SEO For Ancillary Businesses
Dominate the market by improving rankings for important keywords businesses use to search for products and services like yours.
Can your customers find you?
Do a quick google search for 'cannabis your product' or 'cannabis your service' replacing 'your service' or 'your product' with the name of your product, or service. If your website does not come up in the first three results than you are missing out on valuable traffic and potential customers. For example if you are a lawyer specializing in the cannabis industry, you would search for 'Cannabis Lawyer' or if you are a manufacturer of grow lights you would search for 'grow lights' or 'cannabis grow lights'.
What do you see when you perform a search that a customer would?
When you perform a search that one of your customers might use, does your business show up? If, instead of finding your business, all you can find are you competitors then you need SEO!
So what is SEO, and how can it help ancillary businesses in the cannabis industry?
SEO, short for search engine optimization, is not nearly as scary as it sounds. Simply put it is the process of making changes to your website and online presence to rank higher in search engines, primarily Google. SEO works by signalling to Google and other search engines that your website is the most relevant answer to a users query. When done correctly it results in top rankings for relevant keywords which drives tons of laser targeted traffic directly to your website.
How an effective SEO strategy can elevate your business.
One of the major growing pains in the cannabis industry is the limited opportunity to market businesses through paid search (i.e. Google Ads) or paid social (i.e. Facebook), and it can be especially confusing for ancillary businesses. As a result, cannabis businesses, whether plant touching or not, need to be able to be found on search engines. Here are some of the ancillary businesses that can benefit from Cannabis SEO:
- Cannabis Packaging Companies
- Vape/CBD Shops
- CBD Retailers
- Cannabis Grow Suppliers
- Cannabis Software Providers
- Any business that services the cannabis/CBD industry
The Four Steps To SEO Success
While most SEO agencies guard their process like it's some kind of a secret we believe in working together with our clients to produce amazing results.
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1
Research and Competitor Analysis
We do extensive research to determine what 2-3 most important keywords potential customers might use to find your business. Once we determine the right focus keywords, we evaluate which competitors are currently ranking for those keywords and what we need to do to help you beat them.
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2
On-Site Improvements
Once we have determined the focus keywords we go to work on the first step, optimizing everything on your website to include those keywords in a natural and user-friendly way to signal to search engines that your site is is closely related to the user's search query.
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3
Off-Site Improvements
When it comes to improving rankings for ancillary businesses, each project requires a unique strategy. A cannabis lawyer may wish to focus on acquiring customers in their immediate location, whereas a grow supplier would most likely want to rank nationwide. Most ancillary businesses require a combination of local off-site signals like citations and off-site signals like guest posts and blogs that help to rank for non-localized search terms.
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4
Monitoring and Reporting
We create a custom dashboard that shows you the keywords we are targeting and how their website is showing up for those keywords. We also provide monthly reporting that shows ranking improvements and the amount of traffic and leads generated by our efforts. As we continue to monitor the results we may discover that other keywords start to improve as well and we may propose adding a few more focus keywords every once in a while.
Learn more about SEO.
At LIT Consulting we specialize in one thing and one thing only; helping ancillary businesses in the cannabis industry succeed by creating and implementing effective SEO Strategies.
Get Your Free SEO Evaluation Here!Ancillary Business SEO Plans
We believe in fair, upfront pricing, and offer 3 plans to meet the needs of anciallry businesses of all sizes.
Frequently Asked Questions About Dispensary SEO
Answers to the questions we hear the most!
What is SEO?
SEO is, put simply, the process of Optimizing a website to rank higher in search engines. There are currently over 200 known factors that affect which pages google decides to show in it’s results. The most important factors are having quality content that contains the keywords you want to rank for and having multiple off-site signals such as links and citations. Our unique service specializes in helping ancillary businesses in the cannabis industry achieve both of those goals in addition to optimizing for the remaining factors!
How do I know if I need SEO?
When you perform a search that one of your customers might use, does your business show up? If, instead of finding your business, all you can find are you competitors then you need SEO!
In fact, unless you are the first result on the first page of results for every keyword a customer might use, then you could still benefit from SEO!
Why does SEO have such negative connotations?
In our experience because SEO is somewhat hard to explain to the average business owner it leaves the door open for scammers to make big promises, take their money, and never deliver.
We try to be transparent at all times and set reasonable expectations. For example we do not promise 1st page rankings, as there are way too many factors to offer a guarantee like that.
A lot of SEO companies and agencies churn through their customers, and spend most of their time selling instead of providing results. We strive to create long lasting partnerships by only taking on a select few clients so we dedicate the proper amount of resources to your project.
Why is SEO so important for ancillary businesses?
SEO is crucial for ancillary businesses in the cannabis industry for a few main reasons.
- Google is still the biggest driver of traffic to local businesses. In fact over 90% of purchases are believed to be at least partially attributed to a google search.
- While many other marketing channels have restrictions on cannabis business, search engines do not.
- SEO, unlike Paid Advertising or Influencer Marketing, keeps on providing more and more traffic over time. While paid ads and influencer marketing stop producing ROI the second you stop running them SEO often produces results for months and years.
How will I know if SEO is working for me?
This is a question we get asked all the time, and for good reason; who wants to pay for something unless they can tell it is working for them.
Some of the first things we do for clients is to get them set up on google analytics, install phone call tracking, and set up a rank tracking dashboard that allows clients to get real time view of their most important search engine rankings.
Once those tools are set up, we are able to prove the value we are bringing to your business by showing an increase in organic search traffic, phone calls, and store visits.
How long does it take to produce results with SEO?
Due to the volatile nature of search engine algorithms, it is hard to say exactly when rankings will begin to improve. Our SEO packages are carefully designed to produce results within 90 days, however oftentimes we see gradual improvements long before 90 days.
We can tell you that SEO is not a miracle cure for a bad business model, or a tool you should use if you are seeking overnight results. It is a long term process, and those that see it through will reap the benefits as they outrank their competitors who didn’t have the patience.
Questions?
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About Us
We specialize in helping cannabis business establish and maintain SEO strategies that produce amazing results, and have a plan that can meet the goals of any cannabis business big or small.