14 Cannabis Backlink Strategies For Dominating Search

The stiff competition in today’s cannabis market can’t be defeated by a cannabis website alone. The global cannabis market value is currently $20.5 billion and is projected to reach $90.4 billion by 2026. Now is the perfect time to join the market if you consider it. Yet you must be ready to take on the fierce competition and find ways to make your brand stand out from the crowd. Due to the numerous restrictions associated with cannabis digital marketing, this can be more difficult than it seems.

What can you do to stand out from the competition while maximizing your marketing efficiency, increasing your audiences, and spreading brand awareness? Cannabis backlinks are the most effective way of doing this.

The website should be optimized to ensure that it is accessible online. It can significantly increase traffic to your site and boost conversions.

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Google has repeatedly shown that it is committed to providing relevant search results by fine-tuning its machine learning capabilities. Despite Google’s most recent update covering a wide range of topics, one aspect pertinent to cannabis search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is the emphasis on backlinks.

The search giant uses links to your content to identify and direct traffic to your site whenever another website links to yours. These links are embedded hyperlinks used to connect web pages on the world wide web. Despite the premium placed on backlinks, they are not all the same, at least from Google’s perspective.

To reduce spam, Google is widely devaluing the relevance of affiliate links. For cannabis businesses looking to maintain a competitive edge and gain new customers through search, a solid cannabis backlink strategy is essential. Below are 14 quick strategic steps to generating CBD backlinks as a cannabis business.

Factors to Consider

Before you consider integrating any of these techniques into your overall marketing strategy, here are some essential things to bear in mind:

• Backlinking is a long-term approach. You will need patience if the process yields significant results since it requires consistency over time.
• Ensure that your website is primed for the attention and possible surge in traffic. Apart from the visual and design elements, it’s vital to have the necessary technical aspects of your SEO on point by checking your copy, mobile readiness, and e-commerce readiness. Give your visitors the best possible experience.
• Focus on do-follow backlinks for CBD and cannabis. Like earlier stated, all backlinks are not the same, and no-follow links are of no use to SEO. They may bring in some traffic, but search engines don’t count them. For search optimization purposes, do-follow links are more favorable.

Keeping these pointers in mind, let’s begin with the most important.

Become a High-quality Content Creator

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In the quest to gain high traffic CBD backlinks, it’s easy to lose sight of one essential truth; search engines were invented primarily for the content. Hence, the fundamental means of getting organic traffic is to produce the best possible content for your customer base. No amount of strategies of SEO hacks can replace the need for premium content. But every long-term goal, becoming a producer of premium cannabis or CBD content, takes effort, time, and discipline.

Fortunately, you can use a few simple guidelines to help you get there.

Know Your Audience

Imagine you’re in the shoes of your audience. Looking at things from the perspective of your perfect customer helps you appreciate their motivation, understand their purchase decision, and address their pain points.

Publish Regularly

With the insight gained from understanding your audience, you have to publish content often. This keeps your brand relevant and brings more eyeballs to your website, which increases the chances of another site linking to your content.

Find Your Voice

Some businesses write content to populate their website quickly. You stand a better chance of leaving a lasting impression when you commit to showing your brand’s personality through your content. Let the core values and ideas behind your company come to bear in your content.

Perform Thorough Keyword Research

Content creation, be it visual or text, is both an art and a science. Sure, you have to satisfy your audience, but today’s digital landscape dictates that you also please search engines. Hence, it’s crucial to use marketing tools to select the most relevant CBD SEO keywords.

Understanding the vital role good content plays in search ranking can make content creation a bit stressful. Your best bet is to think like your prospect.

Publish Guest Post at Notable Cannabis Publications

Among all the different approaches to getting backlinks, a guest posting is a classic. It has been tried and tested by countless entrepreneurs, businesses, and organizations online. You can publish blog posts on new sites, online magazines, and popular publications. However, one mistake is prevalent among newbies. This is choosing the wrong website when planning a CBD guest post outreach. Your choice of publishing websites should correspond with your industry.

Therefore, you have to carefully select cannabis publications that have the type of audiences you seek. But bear in mind that nobody will post a plagiarized or poor-written article on their website. So it’s vital to submit high-quality and well-researched guest posts. This can make guest posting a rather time-consuming endeavor. As such, you need to ensure the highest return on your time and resources by carefully choosing the website.

Here are three tips to help educate your choice:

• Websites should have high domain authority, preferably between 30 to 60.
• Have the readership you’re looking for.
• Should be in existence for no less than two years.

Some examples of popular cannabis publications for CBD link building include Cannabis Industry Journal, High Times, Canna Business Now, and CBD Health and Wellness.

