So you have or are building a CBD brand, and it seems like you have all the pieces in order. If you’re like most CBD brands, you want to ensure that your products and website are visible to as many potential customers as possible.
After all, the more people who know about your brand, the more likely you are to get sales, and one of the best ways to increase your online visibility is to invest in SEO. SEO for CBD businesses is essential for driving traffic to your website and increasing online visibility.
Optimizing Your CBD eCommerce Website for SEO
You probably heard about SEO and how it does wonders, but never heard about how to actually improve it. For many eCommerce professionals, the abundance of technical information that results from searching “How to improve SEO?” is overwhelming.
Fortunately, the team at Optimum7 is seasoned in the field of search engine optimization. In this article, we empower CBD business owners to take action immediately.
In fact, you can learn how to dominate your competition by promoting and marketing your product in another resource entitled “How to Market CBD and Hemp Products.” However, while you’re here, let’s start at the beginning:
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business on Google, Bing, and other engines.
High Search Engine Rankings, mean more traffic from those searches. This means higher conversion rates because potential customers are finding what they need right away.
Importance of SEO for CBD Brands
SEO is vital for a CBD Business since it is your safest and highest ROI option. Sure, paid advertising and social media placement can increase visits to your CBD website but search engines are the source of a majority of online traffic.
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t allow you to advertise CBD on Google Ads. However, SEO is an excellent approach to getting steady organic traffic to your website, and it’s also one of the only methods that will pay off long-term without needing additional investment.
Here is an example to clarify a little more.
If your SEO strategy is successful, it can bring organic visitors to your CBD website for years, resulting in a constant flow of revenue and greater brand awareness.
Get some help from an SEO Agency (like us!), and an article that costs $200 could yield a $3,000+ return on investment (and in some cases, much more). People are searching precise CBD keywords, and you can supply them with the exact information they’re looking for.
Also, SEO traffic is also extremely targeted. So, knowing who and what you are targeting, and from the start, will help you see results faster.
How does SEO work?
Search engines like Google and Bing employ crawlers to crawl the web, visiting one site after another, and gathering information on those sites before indexing them. Consider this index like a vast library from which a librarian knows the location of every single book and gives you the book you are searching for in no time.
Just like that, Google indexes web pages so that it knows where a page is when it needs to be fetched upon request. Using hundreds of ranking factors and signals, algorithms examine the content of these sites in the index to decide the order in which they should show in search results for a given query.
You can’t just pay the search engines to get higher organic rankings, so that means you have an opportunity for showing your CBD products without paying a fortune to Paid Ads. All you need is a good CBD SEO Strategy to kick it off.
10 SEO Best Practices for CBD eCommerce Stores
Now, as we have a clearer picture of what SEO is and isn’t, let’s go over what do we do to improve the visibility of our CBD Business.
1. Content is King, Unique Content is God
In order to get the most out of your CBD SEO efforts, you need content. It doesn’t matter if they’re blog posts or landing pages; all that really matters for search engine rankings is high-quality, factual, and unique content created by experts.
Generic and fluff information almost never ranks on Google.
You can be an authority in your field by creating content that people trust and read. This helps build authority, and a higher authority score means that it’s easier for your site to rank for the targeted keyword.
Google should recognize you as a CBD Company with valuable content.
Keep your CBD website focused on the topic of Cannabidiol, and don’t branch out too much.
If you start branching out too much, then Google will have a harder time figuring out the exact subject (keywords) on which you’re meant to be an authority figure.
2. Search Intent is Important for Higher Rankings
What Google values most is that users are able to access and obtain information that is relevant and accurate to their search intent. The content on your CBD website should satisfy the search intent of those who are searching for it.
Is the content meant to be Informational, Transactional, or Commercial?
If you’re targeting the keywords “CBD oil and pain,” it’s important to understand the search intent of the user. In this case, they likely want to read about how CBD may help with pain relief — this is informational search intent.
To satisfy this searcher, your content needs to be informative about the benefits of CBD for Pain relief and provide more value than the current top-ranking competition. You can do this by optimizing your content for SEO and mentioning “CBD pain” keywords in your content.
