Member Blog: Creating a Cannabis Website Optimization Strategy

By Dmytro Syvak, Business Development Specialist at MjSeo Agency

Generally speaking, there should be only one strategy and its essence lies in a fairly simple principle – to make a good product. If the advantages and strengths of your proposal are clear not only to you, then you are on the right track. New products or services in competitive niches like cannabis may take a little more time and effort to become recognizable and convince users to choose you. But at the same time, in an ideal situation, you will be working with an audience that:

• is aware of a problem or any struggle;
• knows that solutions exist and wants to try them;
• is ready to communicate with solution providers to choose the most suitable option;
• expects not only the benefits but also thinks about the potential profit of such cooperation.

Strategy and Tactics

The main thing when it comes to the cannabis industry is the fact that it has numerous political and legal regulations even though it has a great potential to boost state and national economies. For example, if you are doing out-of-home advertising, you should consider that it is prohibited to place ads near schools. It also means that you can’t use some effective advertising platforms suitable for other niches like radio, vehicle, or television. In that way, it is essential to have a strategy.

Strategy is your overall direction, the goal of your efforts. If you can answer the question “why” you are building links – most likely you have a strategy or at least a strategic vision. Tactics answer the “how” and “what is needed” questions. Why is it important not to confuse tactical action with planning and strategy? Basically – to avoid a mess.

There are about 10 basic link-building tactics, depending on whether your site is niche-oriented or not. These are actions aimed at increasing the qualitative weight of links for a site for the purpose of its advancement in search results, placement of various links of a resource on authoritative platforms. Link building is considered one of the most effective methods of SEO optimization, especially for the cannabis niche. 

Link building is needed by: 

• young brands about which there is little information; 
• companies operating in niches with the high competition; 
• brands that want to improve visibility and are looking for ways to increase traffic.

In that way, it is a perfect strategy for the cannabis niche as it fits all three criteria. Link building is an essential part of promoting a business online and increasing the number of customers. Competent promotion of the site with links on certain sites can bring the web page to the TOP and improve the company’s image. Considering the number of regulations and prohibitions in the cannabis niche, link building is one of the best instruments to let people know about your brand.

Coverage

Also known as outreach, it is one of the main link-building tools. It is based on the spread of information about the project and obtaining backlinks from stakeholders, that is, a lot of communication and work with people.

When selecting potential partners, it is crucial to take into account not only the industry but also the segment, target audience, and the scale of your project. Those with whom you will communicate should not guess why and how you can be mentioned. The higher the relevance of your product to the partner site, the easier and faster the communication about placement will be. The first signal of low relevance is the lack of answers and reactions.

Thus, for cannabis businesses, it is better to place links in interested communities, thematic websites, or news portals.

Existing Links

This includes many tools limited only by your skillset, budget, and imagination. The main feature is that instead of trying to get in touch and create a completely new partnership, the work is carried out with already existing, most often published and indexed links.

Unlike outreach tactics, in this case, the key to success will be accuracy and automation of as many processes as possible – from collecting data to using mailings instead of single messages. Here are some examples of tactical work with existing links:

• Guest blogging is also a good fit if, instead of publishing your own articles, you are building your work around existing popular content.
• Broken links – old content, lost during migration or post updates, and so on. It may work great for niche or competitive content so, it is relevant to use it for cannabis businesses. 
• Own backlinks – as your project develops, some of the backlinks will be lost one way or another. But almost any search analytics service will be able to regularly provide you with a list of domains from which you have lost links. 
• Weak content – you simply find existing publications that can be easily improved and made more attractive without significant costs on your part. This is a great possibility to demonstrate your expertise in the niche.
• Diversification of content. It is essential not only to post articles but also to add videos, presentations, and so on. For example, news or educational content are currently central in the cannabis niche. 

Practice

If you want to learn more about getting organic backlinks, especially in competitive niches, sharing experiences and hands-on material will be most helpful. Conferences and meetups will allow you to receive the most complete and relevant context, info about updates and news, as well as specific information about which tools bring the best results. 

If we talk about building a link mass for a niche project, then you will need to use at least three basic directions: working with communities and social networks, as well as placing guest publications and comments on relevant blogs. The main tip for cannabis businesses here is to educate, don’t sell. Try to engage the readers with the content you create. Useful or entertaining content will be the best choice. If you succeed, people will come to your website in search of more information.

Also, keep in mind that fresh domains with zero authority are more likely to experience the Google sandbox effect. If your organic search traffic isn’t going anywhere despite your best efforts, you will likely need to wait at least a month and reach a certain ratio of backlinks to estimated domain authority. Once the criteria are met, everything should return to normal. 

It is also essential to remember that many social network platforms prohibit cannabis marketing which makes it much more difficult to increase the visibility of the brand. Among them are:

• Facebook
• Google AdWords
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Twitter

However, there are still ways to publish content. For example, Facebook allows creating product pages where you can publish useful or entertaining information without bluntly promoting your product.

As a Result

At the very end, it is necessary to say that link building should not be a difficult process. Is it time-consuming? Yes, especially in competitive niches. But with the right planning and the right strategy, backlink building tasks shouldn’t take you much longer than regular site maintenance.

The mission of MjSeo agency’s cannabis marketing experts is to help our customers become world-famous by means of a well-thought-out SEO strategy, and increase their profits hundreds of times.

MjSeo exclusively focuses on SEO strategies for the cannabis segment. It offers tailored services, including customer needs analysis and SEO. Its customers have seen their traffic surge and their websites have risen to the top of search engine rankings. The company’s personalized promotional tactics help companies thrive in the digital space.

The cannabis SEO experts from the MjSeo agency know how to help your marijuana business increase site traffic and, therefore, the number of customers.

Email: hello@mjseo.agency