Make Appearances on Cannabis Podcasts

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In the current era of owned media and niche audio marketing, becoming a guest on a popular cannabis podcast can be the second-best thing after guest blogging. Most podcasts host their episodes on custom websites where they post show notes and provide links to each guest’s website and social media accounts.

This makes podcasting the perfect avenue for getting valuable linking directing people to your content. But first, it is necessary to figure out which podcasts your prospective customers listen to regularly. Next, you need to pitch the podcast hosts, presenting your brand as an industry leader or yourself as an industry expert.

You want to discuss a subject of high relevance to your host, their audience, and your marketing goals. Usually, this means deciding between deep-dive podcasts, which are long duration and shorter types of podcasts. Your ability to connect these three factors will help determine the success of your guest podcasting content. Some of the top examples of cannabis podcasts to consider include:

• CannaInsider
• The Adam Dunn Show
• The Ganjapreneur
• Blunt Business
• Cannabis Cultivation and Science Podcast

Submit Your Business Details to Cannabis Directories

Directories were primary elements during the early years of SEO. Since then, they’ve significantly reduced in value. However, this doesn’t imply that they are not helpful, provided you can find a reputable one related to your target market.

To begin, go for local directories such as Google My Business, Yellow Pages, Bing Places, Yelp, and Yahoo Local. From there, you can cast a smaller net in search of industry-specific directories that are highly relevant to your niche. Depending on where you look, some of the directions favorable for cannabis and CBD SEO include:

• Weedmaps
• Women Grow
• Leafly
• Boss Ladies of Cannabis
• Daily Marijuana Observer
• Cannaclusive – Inclusive Base
• Ganjapreneur Business Directory

For those interested in digging deeper, you can use the following search queries to find directories within your locality:

• Recreational + cannabis directory
• Medical + cannabis directory
• Cannabis directory + demographic
• Cannabis directory + niche
• Cannabis directory + region

Given the nature of the online search, it is necessary to remain aware of certain red flags. Firstly, there are several directories in the cannabis industry, and some of them charge a premium for their listings. If you decide to pay to get listed in a directory, at least ensure that the site meets the following requirements:

• Should be online for at least two years or more.
• Maintains a public directory that isn’t restricted only to members.
• Should have massive monthly traffic or high-engaged and highly targeted visitors.

Apply The Method of Broken Links

As more entrepreneurs and companies have joined the cannabis bandwagon, some have also left searching for greener pastures. And you can use these cannabis websites that are currently out of function to your advantage. So, whenever you find yourself browsing cannabis-related content online, keep an eye out for outdated or broken external links. Remember, the KEY work here is EXTERNAL links.

Shoot the website owner or content an email and politely alert them to the outdated or broken link within their website. Then suggest replacing it with a relevant page or content from your website (an external link). You make things easier; you can leverage tools such as Dr. Link Checker to go through websites in the marijuana business and any other niche you’re interested in generating backlinks. Even better, you can check your website and work on any such links since minor factors like broken out outdated links can seriously impact your cannabis and CBD organic search ranking.

Regularly Organize And Promote Cannabis Events

The hosting of exciting events is one of the many things the cannabis industry is well-known for. In the past, there have been trade shows, conferences, and meets held to enable stakeholders in the cannabis industry to better network and, as you might have guessed, generate backlinks.

So organizing a cannabis event and publishing it to an online event platform or calendar also means links to your website. This strategy is more effective than most people think because you can post the same event to multiple platforms without worrying about duplicate content. Some excellent examples of event websites to use are:

• Eventbrite
• Ganjapreneur
• MeetUp
• 10 Times Cannabis
• Online Cannabis Events
• Cannabis Business Times
• Canada 420 Cannabis Community

Apart from EventBrite, every single website above offers do-follow links. Now, that’s how to find backlinks for hemp, CBD, and other marijuana-related websites at affordable costs. As you plan and host more events, your community of cannabis users will grow, the cannabis industry will get to recognize your brand, and people will start linking back to your site without your effort.

Become a Speaker at Cannabis Events

But what if you can’t organize a whole event at the moment? Due to the young and still evolving nature of the cannabis industry, finding new, specialized, and experienced experts that are ready and willing to share their expertise in these events is no easy task. So the following best approach is to become a speaker at various cannabis events, and there are several such opportunities, especially online. If you choose to adopt this strategy, one vital fact is in your favor.

Therefore, when you offer to speak at training programs, industry conferences, local cannabis events, co-working spaces, and business centers, you’re positioning yourself as a valuable member thought leader in the cannabis community. Supposing organizers accept your offer, you can expect them to promote their event, your talk, and your website as well. Thus, always ensure that you don’t leave out the links to your website and social media handles in the bio for the organizer to insert into the promotional material.