However, remember to keep it informative, factual, and readable. This will help you rank higher in search results and reach more people searching for this keyword and eventually bring you more organic traffic.
3. Website Speed Should be Fast
Google updates its algorithm regularly, and website speed is now one of the most important elements of a website. Website speed has always been a factor in the Google algorithm, but it’s become increasingly important as mobile usage has surged.
A faster website means a better customer experience.
It takes 3.4 seconds for the user to decide if he/she trusts your website. If your website fails to load fast enough, it will get skipped.
In fact, research shows that 40% of people will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.
Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do to improve your website’s speed. Some standard courses of action include:
- Deleting unnecessary plugins on your platform (such as WordPress);
- Optimizing images for file size and type;
- Minimizing code as much as possible.
You should also utilize Google PageSpeed Insights to get a detailed report on how your pages are currently performing. By taking these steps, you can help to ensure that your website loads quickly and ranks highly in search results.
4. Target Less-Competitive Related Keywords
If you’ve started a new website and are hoping to rank for competitive keywords such as “CBD Gummies,” you’ll likely be disappointed.
It’s simply not possible for a new website to rank for such highly competitive keywords.
The reason is that search engine optimization (SEO) is a long-term game. It takes months, or even years, to build up the authority and trust required to rank for competitive keywords.
So if you’re just starting out, your best bet is to focus on creating your keyword universe around less competitive keywords, such as those that are related to the actual high-competitive keyword you want to rank for. These may not have the same search volume as more competitive keywords, but they’ll be much easier to rank for.
As your website grows and develops over time, you can gradually start targeting more competitive keywords.
For example, we can see the competition around the keyword “CBD Gummies.” Ranking for this is impossible for low authority websites, and essentially so for high authority ones — it’ll cost a fortune.
You need a lot of good backlinks, perfect content, etc.
On the other hand, ranking for the keyword “CBD gummy worms” is a lot easier. With a few good backlinks and some well-structured, SEO-optimized, informative content, you can carve out a niche of your own.
5. Conduct Technical SEO Audit
A regular technical SEO audit of your website is vital for ensuring its performance and to maintain a steady flow of visitors. Website optimization is a complex and ongoing process, so you must do SEO Audits periodically to make sure your website doesn’t face any issues along the way.
By conducting a technical SEO audit, you can identify and fix any potential issues that could be holding your site back from ranking high in the search engines. If you wish to improve your SEO for CBD, this step is essential for ensuring that you are heading in the right direction.
SEO is constantly changing, and what worked last year might not work this year. A good technical SEO audit will help you keep your site up-to-date and performing at its best.
Identifying the errors in your site’s backend and the front end can help you fix them on time, and keep up the performance.
Broken links are one of many reasons that websites break down. Duplicated content is another common problem, which occurs when two or more versions of a page exist under the same domain.
Slow website speeds tend to occur due to heavy traffic loads like videos being shared across the website at once – all while still loading pages quickly enough so users don’t get frustrated.
You can use a variety of free and paid technical SEO audit tools to find and fix technical issues on your website.
6. Create an Internal Linking Strategy
If you want your CBD website to rank higher on search engine results pages, you must add internal links to your content.
Internal links are links from one page on your eCommerce site to another page on your website. For example, if you’re writing a blog post about a new CBD capsule you offer, you would include a link to the product page on your site.
This tells search engine crawlers that your website has relevant and up-to-date content. It also improves the user experience by providing readers with more information about the topics they’re interested in.
When used in a natural and relevant way, internal links can be an effective SEO tool for CBD websites. Anyone who’s ever done any research on SEO for CBD knows that backlinks are an important ranking factor.
The more backlinks you have, the better your chances of ranking high on search engines.
What are backlinks, and how do you go about getting them?
Backlinks are basically links from other websites that lead to your website. These backlinks will help the “authority juice” flow to your website, so the more backlinks you have, the better your SEO ranking will be as your authority score increases.
There are a few ways to get backlinks. One of those ways is to reach out to website owners and ask them to place a link to their website that leads back to your website.
