CBD merchants and marketing companies are investing thousands of dollars in web design with the hope that it will propel them to the top bracket of the relatively young market. Just how right or misguided are they?
If you are trying to find your feet in the CBD industry that barely has any forerunners to imitate, you may struggle to find the perfect web design for your website. More importantly, you may wonder if it is even worth parting with hundreds of dollars to hire a CBD web design expert to create a website for you. We are just about to discuss the impact of web design on SEO, traffic flow, and conversion rates, and hopefully, by the end of the article, your question will have been answered.
Understanding Web Design
Before we dive into the tips and statistics, let’s have a proper understanding of what web design really is.
So, web design, in a nutshell, refers to the user experience side of web development. Web designers are charged with the enhancement of the layout, usability, and all the aesthetic aspects of a website relative to the perceived needs of the target users. Layout refers to the structuring and categorization of information and webpage elements while appearance is the combination of colors, fonts, images, logos, etc. and how they look on a webpage. A good web design is not only aesthetically pleasing and easy to use but also built with the needs of its target audience in mind. CBD web design, for instance, should be done to target potential CBD users.
According to the experts at Digitawise today’s web designers give much focus to simplicity as a way to avoid confusing and distracting users, who certainly have no time figuring out puzzles on the internet. No doubt. keeping it simple is a nice thing and a truly workable trick, but web design doesn’t end there. You need to consider function too and find a balance of aspects to ensure you don’t achieve simplicity and ease of use at the expense of the real reason you wanted users on your website in the first place. Here are some useful guidelines to achieving a CBD web design that is useful both to the user and the owner:
De-Clutter your website
Creating an uncluttered site is one way to grab the attention of undecided customers seeking professionalism. One way to achieve this is to give priority to the important stuff and place the less important ones farther down in your pages. Ensure links are visible and that you don’t have too many of them in one place. If possible, have the same navigation tab on all your pages and in the same location. This way, returning users can have easier time finding specific information, regardless of the page they land on first.
Optimize page load speeds
Google penalizes websites with negative user experience and rewards those with positive experience. Easy navigation and high page load speeds are among the factors that contribute to a positive user experience as per the Google algorithm. The search engine analyzes how fast your webpages load both on mobile and PC and gives a grading for each.
The two main factors that impact website speed are the server where the site is hosted, the user’s connection, and the programming of your website’s design. If you have a decent host and all of your users experience connection sluggishness, then maybe the problem is in your website design. Consider entrusting your CBD web design project with a professional to avoid this kind of disappointments too long after you have started your business.
Whitespace matters
Most web designers believe that whitespace is a major contributing factor to overall aesthetics of a webpage. Whitespace is the space between texts, visuals, and other elements on a webpage that serves as the background. It is an important element in that it creates balance, harmony, and contrast on a website. It helps users know where content ends or starts and takes away the need to draw actual margins to separate content.
Whitespace should never be viewed as just a blank space. The appearance of other elements partly depends on the design of the background i.e. the whitespace. Your choice of color should thus be well thought-out and aligned with the rest of your CBD web design strategy.
There is a relationship between SEO and Design
Search engines have made life extremely easy for both websites and users. They almost single-handedly decide how much traffic a webpage gets as most people pass through Google instead of typing URLs directly into browsers. As a webmaster, you want the search engines to like you because users trust search engines and will follow what comes first in the search results pages.
When going about designing your CBD website with search engines in mind, it is always wise to think beyond the foreseeable future. Design trends will certainly go out of style, but your website and brand will stay. If you have to go for a trendy design, at least ensure it doesn’t impact how the search engines see your site.
One of the more recent page design trends is the parallax design, where webpages don’t seem to end. While web owners may like this design as it keeps visitors engaged, search engines will most probably not. What you are doing adopting this design is putting all your content and all the keywords in a single webpage, which may confuse Google’s indexing algorithm and PageRank.
Search engines are most likely going to adjust their algorithms to accommodate this design, but in the meantime, you need to keep your CBD web design aligned with the current updates.
The bottom line
Websites are pretty easy to create these days and there are lots of design alternatives to choose from. However, not all designs are the same in the eyes of Google and your visitors. You need to know what’s good for your website before investing.
The CBD market is full of obstacles for newcomers, and you don’t want to add to that by giving your website a bad design. Be sure to consult a professional web designer for tips before getting on with your project.
