As the use of cannabis for medical and recreational purposes spreads across the country, the market is becoming more competitive. From counties to cities to neighborhoods, there are more and more similar competitors everywhere. This makes it hard for both brick-and-mortar marijuana businesses and those that only sell online.
Since it is thought that 80% of customers do research online before buying from a company, one of the most important things for cannabis businesses to do is to increase their online presence. If you are not yet ready to work with an experienced SEO specialist or agency, you can still improve your Google ranking and make it more likely that people will find you on the web by doing the following:
1. Create a google business profile
As soon as you do this, Google will start to index your name, address, and phone number. First and foremost, it’s the only way for your company to appear in the Google Maps results when people in your region search for services that are comparable to what you do. You have the option of creating a profile for your company on Google My Business.
2. Participate in social media
If done in the proper way, being active on social media may help raise your search engine optimization (SEO) rankings, in addition to improving your interaction with potential clients. Your individual marketing approach will determine which social media sites are most beneficial for your company; nevertheless, at a bare minimum, your company ought to have a presence on both Facebook and Google+.
Facebook is a great way to reach out to new people and get people to visit your website. As one of the most popular social media sites, if you use it right, its highly targeted and highly customizable advertising platform will do wonders for the search engine optimization and sales of your marijuana business.
Google+: Even though it is not as popular a choice among the general public, Google+ offers one benefit that the vast majority of other options do not: indexing by Google. Every post that is made on Google+ is indexed for search rankings; thus, optimizing your social posts for targeted keywords is an excellent way to increase the likelihood that people will find you online.
3. Make sure that your website contains both your address and your phone number
You absolutely need to have a website. In addition, if you want it to be competitive, it needs to have a great design and include high-quality information. But at the most basic level, it needs to list your location, city, state, and phone number in text for Google to be able to recommend your marijuana business in response to questions from people in your area.
4. List your business in popular directories
Not only do websites such as Yelp, YellowPages, and Local boost the likelihood that someone will locate your company, but they also provide high-quality connections that go to your website. There are a number of cannabis-related directories, such as Leafly, Weedmaps, and THCBiz, because this is a common need. However, no matter what you do, you must remember to use only reputable directories and begin with only a few of them; otherwise, you run the risk of hurting your SEO rather than helping it.
5. Gather reviews
Once you have listings for your business up on Google and in directories, request reviews from customers. When potential consumers see positive reviews or testimonials, it’s fantastic for business, but it also sends a strong signal to Google that your cannabis business is worthwhile for others.
6. Have a blog
The most important aspect of good SEO is traffic, and writing content for your blog is one of the most effective strategies for keeping users on your website. Make use of it to talk about upcoming events, promotions, new items, or industry news, but always make an effort to write articles on a consistent basis!
7. Apply an on-site SEO strategy
To do this, it is highly recommended that you seek the assistance of an agency and/or a specialist that specializes in SEO for the cannabis industry. However, given that it is one of the most important aspects of constructing SEO, it should most certainly not be ignored!
All of the following should be part of a good SEO strategy:
- Choosing the finest and most competitive keywords for your company is an essential part of the keyword strategy.
- Naming each content page suitably is referred to as title tags.
- The process of developing an organizing framework for material using header tags.
- Due to the fact that Google is unable to index photographs by itself, image alt and title tags are used to provide contextual information about an image.
- Building internal links that help Google understand how different pages relate to one another is an important part of what is known as “content structure.” Content structure refers to the process of organizing content pages in such a way that users can quickly locate what they are searching for.
- Building external links is also an important ranking factor as Google views external links as ‘votes’ of authority in your space. Utilize the help of link builders with experience in the cannabis industry to build cannabis links.
- URLs: naming links correctly so that they are easier to comprehend for search engines like Google.
- 301 Redirects are the forwarding of URLs that are no longer being utilized so that visitors to your website never run into a dead end.
- Quality Web Development In order for Google to give a website a high ranking, the website’s code needs to satisfy a number of requirements.
8. Make use of the Google Analytics tool
If you don’t have a mechanism to monitor how well these techniques are performing, it will be extremely challenging, if not impossible, for you to determine whether or not they are successful. Google Analytics makes it easy to keep track of things like traffic, conversion rates, visitor behavior, and other information about people who visit your cannabis website. There are a large number of alternative analytics trackers available, most of which can be put on your website in a matter of minutes, and some of these trackers are free.
Any cannabis company that wants to increase its search engine optimization absolutely has to have Google Analytics.
In general, increasing your website’s visibility and inbound sales may be most effectively accomplished by optimizing it for improved search engine results. You can only be sure that potential customers will see your website when they search for your product or service if you invest in good SEO. And you do want to be seen.
It is feasible to construct your website to the point where it gets a large amount of traffic and top rankings on Google without the assistance of a strategist; however, this will often take more time to do. If you want to be successful with search engine optimization (SEO), you need expertise, attention to detail, and most importantly, tenacity. Following these steps will get you started in the right direction.
