Hemp and CBD SEO: Things to Do to Succeed
It’s quite uncommon for a medicinal product to gain the attention of a global consumer market within a few years, but against all odds, CBD has managed to be an exception.
The $22 billion industry is projected to grow rapidly for the coming decade, and it presents a good opportunity for new entrants. To stand out from the crowd, you need to have an effective SEO strategy for your online CBD store. This guide is mainly based on “Hemp and CBD SEO: Things to Do to Succeed”.
From top-notch dispensaries to local suppliers, everyone wants to get their foot in the door to reap the benefits of this lucrative business. With such saturation in the market, online retailers have to come up with competitive SEO techniques to attract the target audience.
Despite the growth potential of this field, there are various hurdles in the way for marketers and retailers, as there are serious restrictions imposed by the FDA on the marketing of CBD and hemp products. Due to this, various social media platforms like Google, Facebook, and Bing don’t allow the advertisements of CBD and hemp-related items.
Even with such harsh restrictions regarding the ban on the promotion of marijuana products, there are many ways you can market your products. In this article, we will go through the methods and techniques through which you can organically bring your webpage on the local search results.
THC vs. CBD
Firstly, you should know the difference between CBD and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). Both of these compounds are extracted from the cannabis plant and belong to the family known as cannabinoids. The main difference lies in the way these compounds react with the cannabinoid receptors in the body.
THC has a natural tendency to bind itself to the CB1 receptor in the body, which gives the consumers a feeling of “high”. On the other hand, the psychoactive tendency of CBD is so weak that it doesn’t alter the psychological state of the consumer. This is the reason CBD is gaining popularity in the medical field.
Is CBD Legal?
As more people are becoming aware of the non-psychoactive nature of CBD and how it can provide temporary relief to people suffering from chronic pains, the internet is becoming inundated with blogs and forums regarding cannabidiol.
Only a few years ago, marijuana-based products and extracts were prohibited for recreational usage all across the United States. The recent change in public perception about cannabis extract has opened new doors for the legalization of marijuana in about 33 U.S. states.
In 2018, President Donald Trump passed the AIA Farm Bill that resulted in the removal of hemp from the Controlled Substances Act – which resulted in the massive cultivation of hemp-derived products and extracts. The legal status of cannabinoids differs from one state to another, and it is always better to consult a local attorney to clear out all the misunderstandings regarding the legalities and regulations for CBD in your area.
Tips for a Successful CBD SEO Campaign
If you are planning to sell CBD products online, you must have already purchased a website domain and added payment gateways.
On top of that, you will need a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to attract your target audience. You need to understand that your target customers are searching for CBD and hemp products at this moment. How can you catch their attention and convince them to purchase from your website?
To do that, you need to optimize your content with the Google search engine algorithm. Apart from the technicalities, you need to learn to remain patient and persistent, as it takes time to build up an organic customer base. You can master the art of selling CBD products online by going through the guidelines mentioned below.
Gone are the days when you could rank higher on Google just by stuffing your blogs with popular keywords and duplicating content through keyword variation.
To stay relevant to your website visitors, you need to ensure that your website is displaying properly on mobile and desktop browsers. A thorough audit would inspect for loopholes that are keeping you away from appearing top in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
To get started, you should run an instant Panda and Penguin audit, which is an SEO analysis tool by Google to help developers assess the visual aspects of their websites. This software would help you see whether your website contains enough banners and material to get across the message. Secondly, it would also double-check the authenticity of the links mentioned in your different webpages.
Performing keyword research would help you identify what your target audience is searching for when they put in the keywords hemp or CBD.
There might be several questions that you need to address, like:
- Who is searching for CBD-related terms?
- What are specifically looking for?
- What time of the year are they more likely to order CBD oil or other extracts?
- How are they searching these terms? Are they mostly using mobile devices?
- Why are they purchasing CBD products? Is it because they want to treat a chronic health disorder or for recreational usage?
- Identify Primary and Secondary Keywords
- Build an Affiliate Network
- Use Influencer Marketing
- Optimize Images on Your Website
Not only should you be targeting the most popular keywords but you should also shortlist keywords with low competition. This would help you get a higher ranking when people ask for specific queries on Google or Bing.
You should also give preference to long-tail keywords over short-tail phrases, as the former indicates the serious intent and need of the searcher. Your current customers could be using the search engine or voice search to look for CBD products. You need to be aware of their online behavior so that you can create your content according to their demands and needs.
In a virtual world where keywords and metadata can instantly change the ranking of a webpage, you should never underestimate the importance of secondary keywords.
Firstly, you should know what primary and secondary keywords. A primary is usually the main word that describes your business or a current campaign. For example, for your website, “CBD” would be a primary keyword.
The secondary keyword adds context and detail to the primary keyword. In your case, “CBD oil” and “hemp energy drinks” would be examples of secondary keywords. Adding secondary keywords makes your platform more authoritative, which helps Google give preference to your content.
You need to come up with a considerable amount of semantically related keywords to enhance the SEO aspects of your content. A greater number of queries and questions would make it easier for you to get a higher ranking.
According to an online survey conducted in 2017, internet users reacted with affiliate marketing links more than 5 billion times. This tells about the potential of building affiliate links in the virtual space.
By opening doors of partnerships and collaborations, you can gain acceptance by a larger group of potential customers without you having to lift a finger. All you need to do is to build a network with popular website owners who can vouch for your website and products.
According to an estimate, in the coming year, influencer marketing budgets are going to increase up to 65% for most e-commerce brands.
Diversifying your marketing campaign increases your odds of attracting more customers. Social media celebrities and influencers already have a dedicated social following, which makes it easier for them to gain acceptance from people while promoting a product or service.
By endorsing your content, social media influencers would be able to convince their follower to purchase from your business. This is the reason you should always try to partner with as many influencers as possible.
Many novice website owners these days don’t pay much attention to the optimization of the images uploaded on their online platforms.
You have to align semantically related keywords to the type of images you post on your website. Not only would it give a complete context to the picture but also enhance the overall SEO of any given page like podlyfe.co.nz
Your file name should have the primary and secondary keywords regarding a specific topic. Similarly, you should also add those keywords to the file title attribute, which opens up into a popup when the users place their cursor over the image.
The file size of the images should preferably be small, as that would make the page load quickly. Not everyone has the patience to wait for a large-sized file to fully load, as it can take a considerable amount of time. So, try to avoid uploading images with high resolutions.
Conclusion
For online retailers of hemp and CBD, SEO strategies provide the best alternative to paid advertising.
You need to come up with content that not only gets preference from the Google algorithm but also appeals to the target audience. We hope we were able to teach you basic guidelines regarding the topic “Hemp and CBD SEO: Things to Do to Succeed”.
Throughout your CBD SEO campaign, you would have to stay patient, as it takes time to improve the ranking of your webpage. Just keep on posting content with semantically related keywords for better engagement with the audience.