4 Dispensary Website Trends to Help Cannabis Retailers Win in 2023
Your website is the face of your business. It’s also a high-priority item on many cannabis retailers’ 2023 marketing plans. Not only should your website entice and delight users, it should be easy to find and generate organic traffic. Below, we dive into the most important 2023 dispensary website trends for medical marijuana and adult-use dispensaries, plus key takeaways you can implement right away.
1. Native menus will become non-negotiable
Native menus essentially mean that you are embedding your menu from popular partners like Dutchie or Weedmaps onto your own cannabis dispensary website.
Some key benefits of native menus include:
- You own the website sessions. In order to visit your menu, shoppers will need to visit your website, meaning you’ll increase web sessions every time someone browses your products.
- Your website’s bounce rate decreases. Because users no longer have to leave your website to view your menu, you’re going to see lower bounce rates when using native menus.
- Improve your customers’ perceived brand experience. The more time a customer spends on your owned website, the greater the chances they’ll remember your brand and become advocates for your retail experience.
The alternative to native menus is to exclusively list your product catalog on popular cannabis marketplaces like Weedmaps and Leafly. The problem with this is that these sites are bad for your business. When you list your online menu with a marketplace, you lose valuable traffic and search visibility because customers are not browsing the menu on your actual website.
Takeaway: Look into embedding your dispensary’s menu on your website. You can always keep your listing on popular marketplaces and still add a native menu to your website to drive traffic and boost brand visibility.
2. SEO will turn into a land grab
Without federal legalization, advertising restrictions are expected to remain in place, meaning organic traffic remains crucial for cannabis businesses. The more eyes you can get to your site, the higher your chances of converting sessions to sales.
This is where SEO comes into play. SEO is the practice of increasing traffic to your website through organic search results on sites like Google. Essentially, it’s how people find your website.
But there’s one problem with SEO – many of your competitors now realize its value and are bolstering their content marketing efforts.
In the past, dispensaries focused on other important aspects of their business – like sourcing products and designing their physical store. Websites and content marketing took a backseat.
This left an increasing number of keywords up for grabs as more cannabis shoppers began searching for things like products, strains, blogs, and stores online. Now, a keyword land grab is starting to take place in the cannabis space. If you don’t get in now, you’ll fall behind and struggle to catch up.
In 2023, it’s more important than ever to double down on SEO at your cannabis company. Find a partner that will help you implement an SEO strategy and continually execute tasks to acquire keywords and improve your rankings.
Takeaway: Implement a strong dispensary SEO strategy, including:
- Keyword research
- Onpage SEO
- Technical SEO
- SEO audits
- Content marketing
- Backlinking and internal links
- Updating your Google Business profile
3. Data-driven decisions will give your website an edge
You’re probably noticing a common theme when it comes to these trends: competition is heating up in the cannabis market. One way to make sure you’re rising above competitors is to consistently test, iterate, and make website changes based on data.
Data-based decisions are the most efficient and effective way to improve your website. Nearly 7 in 10 leading marketers say their companies use data to support decision-making at all levels.
You can’t just “set it and forget it” when it comes to your website. Modern cannabis retail marketers have to constantly collect and analyze website data to understand things like:
- Audience
- Effective strategies
- Ineffective strategies
- Popular pages and blog posts
- Business goals
- User experience
- Design trends
This is less of an immediate change and more of a slow-burning fire that takes place in the background of your digital marketing strategy. The more you and your team develop a data-based culture, the more consistently you’ll notice results.
Takeaway: Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your web page’s performance. Then dive into the data and start experimenting. Implement a culture of iteration and perform A/B tests with website pages and CTA’s.
4. Telling your brand’s story will win you lifetime customers
A recent study by Zeno Group found consumers are four to six times more likely to trust, buy, and champion brands they consider “purpose driven.” For marijuana businesses, this means the concept of buying legal weed isn’t enticing enough to drive customers into your store.
As legal cannabis becomes normalized, dispensaries are starting to adopt traits from traditional retailers to help win customers. Modern retailers have found that their brand needs to be much more than a logo – it’s a feeling and a story that resonates with their audience.
Your dispensary’s website offers an opportunity to tell your brand’s story. Think about the deeper reason you’re selling cannabis products – this industry is especially purpose driven!
In 2023, cannabis shoppers will flock to dispensaries and cannabis brands that tell enticing stories that resonate with them.
Takeaway: Take a look at your company’s “About” page. How can you distinguish your message from your competitors’ and make sure your audience will nod their heads in agreement when they read through the page?
Then, inject this story and mission across your website. Look at every image and word through the lens of your brand story so each touchpoint becomes an extension of your central mission. You want your website’s visitors to feel like they understand exactly who your brand is and why it exists.
Looking to streamline your dispensary website in 2023?
Prepare your dispensary’s website for 2023 with a forward-thinking partner. Clutch offers custom cannabis website design, implementation, SEO services, writing services, and much more.
