Starting a cannabis brand requires tons of planning, adherence to ever changing rules and regulations, and a crazy amount of other challenges. One of those challenges is figuring out which keywords customers might use to find your brand. Further complicating the matter, cannabis brands have to think about two separate customers; the end consumers and the retailers that bridge the gap between brands and consumers.

Below you will find the three keywords that cannabis brands should be focusing on, but before we get into that let’s back up a second and start from the beginning. We all know that Google is the most popular website in the world, right? And how do people find things on Google? They enter in search terms, called keywords.

Once a user enters a keyword they are then shown a list of relevant websites based on the search term they entered. The entire goal of SEO is to help determine which keywords a business should be ranking for, and then to implement a strategy that improves their visibility in search results provided for that keyword. This post will cover the first part of that equation (which keywords your brand should be targeting) and our Free Cannabis SEO Evaluation can assist you with the rest!

So without further delay, here are the 3 keywords every cannabis brand should be ranking for:

1. “Your Brand Name”
2. “Your State Your Product”
3. “Wholesale Your Product”

1. “Your Brand Name”

The single most important keyword cannabis brands need to focus on ranking for is their brand name.  Often times in the cannabis industry there are many brands with similar sounding names, and if that is the case with your brand it can definitely present some SEO challenges.  But those challenges also create opportunities. For example, lets pretend you have a cannabis brand called Green Dog Cannabis, and you have a competitor called Greendawg Cannabis. It is imperative that you rank for the term Green Dog Cannabis, otherwise your competitor might steal the attention of people that were looking for your band. It does work two ways though, and once you have secured the 1st position for your brand name it is likely you will steal some attention from competing brands. In fact, many of our clients drive a LOT of traffic to their website because they rank better for their competitor’s brand names than their competitors do.

2. “Your State Your Product”

This is a very important keyword to rank for as a cannabis brand. Many consumers have not yet established go to brands and instead just look for certain products. Due to the current federal regulations on cannabis, cannabis products are mostly available on a state by state basis so many consumers search for things like “pre rolls California” or “best pre-roll California” when looking for products. These kind of terms are more consumer focused as opposed to the next example which is more focused on attracting retailers.

3. “Wholesale Your Product”

While state-based searches are more popular among consumers, as a Cannabis Brand you also have to make sure you are visible to cannabis retailers who might be looking to carry your product. So put yourself into the mind of your retail partners, if they were looking for your product to, what would they search. Our research suggest most would use the search “wholesale your product” or to continue with our pre-roll example, “wholesale pre-rolls”. Try doing a search for your product with the word “wholesale” in front of it. Does your website appear in the results? If not, you are missing out on a stream of steady new retail customers.

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