Critical Tips For Creating the Best SEO Strategy for Your Cannabis Business
When you search the local cannabis businesses in your area, does your business appear on the first pages? If you don’t appear among the top search results, then you need to improve the local SEO ranking of your business. An excellent online ranking on various search engines helps promote your brand. The online community have more trust in businesses which are ranked highly by search engines. Additionally, if your business makes it to the first result pages, it substantially increases your chances of being discovered by your target market.
Starting an SEO strategy isn’t easy, and neither is rocket science. If you are running a small or middle-sized cannabis business, you can easily set up an effective SEO strategy without breaking the bank. There are many SEO companies and agencies which offer professional guidance on how one can achieve improved SEO ranking. Besides using SEO experts, search engines like Google provide businesses with various free tools and resources to boost their local SEO ranking.
The following tips are vital in setting up a robust SEO strategy for your cannabis-based business:
Using relevant keywords used by your target market in the search engines
Keywords play an essential role in SEO ranking. The online community use keywords when making any online query, and the search engines use the words to provide the user with relevant search results. Finding and using the correct keywords on your business will make it easy for people to find your business when they make online search queries. You can use a keyword research tool to find your business's most relevant keywords. Keyword search tools like KeywordsFX, will conduct keyword research and provide you with dozens of keywords relevant to your business. The keywords will be ranked based on their relevance. Long tail keywords are the best since they have more than one keyword and are only searched by users with clear internet. After identifying the various keywords, you should integrate the keywords into your website.
Optimizing your Meta Tags
The next step is optimizing the Meta tags in your website. Google use Meta tags to determine the relevance of a business to a search query made by a user. When people search online on any search engine, the search results will display the most relevant and highly ranked Meta tags. Your Meta title tags must be intriguing and relevant enough to encourage the user to click on your business. Your audience should find your Meta titles to be engaging and exciting. It’s best to stick to the 60-character limit, preventing the search engines from truncating your titles. A truncated title could appeal to audiences and leaves everyone guessing what the rest of the title is about. In your Meta description, you should give your audience a small debrief about the content. It helps explain to your audience the relevance of your content to their online search query.
Optimizing your local presence
Recreational and medicinal use of cannabis is legal at the state level in several states but federally illegal. Hence most people are bound to purchase cannabis-based products from their local area, especially when their jurisdiction has legalized cannabis. Capitalizing on local SEO is very instrumental for cannabis businesses. There are key ways you can increase your local SEO optimization online:
Using Google Business Profile listing to claim your business: when people conduct a local search of businesses, your business should appear among the most relevant searches. Your Google Business Profile listing should have all the essential information about your business, from the name, contact details, address, website and even business hours.
Updating your NAP information: if your cannabis business is listed on other online directories, you should ensure the information is consistent and updated. Start by listing your business in all the local directories, and you can use the LocalFX software to update your information in all the local directories automatically.
Optimizing local keywords: optimizing local keywords is more specific and focused on your business profile, not your overall content. Local keywords have locations included in them. They help a business appear when online users make location-based online search queries.
Creating Content for Your Audience
The cannabis sector faces many regulations that dictate the content a business should be posting. While content marketing is crucial to enhancing local SEO, cannabis entrepreneurs need to be very cautious when creating marketing content. Content will establish your brand as an authority in your industry or niche. Customers build more trust and credibility when a brand frequently posts relevant, high-quality content. Since marketing content is highly regulated, as a cannabis business, you can focus more on creating educational content. Educational content has proved to be a more massive marketing strategy for cannabis businesses. Popular content formats you can use for your business include:
Blogs
Infographics
EBooks
Videos
Posts
Publishing content consistently is crucial in keeping your audience engaged with your brand. Setting up a content calendar will help in ensuring you consistently share with your target audience. The content should constantly be updated and backed by relevant evidence-based information from reliable sources.
As you have read in this article it is not as straightforward as other industries. Operating a cannabis business is extremely difficult, and not having the know how can really affect your bottom line. Vende POS is made to help its clients run the business they have always wanted. Providing you with all the necessary tools for your business to succeed is our goal. Schedule a demo with us today and see how running your business on the Vende platform can help.