5 Top Cannabis Website Offenders Costing You Visitors

5 Top Cannabis Website Offenders Costing You Visitors

You’ve jumped with both feet into digital marketing and created a profile on every social network known to man, yet your conversion rate is abysmal at best. What gives? The problem might not be your brand, but your web presence. Visitors judge a website and the company behind it by such things as how long the website takes to load, how easy it is to navigate, and its aesthetics. And they reach conclusions in ten seconds or less.

So go back and review your website for the following offenders and eliminate them.

Chaotic Homepages

The most valuable piece of real estate on your website is your homepage. A website should have a clear focal point and be easily organized so that the visitor feels visually comfortable to explore all that you have to offer. A cluttered page drives your audience away and can confuse or overwhelm them, which sends the wrong message about your product or service. The navigation bar should be easy to find and invite intuitive surfing. Make sure your website is responsive to mobile devices and that your pages load fast. The worst offenders in this category are animated GIFs that kill your audience’s concentration, sliders that rotate at lightning speed, and websites that lack a header.

Cryptic Navigation

You want to guide your visitors by hand and into your domain on the web, not leave them guessing at your figurative front door. Make sure your navigation bar is placed at the top of the page and always contains a link back to the homepage. Contents should be clearly represented in the menu in an order that makes sense, and title pages should reflect your visitor’s logic and leave ambiguity behind. The worst offenders in this category are navigation bars that have no coherent hierarchy, or that leave primary pages hidden inside sub-menus. Broken links and a hard-to-find contact page also spell doom to your conversion rates.

Boring, Unoriginal Photos

Stock photography never reflects the individuality of your brand, so avoid it and invest instead in professional photos or your photos to tell your brand’s story. You want to offer a unique value proposition in content as well as images to stand out from the endless options users are bombarded with on the Internet. Authenticity goes a long way, so use it. The worst offenders are websites that use stock photos of the 20-year-old CEO in the conference room and ubiquitous handshake pictures harking back to the 90s.

Elusive Social Media Buttons

A brand that depends on word of mouth (and that is every brand) should ensure its social media buttons are easy to find. Engage your audience and invite them to share by making sure every page on your website contains a link to all the major social platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.) Make sure to note these buttons are visually different from post-sharing buttons. The worst offenders here are buttons that don’t link to the proper page, media buttons hidden in the footer or contact page, and links to only one social platform when your brand is active on several others.

Missing or Unclear Calls-To-Action

If your bounce rate is high, despite visitors flocking to your website, you know you’re missing something if they don’t get beyond the homepage. Make sure your visitors know what to do with a clear call-to-action that guides them to the next step to engage with your business. Use simple phrases such as “call us”, “click here”, or “subscribe.” You want your visitors to know how to get the most out of your website, service, or product, so make it easy. Reflect a clear marketing strategy and avoid meandering content that goes nowhere. The worst offenders in this category are links leading to other websites and wording that assumes your visitors’ concentration levels.

Visitor retention and conversion rates are the lifeblood of your online presence, so make sure to eliminate these offenders from your website.

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Studio 420 is a cannabis and psychedelics creative agency specializing in branding, UX/UI design, web development, ecommerce, and digital marketing solutions. We offer a variety of services to ELEVATE your online web presence.

Contact our Denver, Colorado office for a no-obligation, project cost analysis at 303-653-9855.

Posted in: Web Design