SEO is basic marketing strategy to make your Cannabis business more visible on search engines – it is the difference between a Cannabis business that’s on the first page of Google versus the second page, just out of sight for your potential customers.
If you want to increase traffic to your dispensary’s website and overcome advertising restrictions, it’s crucial to establish an SEO game plan and establish your brand with thought leadership.
It is one of the most powerful techniques your business can use to gain more traction online. Let’s look at how you can do this for your local dispensary with 9 easy tips!
1. Build and Establish an authoritative Website
Your website should be at the center of your game plan, with an about page, contacts, blog posts, etc. You want to optimize each page for search engines.
Pay attention to the meta-description – this brief wording plays a big role in how Google ranks your website.
2. Target the right keywords
Be clear on your target audience and your goals. For successful SEO, you need a strategy, just picking random words is not a good approach.
Your instinct may be to go with simple keywords like “dispensary”, but you need to be more specific and cater to your niche. “Dispensary” is a highly competitive keyword for consumers, so it can be difficult for a new or existing business to rank for it.
When considering what keywords to target, you should consider you location, products and unique differences between you and your competition. This can help you find pockets of keywords that will have less competition and will in turn be easier to rank for.
3. Promote and Share high-quality content
To rank higher on Google, it is key to share valuable and helpful content consistently. This means product information, blog posts and video content.
Creating and sharing cannabis education and legal/regulatory information shows Google that your website is a trusted source of value, as long as you routinely share helpful info with your audience. It will also allow you to build credibility, showing customers that you understand how cannabis works and should be used.
3. Establish an internal and external linking Strategy
Internal links are when you reference content within your own website, such as linking a to a product page from a blog post.
External links are when someone else references your website on their website, e.g. an industry publication who does a write-up about your business and they mention one of your products and link to it.
To gain the most exposure, you should try to receive links from high ranking websites to put you at the very top of the search results.
When they link to you, Google sees the connection and makes you appear to be a credible source. This causes you to rate higher in their search results. It will also help introduce your business to new customers.
5. Promote your content on social media
You can have the best posts in the world but if you’re not sharing them on social media, no-one is going to see them.
While social media does not have a direct impact on your SEO, it does have a big influence. For this reason, it is important to make sure that you’re aligned with your SEO and social media marketing strategy.
That means more people are going to your website, increasing your traffic. This will also help people become more familiar with your brand.
6. Optimize your website for featured snippets & Google My Business
Setting up a Google my Business page for your dispensary is the most important thing you can do to improve your Dispensaries rankings in the local search results. It’s important that you you add pictures of your dispensary, your hours of operation as well as getting your customers to leave positive reviews.
You might also want to focus on getting featured snippets. These are the brief lists that search engines can display. These can be very valuable to companies, outranking the top results.
There are a few ways that you can increase the chance of becoming a featured snippet. First, you might want to focus on answering a specific question. Ideally, this should be something that your audience will be searching for. If trying to answer a question, you might want to use a paragraph format. If not, you might be better using a list. To make sure that people click, you should make your answer as useful as possible.
7. Build evergreen content
You might also want to think about creating more evergreen content. This is the type of article that can be read in years, rather than one discussing current events. By doing this, you will be able to make sure that you can keep driving users to this page, without fear of showing outdated information.
In the Cannabis industry, there are multiple evergreen topics that you might want to discuss. For example, you might want to make a post about Cannabis and the effect it has on your mental health. Alternatively, you might want to provide advice about how to take cannabis safely.
8. Be voice-search friendly
More and more people are relying on voice search applications to help them find and connect with businesses. To make sure that you can benefit from this, you need to make sure that your site is set-up properly. For example, you might want to make sure that you are using keywords targeted to your local area. This will help people looking for Dispensaries in your area find you.
You should also think about the kind of content people are searching for. In most cases, they are looking for answers to questions. For this reason, you might want to consider building an FAQ section on your site.
9. Make sure you’re website is mobile-friendly
When designing your site, you should make sure that you are considering the way it will appear on multiple devices. These days, it is common for people to search for information from their phones. For this reason, you should make sure that they will like the way that your site has been designed.
This can also affect the way that you write your content. For example, you should try to use shorter paragraphs. You might also want to use the hamburger buttons, instead of a menu, to make your site easier to navigate.
Conclusion
When building a business website, it’s essential that you learn how to bring traffic to your site. One of the best ways to do this is by learning SEO. This will make it easier for people to find you. So, apply these techniques to your Dispensary site and generate more sales today.