Posted on May 25, 2021 by admin
Promotion is one of the 5 pillars of an effective marketing strategy; this is the means by which companies get the word out about their products or services, using any combination of media, advertising, or promotion.
When it comes to ecommerce, search engine optimization helps online businesses get found, it helps your business rank higher on SERPs and increases the odds that users will visit your page – and for marijuana and CBD companies, effective SEO is vital to growth. Due to The Cannabis Act, paid marijuana and CBD advertisement is not allowed, meaning that organic SEO is one of the only ways to raise awareness of your business, and more importantly, increase sales.
If you are looking to make the most out of your cannabis SEO strategy, here are 5 tips to follow.
Take a Look at Your Numbers
If you already have an online presence, a good place to start planning your SEO strategy is to see what is currently working for you, and more importantly what isn’t. There are many tools available that can help analyze your website’s current metrics, including the number of unique visitors to your site, keywords that are directing users back to your page, and what your top performing pages are.
Once you have analyzed your numbers, you should take a look at your closest competitor’s numbers. Using some of the available tools, analyze their search traffic and see where you can make improvements to your own.
Know Your User
You may think that you know your user, however simply assuming that you know everything may be leading traffic to a competitor’s website. Keyword research, and user intent, are crucial to fully capturing all potential search traffic.
Google has made a number of updates to their search algorithms, traditional short form keywords have been replaced by more naturally flowing long form keywords, complete with semantically related words and phrases. These changes are meant to capture the changing way users are searching for things online, including the growing use of voice assistants. Additionally, Google has placed increased importance on user intent to provide more relevant search results.
SEO Requires Mobile Optimization
There is very little point to investing in a robust cannabis SEO strategy if your webpage is not optimized for mobile devices. More than half of all web searches come from mobile devices and that number will continue to rise, particularly with younger generations. Mobile optimization requires websites to be equally responsive on mobile devices as on desktop, with quick load speeds, easily navigated menus, functional layout, and limiting the use of pop-ups.
Have Something to Say
We have all heard the expression content is king, and that is still true with cannabis SEO. Articles and blogs are a very important way to increase organic traffic and rankings on any SERP. However, search algorithms are becoming more sophisticated in weeding out relevant information from pointless noise, so what you are writing is super important – if you have nothing significant to say, you might as well not be saying it.
Authority, relevance, and trust are pillars of good SEO and should not be ignored in your writing. Content should appeal to your intended audience, have something informative to share, and be factual. And, as we previously mentioned, keywords have moved on from basic short form phrases into longer form more natural sounding expressions and user intent. When this comes to your articles or blogs, more focus should be placed on writing for the reader and not to satisfy search engines.
Social Media Connection
While you can’t directly advertise on social media, the importance of maintaining a connection with your audience cannot be discounted. A strong social media presence may not directly influence your rankings, but every like, re-tweet, and share increases your exposure, which in turn helps to increase your online traffic.
Effective cannabis SEO may spell the difference between online success and failure. Don’t let potential profits go up in smoke; make sure you are fully using SEO to your advantage.