Posted on January 28, 2021 by admin
When selling a product or service that is readily available from many competitors, product differentiation is vital to your business’ success. Price, quality, features, reputation, and brand are just some of the ways you can help consumers distinguish between similar goods and persuade them to choose one competitor over the others.
Ok, great, but how does this relate to cannabis web design? In many ways, actually.
British Columbia has over 80 registered (licensed) cannabis dispensaries; nationally, Canada has over 300 cannabis retailers. That’s a lot of competition, particularly for online cannabis dispensaries. As we previously touched upon, simply making your product available for sale, either online or in-store, will not in itself guarantee profitability – you need to give consumers a reason to prefer your product over other available options. And that’s where your web design can play a crucial role.
Website Quality
From the moment a potential buyer clicks on your web link they are evaluating your business, both consciously through visual design elements and content, and subconsciously through their user experience. A professional website should include high-quality visuals, well-written copy, and be equally accessible across a range of desktop and mobile devices. The ultimate goal of a well-designed website is not only to boost sales, but to encourage active user engagement – a repeat customer is worth significantly more than a one-time buyer.
Brand-Building Design
Consistent design is key to building brand awareness and customer loyalty. Your brand says a lot about who you are and should be recognizable to customers throughout your shop, marketing material, and website. Where web design is concerned, this extends past simply having an attractive logo and catchy slogan; your copy, colours, fonts, visuals, and layout should be all be consistent and on-brand.
SEO Content
SEO is as important to building your customer base as good web design is to keeping them coming back. Before users can be converted into buyers, they need to be able to find you, and where you rank on SERPs has a huge impact on the traffic your business will see – results appearing higher up on the SERP get up to 10 times more traffic than those on the bottom, and most users don’t venture past the first page. High-quality content, relevant keywords, and an increasing focus on UX will all affect your ranking, and with no paid advertisement allowed for cannabis dispensaries, organically enhanced SEO is the only way to get your business to number 1.
User Experience
Once a user arrives on your site, user experience will play a pivotal role in their decision as to whether or not to buy from you. Web design should be created to appeal directly to your targeted user and be easy to read, well-organized, simple to navigate, and fast. Most users will not read a web page top to bottom, they quickly scan for the information they are looking for and move on. If your website is slow, overly crowded with too much material, plagued by annoying pop-ups, or difficult to navigate, users will not waste time searching for information, they will just leave and, more likely than not, they won’t return.
In a double down on the importance of user experience, Google has introduced an algorithm that will incorporate UX into its SERP rankings. A poor UX will not only lose you customers, it may affect your rankings as well.
Mobile Responsive Design
More users are shopping online from mobile devices than computers, so if your website isn’t optimized for mobile phones and tablets, you are alienating a large segment of the population. In order to reach the widest audience possible, your website should be equally responsive on mobile devices as it is on desktops, with navigation menus that are easy to use, text and content which adjust to screen size, and quick download speeds.