So You’re Selling Cannabis Online: Here’s How to Improve Your Website

Starting an online cannabis website is no easy task, to be sure.

Starting any type of business requires an immense amount of time, energy, and focus. And while in some ways, starting an online company can be less expensive than starting a brick-and-mortar business, you’ll still have quite a number of expenses to deal with too.

Much of the stress that small business owners (and especially new business owners) struggle with has to do with how they can acquire more customers and clients. For every industry, the best strategy will be different. But generally speaking, if you run an eCommerce business (a business conducted all or mostly online), the bulk of your focus should be on your website.

A finely tuned, highly stylized, well-functioning website will always attract more customers and clients than a clunky site that’s badly organized. This is true even if everything else is the same: the customer service, the products, the costs, etc.

Therefore, in this article, we are going to be outlining the top ways you can improve your cannabis website so as to attract more customers. We’ll include ways to attract visitors to your site in the first place, as well as ways to improve conversions.

1. Have your site professionally designed.

E-commerce websites are not like any other website. If you have a blog or you like to show your artwork online, these sites are pretty easy to make yourself.

On the other hand, e-commerce websites should be handled by professionals as you will be dealing with sensitive information like people’s names, addresses, and credit card numbers. This isn’t even to mention the fact that there’s still some stigma surrounding cannabis use, and you’ll have access to many people’s purchasing records for all sorts of cannabis products.

You’ll also have a lot of your own personal data associated with the site, including links to your financial institutions, inventory tracking, and more.

For these reasons, you should hire a professional website designer to create, design, and run your website. After all, unless you’re personally technologically advanced and find this sort of thing easy and/or fun, you won’t want to waste your precious time dealing with the backend of your website. You have far more important things to do as the business owner.

2. Attach your website to social media.

Love it or hate it, social media platforms are here to stay. As a business owner, you’ve got to be on it. The big three are Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Make sure you have a business account at each one of these sites.

Next, post on social media often. Even if it’s just a funny little joke or an update about your product line, keep posting every day. Your customers want to see that you are engaged with them. Of course, this means that if you get comments or questions on your social media platforms, you should respond as soon as possible too. If this is too big of a job for you to do as the business owner, however, you may want to outsource this position.

Potential and current customers also want to learn something from your content. Show how to use different products in your posts. Volunteer little facts that might help improve people’s lives. You’ll get more followers if you offer something valuable through your social media platforms.

3. Create content for your website and update it regularly.

You’ve created your website, and it’s up and running. You’ve even linked the site to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This is a great start!

Now, it’s time to keep your site updated regularly. We’re not just talking about product updates either. We are talking about content.

When it comes to being found online, regular content updates should be the number one strategy you use. You can do this in a lot of different ways. For example, you can create small videos to put up on your website once a week. Alternatively, you could post blogs or pictures on your site. All of these things should be relative to the cannabis industry.

Not sure where to begin? Try outsourcing this job to someone who knows how to write and/or produce video content. Have them send over 2 to 3 blog posts or short videos a month, and when it comes time to post, link them to all of your social media accounts. That way, visitors will have to click your links and go to your website to see the content.

Whether you’ve just started your online cannabis business or you’ve been at it for a while, it’s critical to put a lot of your time, energy, and focus on your website. Remember that because you don’t have a brick-and-mortar store, your site offers the first impression that many customers will have of your company. You’ll want to make it welcoming, pleasing to the eye, easy to navigate and, of course, easy to purchase from.