The global pandemic has hit every business around the world. Companies are now coming up with ways to stay afloat and adapt to the current times. Planning has to be done, and a lot of changes have to be implemented. Fortunately for a cannabis business that’s already online, it won’t be as severe.
In a world where people are asked not to leave their houses, people tend to depend on deliveries for their needs. It is where your cannabis business website comes in. Your website can be an avenue for people to find you and go to you for their regular deliveries. Your goal is, whenever a potential customer searches on Google for your product, it’s your website they see. The question always is: can your target market find your site with ease?
If that’s not the case, here are some SEO tips, so your cannabis business website stays on top:
1. Optimize your website
After creating your cannabis business website, you have to let Google know that you have built or improved your online presence. To do such, you have to submit a sitemap to them. Yes, they can do this automatically; however, this will help them know you a little bit quicker. This way, whenever someone searches for you or a keyword that you have, Google can find you and all your web pages easily. It makes your site crawlable and indexed. However, you have to check your Google Analytics (GA) account from time to time to eliminate issues that may be caused by your change of template. You can check this in the Index Coverage Status report on GA.
Also, there are little things that make a huge difference, like making sure you choose a title that fits your content and adding descriptions so that you can generate clicks.
2. Focus on the Mobile Traffic
Many people today have mobile phones. When they need to check up on a friend, read the news, or order food, they use their mobile phone. Consequentially, for you to reach these people, your cannabis business website should work well on their mobile phones. You have to make sure that your site loads fast over slow to the average internet connection. Your design should be mobile-responsive. Your content should be readable, and all your buttons should be clickable. Check your website on your mobile phone or use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see i7 Important SEO Tips For f you pass these criteria.
3. Content strategy for blogging
Aside from getting traffic because of your products alone, you can attract customers by blogging or posting creative content.
Start by doing keyword research. Know what words customers use in searching for your product or your website. You can also research what keywords people use for searching for your competitors. It will help you know what words you should put in your content and your headlines. However, competition on keywords is high, especially when you are new to the online playing field. SEO experts use low competing keywords that are still right for the brand so that they can get you up there.
After deciding on keywords, it’s time to create content. Create content that is easy to read and informative. You should be able to present interesting content that is sharable and relatable so that you can capture your target market easily. Make sure that your content is unique and not plagiarized. Aside from the fact that it’s illegal, Google can mark you down for posting such content.
4. Build Quality backlinks
To rank high on Google, you need to show that your website’s content is trustworthy and relevant to the user’s query. But how can you make sure that Google sees that? The answer lies in quality backlinks. Your website or brand name needs to be associated with authority sites and other influential websites in your industry. You can achieve that in two ways.
One, make sure to publish engaging and valuable blogs or infographics on your website — and do it consistently. Eventually, magazine sites and other high-authority sites will notice your content and use it as a source for their blogs, thus, linking back to your website. Another way to get quality backlinks is to write guest posts and ask authoritative sites to publish them. But don’t create guest posts for the sole purpose of placing backlinks. Make sure that your blog content is valuable to the publisher and its readers. It raises the chance of your guest posts getting published on their websites right away.
The more quality backlinks you build, the more authoritative and relevant your cannabis business website appears. Google will see that, and it will let your site show up on search results more often, increasing its SEO rankings and your chance of capturing more audiences online.
5. Use the right tools
The success of the website relies on sales conversions. However, if you’ve done everything else already, but nothing seems to be happening, you can refer to these tools and sites to check some issues your websites may have. Google Analytics helps you analyze visitors, keyword activity, and page load speed. You can use SEOReviewTools’s content analysis system to check if your articles are of high quality. On the other hand, you can use ahrefs.com to find backlinks, effective keywords, popular content topics, broken backlinks, and many others.
6. Data-driven approach
SEO requires constant monitoring and tweaks. After all, Google algorithms continuously change to serve users better. So, it’s vital to take a data-driven approach for your cannabis business website’s SEO campaign. Use the right tools like Google Analytics, to monitor your campaign. Set a benchmark and milestone every week. See which keywords or content types work and which don’t. From there, you can improve your content creation and link-building strategy.
Also, make sure to get updated on the latest trends in buying behavior and search engine algorithms. SEO, along with digital marketing, is a dynamic and fast-paced industry. But with the right data monitoring and strategy, your business won’t get left behind.
7. Optimize your images
When we say content, we’re not just talking about topics, headlines, titles, and blogs. Images are content, too. Make sure that you optimize images on your website. Reduce their file size so that they will load quickly. In today’s age of broadband connection and mobile browsing, users won’t wait for several minutes just for a single picture to show up on a website. They will likely click out of your website and go back to the next result on the search engine results page. If your cannabis website is image-heavy, consider using a content delivery network or CDN to make sure the images will load fast no matter how geographically far the user is from your web server.
Also, don’t forget to add an alt tag to each photo on your website. This tag provides an image description or text alternative so that search engines can easily understand the context of the picture and give it as a result of any relevant query.
All of these entails a lot of research and a ton of study. After all, seeing your website on the top page in the search results is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You have to maintain and expand. However, consulting an SEO expert or hiring a team won’t hurt you or your cannabis business. Consider it an investment for an eventual return of dividends.
Saurabh Pandey Founder of Brandveda – Digital Marketing Institute. He started his entrepreneurial journey instead of working in the corporate sector. His niche lies in lead Gen., PPC, Social Media marketing, and is inclined towards All Things Digital.”
