, blogs and much more. We found that for us using an online website hosting company, such as High Mountain Domains provided many benefits including:

• It is very easy to use with step by step prompts that lead you through the process
• Very affordable
• No programming experience needed
• Helpful technical support 24/7 that's free!
• Our websites and shopping carts are maintained on their servers, so if anything every happens at our farm such as a fire, we are protected and can still access our websites from anywhere as long as we have an internet connection.

High Mountain Domains is just one of many internet hosting companies out there that you have to choose from. We've been really pleased with the products so we can't recommend them enough, but don't take our word for it and do your own research first. Whichever internet hosting company you eventually decide to use keep in mind that once you start entering product and content, changing website programs is difficult and time consuming. Once you have decided on which website product to use, here's what you will need:

1. Search for and purchase a domain name. Our domain name is Farm Fresh Living.com. TIP: Your name should let people know what your site is about and try to keep it short or memorable. Once you have your domain name you will want to put it on everything!

2. Set your website up. Our website is really two websites that are connected behind the scenes. One website contains all the articles while the other website is the secure shopping cart portion. Don't worry it not really complicated!

• We use High Mountain Domains Website Tonight (R) for the article portion and a separate shopping cart that is also available through High Mountain Domains. The Website Tonight product lets you select a template from over 800 easy to use professionally designed website templates. They keep adding new ones each month, so I am always checking for new ideas. Your Website Tonight works as your homepage and as the text pages of your website where you can write articles and describe your services to people who visit your site. Writing good, relevant text pages are important and are what will help your website get searched.
  

• Connect a shopping cart to your Website Tonight. Your shopping cart is where your customers can purchase products from you. Shopping carts are secure sites. You can always tell when you are in a secure site by the https: designation in front of the URL address. 

3. Purchase a SSL Certificate. A SSL Certificate is very important and necessary to sell online. SSL Certificates are purchased once a year. Once your SSL is approved, an icon will appear automatically at the bottom of your website.

4. You will need either a merchant number or use Paypal to start accepting payment online. If you already have a merchant account that you use for your farm or business, your bank can help you set it up online. If you don't have a merchant account you can either set one up or just sign up to use Paypal. Both ways are easy!

5. If you use High Mountain Domains they will provide you with free email accounts to use. Just set these up to help you communicate with your customers. 

6. Start your own blog! Blogging is the most important, economic and powerful tool for promoting your online presence today.  It's fun, it's easy, and it can be profitable!

When thinking about what to sell, just look around your farm or business. If you can ship it, you can probably sell it.  Think about what your current customer buy from you or do you have a hobby that could be a business, the ideas are endless. If you specific questions, drop us an email and we'll try to answer your question in greater detail.

Our farm, Stargazer Perennials, is a small family owned and operated sustainable farm and nursery located in the mountains of Eastern Oregon. We live in a town of approximately 120 people and our county has a total population of 25,000.