Cannabis products have become quite popular in the health and wellness industry. But despite this popularity, marketing the cannabis business remains a challenge.
The cannabis industry does not benefit from most traditional marketing options due to restrictions. If you own a cannabis dispensary, this means you must think out of the box.
The best means to reach consumers is through digital marketing. Since most internet traffic still relies heavily on search engines, SEO remains the best marketing trend to follow for your business. However, you will need a comprehensive cannabis dispensary SEO strategy to become visible to potential clients.
In general terms, an SEO strategy relies on the quantity and quality of content to increase visibility on search engine platforms like Google.
Just creating quality content isn’t going to make your website rank higher on search engine result pages. You need to go the extra mile and ensure that you have a great marketing strategy that will work for your cannabis business.
How to Rank Your Cannabis Business
1. Use Quality Backlinks
Back in the days, you could just sign up for free back-linking or purchase backlinks, and you were good to go. Backlinks were the primary metric for ranking web pages on Google, and the more backlinks a page had, the better the chances it had of ranking high.
But competition has increased, and Google algorithms have also become stricter on ranking requirements. So, purchasing backlinks cannot work anymore.
You have to invest in quality backlinks. And quality is superior to quantity. Search engines don’t look at the number of backlinks in your webpage but their quality and relevance. So, having many poor-quality backlinks will actually harm your search strategy.
If your content gets links from other sites, it will increase your organic traffic and ranking. But make sure your backlinks are contextual and from quality sites. Do not include backlinks that do not relate to cannabis even if they are quality; they will be of no use.
Backlinks will get you referral traffic, and that is why they should be contextual. How is this so? When a person clicks on a link, it usually is voluntary, and it shows they are interested in that topic, leading to a low bounce rate.
2. Understand User’s Search Preferences
How do cannabis users search when they are looking for CBD products? You need to understand their preferences if you want them to click on your pages. The traditional approach to SEO is the use of keyword search.
Don’t assume that because you sell cannabis, you know what users need. Instead, use reliable tools to identify keywords.
Just using the right keywords won’t get you far, though. The SEO landscape has changed drastically, and you now have to understand the user’s search intent. Users’ search has become more long-tail and dynamic, particularly with the use of voice search.
How people search on mobile is also different from how they search on laptop or desktop devices. For your SEO strategy to work, you have to understand how the target audience uses search engines.
3. Optimize Your Website for Voice Search
Over 3 billion of the world population uses smartphones, which makes voice technology more effective than typing. With the increased use of voice search, you also have to adapt or risk losing valuable target clients.
Optimizing your website for voice search means that you have to know the differences in search preferences. Consumers are more likely to be vague when typing because of the time constraint.
With voice search, however, the search is likely to be more specific. While someone typing may search for “cannabis dispensaries near me,” it might be more specific when using voice, such as “where can I get quality cannabis in Anaheim, California.”
4. Optimize Your Page for Mobile
If you haven’t realized, Google is increasingly focusing on user experience. The new ranking algorithm now considers page experience.
Ranking algorithms now look at users’ satisfaction with their interaction with a web page. The new Core Web Values determines users’ experience and ranks pages based on whether it deems the experience bad or good. Optimization of your pages for mobile is a key point to consider.
What does this mean for your SEO? Remember that most of the searches now happen on mobile phones. Google now focuses on mobile-first indexing. This means search algorithms focus on how mobile-responsive your website is to rank a page.
So, your website should be mobile adaptive, mobile responsive, and mobile-optimized for your users to have a satisfactory experience. Information tech blog gives you great information regarding this.
5. Use Social Media to Improve Your Cannabis SEO
You probably know the power of organic social media in promoting your cannabis business. But many people do not understand how they can incorporate social media into their SEO strategy to improve Google ranking.
For cannabis businesses, social media could help boost your rankings. It is no secret that Google uses social media presence for ranking.
Websites that have a high social media presence in terms of shares tend to rank higher. Today is the world of social media so if you can use it efficiently, it could be a helping hand for improving your business.
Adding images is also a great way for making the content more engaging for users and hence more attractive. Without tags, however, they will be invisible to the average search bot.
Set up social media handles in various platforms for your business and use them for marketing your content. Craft cannabis content that users like and share those pages on your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts.
If you get many shares, Google will use the resulting social signals to index and rank those pages. These points if considered will help you a lot in improving your business.
Conclusion: Rank your Cannabis Business on Google
Marketing cannabis products is a challenge because if you actively promote your products, you risk a Google ban.
But with the best SEO strategy, you can compete effectively and have your website rank higher on search engines which in turn will boost your cannabis business.
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