SEO Best Practices for CBD Companies

So you’re building your CBD brand, and it seems like you have all the pieces in order. You’ve just launched a beautiful new website, created your social media accounts and sent out your first newsletter. And business is coming (hooray!), but you want to expand your reach. One problem: you have no idea where to start.

Maybe you’ve heard the term SEO, and the thought of approaching it overwhelms you. We get it. But we hope to show you that it sounds much, much scarier than it actually is.

First things first: What is SEO and why does it matter?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is basically a way to make your website easier for your ideal audience to find. In an industry like CBD, it’s a key component of any successful digital marketing plan. Why?

First, because it is one of the few digital marketing tools available to you, since Google and Facebook continue to block CBD advertising. Secondly, because the cannabis and CBD industries have exploded in the past couple years, and competition is growing by the minute. This makes it increasingly difficult for any CBD company’s website to stand out—let alone be found—online. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of content that’s out there, but a solid SEO strategy can give your business the chance to be seen.

See also: Best Practices for CBD Ad Approval on Facebook & Google

5 SEO Best Practices to Help Get You Started

1. Find your niche and use it to create quality CBD content.

Newsflash: There are tons of CBD companies out there. What makes yours one in a million? You don’t have to be doing something that’s never been done before, but you should have a brand characteristic that makes you unique. Maybe your company sells a specific type of product, like CBD skincare, or targets a certain audience, like athletes with muscle pain. Maybe your niche is as simple as your commitment to local products and materials. Just like Walmart’s Rollbacks and Outback’s Bloomin’ Onion (a little cliché, but you get the gist) your business needs a “thing” that customers can associate with who you are.

Once you identify your niche, use it to populate your website with relevant, high-quality content. A great way to do this is by starting a blog. If your thing is skincare, for instance, write about CBD products for different skin types, or how CBD oil can help with anti-aging. The goal is to draw people to your site for its great content, and potentially, garner interest in your brand that leads to business.

2. Use meta tags and keywords to your advantage.

Title tags and meta descriptions may sound foreign, but they are vital to your SEO strategy. Familiarize yourself with them. To start, search any term on Google and view the results. In each listing, you’ll see a title (title tag), a URL, and a brief excerpt or blurb about the content (meta description). These are the components you will customize on the back end of your site.

Imagine your ideal customer and put yourself in their shoes. What are they really searching for? Find keywords that are relevant to your niche and incorporate them in your meta tags. Remember, this is how the people interested in your products and services will find your business, so you want to be specific in describing who you are and what you do. Everyone is searching for CBD. But your customer is searching for CBD anti-aging skincare. See the difference?

3. Develop an internal linking strategy.

To improve user experience and give search crawlers more avenues to crawl your website, incorporate internal links—links within your website that lead to other pages within your site—in a natural manner. For example, within each blog post, include links to other blogs on your website with related information; if you’re discussing a new CBD hand cream you offer, link to the product page on your site.

Another great way to improve your SEO ranking is through backlinks, which are links from other high-ranking sources that lead to your website. The more links that lead to your website, the better your chances of generating traffic and ranking higher on search engines. Strengthen your blog by posting quality, original CBD content on a regular basis and sharing it with the public, and influencers, media, and other industry sources may notice your work enough to reference it.

4. Spread the word on social media.

You have great content, meta tags with targeted keywords, internal links… you’re good to go, right? Not quite. If you want to increase your web traffic, as well as generate awareness and interest in your CBD brand, regular, strategic use of social media should be at the forefront of your digital marketing strategy.

See also: How to Build a Digital Marketing Plan for CBD or Cannabis

Share those amazing blog posts you published on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or whatever your channel, and you might find your followers sharing them to their own pages. Through social engagement, you can contribute to CBD education and position your business as an expert in the field. Social media gives you a platform for your content to be seen, allowing you to grow your audience, and maybe even generate those backlinks as a result. All of this can lead, indirectly, to higher rankings on search engines. That’s right—improving your SEO!

5. Hire a CBD marketing agency that knows the industry.

If you’re a digital marketing guru and you’ve got the time to tackle SEO, more power to you. But if you’re starting to wonder how you—yes, you, the person who’s also responsible for running your business—will manage all of this, then you might want to consider hiring a cannabis marketing company like Cannabis Creative Group. They can help you build a CBD digital marketing strategy that targets your ideal customers and boosts your SEO rankings. If you’re struggling with your brand, they can help you identify your business strengths and establish an identity in the CBD industry.

See also: How to Choose the Right Programmatic Ad Agency

Hiring a marketing agency doesn’t mean you lose control—you’re still the leader of your brand. But the right agency can help you find your brand’s voice and, put simply, better your chances of being heard online.