There are about 1.7 billion websites on the internet today, which shows just how much setting up a website is not a big deal anymore. Unlike in the past when building a website would immensely boost your brand’s reputation and give you a clear edge on your competitors, nowadays you need to do more to get anything out of a website. The effort needed to make good is even greater for startups and brands operating in up-and-coming and highly dynamic niches such as the CBD industry.
Whether you run a brick and mortar CBD store and only want to complement it with a website or your business is entirely online-based, there are aspects of your website that you may not know impact your reputation and sales. Simple things such as a poor CBD website design and mediocre hosting can lower the flow of traffic into your website and take a toll on your conversion rates. We have discussed below tested-and-tried tips to help increase traffic on your website, cut back on bounce rates, and convert visitors into leads.
Increasing Traffic and Conversion Rates on Your CBD Website
There are several techniques you can use to increase your visibility on the internet and attract prospects onto your CBD website. Here are some of the more common ones:
1. Adopt a favorable CBD web design
With platforms such as WordPress turning the whole process of website development into a simple drag-and-drop affair, building websites from scratch has become child’s play. Even novices can follow tutorials on YouTube and actually create a working site. While this is good for low-budget investments, it may impact how customers view your business.
Internet users have too many websites at their disposal to choose from, and even the CBD market is getting crowded. Professional looking websites are getting more visits per day than middling sites, regardless of content, simply because the most trusted brands out there have created that correlation. In words of one syllable, your website can have all the great content that CBD users need, but your design will give them an impression of the kind of business you are running.
So what exactly should a good CBD website design entail?
Well, “good” is subjective and there is no formula to achieving the perfect web design. However, the following tips can give you a place to start and help you align your web design with the expectations of your prospects:
- Adopt a simple design
- Fill your site with relevant content
- Make your website mobile friendly
- Optimize page load times
- Create high quality content
Plausibly, creating a website that adheres to all these guidelines can be confusing for a web design newbie. The wisest thing to do is entrust the procedure with a professional web developer. If you can find a specialist CBD website designer like DigitaWise, the better!
2. Avoid Making Medical Claims
As regards the content you put out, it is worthy of note that, besides Epidiolex, no CBD product has been approved for medical use. People may successfully use the cannabinoid to alleviate chronic pain, acne, anxiety and a range of other symptoms, but you cannot make any claims associating it with actual medical benefits if you want to steer clear of trouble. Instead, consider posting user testimonials and insert outbound links to approved researches.
Besides putting you on a collision course with the FDA, there are other ways unsubstantiated claims about CBD can have a negative impact on the performance of your website. To many people, CBD is still a sensitive avenue that they would rather tread with care. Making claims that seem to conflict the FDA may lower your credibility in such people’s eyes.
With the CBD market growing by the day, web developers such as Digitawise are now specialized in developing CBD product websites. It may be worth hiring or at least outsourcing tips from these developers for your project.
3. Understand your target audience
Before you start building your brand, you need to have a clear understanding of the people you want to reach. Try to figure out what established rival businesses are doing and if there is a difference, even if minor, in the audiences you are targeting.
One of the main reasons the CBD market is augmenting so rapidly is that there are new populations opening up to CBD-infused products every day. There are numerous informational resources out there explaining cannabis, hemp, cannabinoids, and the difference between cannabidiol (CBD) and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which are busting all the myths about CBD and capturing the attention of more groups of people.
Many athletes, fitness buffs, and body builders, for instance, are beginning to discover CBD as a great post-workout remedy for muscle soreness. If that’s your target audience, you need to make it known by creating the right content and using appropriate terminology. That certainly means having a decent understanding of both CBD and the fitness niche.
4. Abide by SEO guidelines
In a digital world where Google, Bing, and Yahoo have so much power over traffic allocation, there is a need to align your website with their ever-changing guideless. You can improve your online presence by following these guidelines:
- Enhance page load speeds to reduce bounce rates
- Link to other websites containing relevant content both in and outside your niche
- Create content with humans in mind. Writing for search engines may not work in the longer term.
- Seek inbound links from trustworthy websites through guest blogging.
- Develop a web analytics strategy to help you identify what’s working and what’s not in your SEO strategy.
- Create SEO-optimized metadescriptions for all your pages
- Use relevant and readable URLs
- Accompany images with long-tail keywords
- Post frequently
Conclusion
The CBD industry is high on the rise, and there is no stopping it. As you look to beat your competitors to the highly sought-after online-based transaction system, the above tips can give you a much-needed edge. Consider consulting a CBD website design expert for more insights if you are building your online CBD business from scratch.
