by Dan Serard
In today’s age, it is no longer enough to just have an ecommerce website. There is so much competition, especially in the cannabis industry, so brands need to ensure their websites are actually being seen by potential customers. In order to do this, it is important to deliver valuable content and optimize your pages for search engines.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is impacted by a number of factors, including dwell time, page speed, mobile responsiveness, index date, and recent date, among others. Blogging is an essential tool to help improve some of these factors on your ecommerce site, which can therefore make search engines such as Google and Bing reward you in their search rankings.
Here is a breakdown of how blogging can help your cannabis site’s SEO:
Blogs Can Improve Dwell Time
When shoppers type questions into search engines, a list of websites will pop up that are likely to provide the answers. By including blogs on your ecommerce website, visitors are more likely to see your site pop up in the search results, and are also likely to stay on your website for longer since they are reading the articles. While scrolling through your products can be a quick process, reading articles will allow visitors to get more in-depth information about their question, and then they can peruse your merchandise after. When a consumer clicks on a result and stays on the website for a while (also known as dwell time), that tells Google that the website or page has value — and leads to a lift in ranking.
Target High-Intent Keywords
While most cannabis businesses want to rank for keywords like “cannabis dispensary,” the reality is that SEO is very competitive. This is where blogs can come in handy to provide higher-intent keywords such as “best cannabis product for anxiety” or “top CBD brand for sleep.” While these searches may have lower traffic compared to “cannabis dispensary,” they are coming from consumers who have specific use-cases, meaning they are more likely to purchase your products and help increase your sales.
Additional Internal & External Linking Opportunities
Both internal and external linking are major tools in the cannabis SEO world. The more that brands blog, the more opportunities they will have to link to important pages of their website. You can also link to other websites and even attract inbound links, also known as backlinks, from other companies on the internet.
Keeping Website Fresh & Current
Sites with outdated content are going to perform poorly on Google because search engines want to deliver relevant information to users. This means that if your website is regularly adding fresh content, Google knows you are active, ultimately keeping you on their radar. Since it is less likely for retailers to update their homepage frequently, blogs are a great tool for adding new content to websites on a regular basis.
Start a Blog for Your Cannabis Business
Blogging is a sure-fire way to increase your search engine ranking and earn more website traffic from your target audience. For cannabis brands who are looking to improve their website performance, this is your sign to invest in blogging.
Dan Serard has been working in the cannabis industry for over four years. Currently, he heads business development and strategic partnerships for Cannabis Creative Group – a top marketing agency in the cannabis industry. He is a member of many cannabis associations such as the Cannabis Marketing Association, Rolling Stone Culture Council, and National Association of Cannabis Businesses.