Growers Marketing: Cannabis Website Design and Development at High-Grade Online Experiences

Designing and building a website isn't easy for any business, let alone a business that sells weed. Your site is the first thing a possible customer sees about you. 

It's important to have a website that works well, is easy to use, works well on mobile devices, and looks good. It should also be built with your marketing goals in mind. And that's just the beginning of a long list of things a good website needs.

Due to the recent and ongoing growth of the cannabis business, new brands and websites are appearing quickly. When you add in the legal hurdles, a lot of business owners are in a hurry to get their sites up and going.

In a rush to get their goods in front of people, business owners often give their cannabis website design to the first person they can reach. The problem is that designing your cannabis website on purpose and properly from the start is the make-it-or-break-it factor that will make you stand out from the crowd. 

Your target audience will notice if you rush your website, and you'll fall to the bottom of an industry that's getting crowded fast. In other words, the best way to stand out from the competition is to have a website that looks good and works well.

Here's a crash course on what you need to know to create and build a website for cannabis:

Know your "why."

When we work on cannabis website design and cannabis website development projects with our clients, we always start with one question: Why? 

Why do you want to make a blog for your business? What is your website's main goal? How do you want things to go? Do you want more people to come into your store or buy things online?

Brands need to know what they are trying to sell and what results they want to get from their cannabis website design. In this way, a good website should be easy to use, with few options and simple pages. 

The Nielsen Norman Group found that if you want a website visitor to pay attention, you need to make your value offer clear in the first 10 seconds. In other words, users should be able to figure out why they should stay on your website in the first ten seconds.

This could mean building a community around the company for cannabis or CBD products. To do this, the main goal of the website could be to get people to sign up for your email list or join your Facebook Group. For shops, it could be a way to get people to buy more. For cannabis companies that sell to other businesses, it could be getting people to try out your service or schedule a call.

No matter what the goal is, your customers shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get to the page with the action item you want them to take. In terms of marketing, this means you need to make sure your buyer's road or journey is the best it can be. 

A good site should be easy to find your way around. Important information like hours, addresses, contact forms, email signups, etc. should be easy for your visitors to find right away. Each trait serves a different purpose. For example, a page for medical cannabis might have clearer instructions on how to book an appointment or get a card, while a page for adult-use cannabis would have to be more artistic and roundabout to attract shoppers. 

Another example is that websites for dispensaries should have a clear button that takes you right to their menu. It's probably why people go there in the first place, so they should find it easy to get to. In the same way, websites for B2B businesses should be clear about specifications (such as size, output, etc.) and have a section for commonly asked questions. This keeps site users from getting confused and makes sure that only real leads need to talk to you about your product or service.

"What if I have more than one reason why?"

Even though each part of the website may have more than one goal, there shouldn't be too many goals on one page. For instance, when we made the site for Growers Marketing, our goal was to get more people to buy their CBD product. So, when you go to the website, there are really only two things you can do: shop or find out more about the company. Since the whole point of their site is to sell CBD, all of the links lead to the shop goods page.

Some companies that sell cannabis, like dispensaries, may have both a storefront and a way to shop online. In these cases, you have to decide what to do and show a site visitor where to go based on your goal. 

One thing to think about when making this choice is what will give you the best return on investment (ROI). Do you make more money in person or online? Which experience makes customers more likely to come back?

The main goal of making and designing a weed website will always be to help the buyer's journey. Instead of putting things on your site just because you like how they look, you should have a good reason for each one.