I’m not sure what kind of website a winery is going to get for $1000 these days, so it’s good to see that wineries and vineyards that already got money from New York State to enhance their Web presence can now apply for another $1000.
So now wineries can get $2000 plus and presumably already have some sort of site to begin with. That’s a great start, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to see a lot of great NY winery websites any time soon. You can spend $25,000 on a website for your winery, but if you have a "build it and they will come" attitude, that is a huge waste of money.
Despite what many website owners think, to have a quality website it takes a lot more than cool features, flash animation and a great design (though those all add to the experience). Content, first and foremost, is king on the Internet.
So, I hope that the wineries who are spending taxpayer dollars on these new sites don’t just build sites and release them to the world, only to remain static and un-updated. Wineries wouldn’t dump $2000 worth of their finest wine down the drain, so let’s hope they don’t do that very thing with their websites.