Post quality content, add relevant internal links, then get some backlinks to it from other websites that have as much authority as possible.
7. Meta Tags Should be Optimized According to Your Page Content
When it comes to optimizing your website for search engines, meta tags are an important piece of the puzzle.
Meta tags are snippets of text that provide information about the content of your page.
They help search engines understand what your page is about so they can determine whether or not to include it in the search results.
There are a number of different meta tags, but the two most important ones for SEO purposes are the title tag and the meta description.
The title tag is the text that appears in the search results, and the meta description is the brief snippet of text that appears beneath the title.
Both of these tags should be filled with relevant, keyword-rich content that accurately describes your page. In addition to helping you rank in search results, well-optimized meta titles and meta-descriptions will make users want to consume your content.
Meta-Titles
When it comes to optimizing your website for CBD SEO, one of the first places to start is with your title tags. Your title tag is the first thing that people will see when they look at the search results, so you want to make sure it’s compelling and engaging.
Additionally, you’ll want to stay within the 60-character limit so that your title doesn’t get cut off. Cut-off title tags can look bad, unprofessional, and unappealing, which can deter people from clicking on your listing.
Meta-Description
If you’re hoping to rank higher in search results, one of the first steps you should take is optimizing your meta description. Your meta description is a summary of your page that appears beneath the title tag in search results.
While it doesn’t directly impact your rankings, it does impact whether people click on your listings. A well-crafted meta description can help users determine if your listing is relevant to what they’re hoping to find, and ultimately convince them to click through to your page.
To craft a meta description that will help you rank higher, make sure you stay within the 155-character limit and integrate your keyword into your description. By following these simple tips, you can boost your traffic and improve your SEO.
8. Look what your competitors are doing that works
Understanding your competition is essential for any business, but it can be especially helpful in the world of SEO.
By studying your competitors’ SEO strategies, you can do the same thing for your website. This information can be incredibly valuable as you develop your own SEO strategy.
There are a number of ways to research your competition’s SEO history. You can use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to see what your competitors are doing to improve their SEO strategy.
9. You Must be Visible on Local Results with Local SEO
When people are looking for CBD products, they’re often searching for them locally. That’s why it’s important to make sure that your business is visible on local search results.
The process of optimizing your website for local search results is known as local SEO. This involves adding your business to local directories and creating local pages.
When you do SEO for CBD, you don’t want to forget about building your local presence.
The CBD industry is booming and many people are looking for local businesses to buy their products.
If you’re not optimizing your website for local searches, you’re missing out on a lot of valuable traffic for your business.
Claim your Google My Business listing ASAP
If you want to optimize your local SEO, one of the first things you should do is claim your Google My Business listing. This local listing appears in local search results, and it can be a great way to help improve your visibility.
When you claim your listing, you’ll want to make sure that your name, address, and phone number are all correct. You can also add important information like your hours of operation, a link to your website, and photos of your business.
All of this can help improve your local SEO and make it easier for people to find and learn about your business. If you want to do cannabis SEO right, having a Google My Business listing can help you drive local traffic for your company.
10. Hire a CBD SEO Agency that Knows the Industry
If you’re a digital marketing guru, then you know how important SEO is. If you’re starting to wonder how you’ll manage all of this, then you should consider hiring a cannabis marketing company.
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.
Plus, they can also help with local SEO, which is essential if you want to be visible to customers in your area.
Start Developing Your SEO for CBD Strategy Today
However, CBD SEO is not much different than “normal” SEO. The difference is that CBD is a competitive industry, and it’s also related to health, which requires some extra measures to gain Google’s trust.
That being said, local SEO is still the foundation of good CBD SEO. This means claiming and optimizing your Google My Business listing, as well as making sure your NAP (name, address, phone number) is consistent across the web.
In addition, you need to create quality content that’s relevant to your target audience and optimized for the right keywords.
Anyone who wants their CBD business to be visible online needs to invest in SEO.
Building a successful CBD marketing campaign takes time and effort. If you don’t have the luxury of dedicating your resources, Optimum7 can help you craft an effective SEO plan for your CBD Store that will bring customers to your website! Contact us today and let’s get this started!