Produce Cannabis Infographics

Per the reports of HubSpot, visual content such as infographics is shared and linked three times more than other content types on social media. There’s a valid reason behind this fact. Studies involving eye-tracking have demonstrated that internet readers are more attracted by information that has images. So your target audience will pay closer attention to your content if you can include infographics, plain and simple.

These types of content combine text and visuals to deliver compelling information. They are most visually appealing and have effective designs to depict interesting stats concerning a specific topic that viewers can skin through easily. Due to being highly shareable, infographics have the potential to go viral and thus could help bring you a ton of high-quality backlinks that will boost your site’s ranking.

To produce compelling cannabis infographics, you need to focus on three fundamental elements, namely:

• Fantastic design – First things first, infographics usually go viral with visually appealing and sleek designs.
• Thoroughly researched and accurate stats – The statistics and information that appear on your infographics should most essentially be factual and authentic within a given context.
• Outreach and promotion – Provided you execute the previous two perfects, your infographic is still useless if you can promote it to the masses. Hence, you need a solid email outreach and social media promotion strategy in place to ensure your cannabis infographics grab the attention of the right eyeballs.

Create a Cannabis Test, Quiz, or Survey

To supercharge your backlink strategy, you can use interactive content that requires your readers’ active participation. These can either be quizzes, tests, or surveys. These types of content create a much richer user experience for your audience than traditional ones and always promote audience engagement. They are great for catching and retaining audience attention.

Hence, you can use these interactive contents to stand out to your prospects, increase reach, and boost your authority. But to ensure the generation of backlinks with these, you need to create authentic surveys or tests that enrich your audience’s experience. This is also another place where the in-depth knowledge of your target group will come in handy. With the type of survey that captivates the audience, you can facilitate their dissemination, and people will start linking to you without asking.

Some other examples of interactive content to incorporate into your content strategy for more backlinks include:

• Games
• Calculators
• Maps

Backlinks aside, focusing on interactivity in your content can also benefit your SEO and content strategy on different fronts.

Conduct And Publish Your Own Cannabis Research

Reliable and accurate research is a valuable resource for everyone, and most people quote such sources. So getting backlinks can be as easy as publishing one. However, carrying out credible research isn’t the easiest or cheapest of feats. Nevertheless, it’s a tried and tested approach to boosting your credibility in the industry. It’s also an excellent conversation starter that will get many people talking about your brand and the findings revealed in your study.

The insight and information derived from your studies can directly aid your business decision. In addition, the content created with this information will bring in more traffic, social shares, and lots of email subscribers. It’s a win-win situation if you can pull it off. But first, you need to understand how to conduct research, especially in a heavily regulated industry like cannabis. Some popular methods to employ include interviews, focus groups, and surveys. It’s not always necessary to hire a research team.

Create Free But Valuable Resources

Like the benefits of surveys and quizzes, you can also leverage and share free tools that your audience will find valuable. If you need some ideas to get started, here are some great examples of resources that can bring tons of backlinks to your website over time.

• Buy a tool or build one and make it accessible through your website. This may be a cost calculator, product price comparator, or even a free ebook.
• Put together an online course, either with a third-party platform or your in-house team teaches your customers about any cannabis-related topic that they’re excited to learn.
• Don’t focus your downloadable lead magnets solely on online use but exploit them for organic traffic too. Build dedicated landing pages for them and optimize them for search engines.

With these tips, you can rest assured that other websites in the cannabis space will notice the value of your resource and readily link to them.

Post on Different Cannabis Job Platforms

Image by Geralt from Pixabay

Whether you’re recruiting for any roles or not, create company pages on various job boards. Major job platforms such as Indeed, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor have dedicated pages for cannabis-related jobs. Such sites also get massive amounts of traffic every day from other businesses and job seekers, some of which are bound to be prospects. The only catch is, some of these job boards set outgoing links to no-follow by default. Therefore, focusing on niche job boards can help tip the scale in your favor since these smaller job boards provide loads of do-follow backlinks.

Excellent examples of job boards for cannabis businesses include:

• Careers Cannabis
• Ganjapreneur Jobs
• Growers Network

Maintain an up-to-date list of the various boards that have your company profile, and remember to post any new vacancy at your company on these boards. Finally, you promote your job posting to ensure maximum exposure for your website. Consequently, other members of the cannabis industry might notice your job posting and share it with friends or colleagues, extending your backlinks beyond the job websites.

Become a HARO Member

HARO, the shortened form of Help a Reporter Out, is an email newsletter and connects experts and journalists. The newsletter sends three daily emails to subscribers. Each of these emails contains a list of requests for quotes from members of the community that are journalists. HARO features a wide variety of journalists that specialize in different industries.

These journalists are constantly seeking experts from all fields, including hemp, CBD, cannabis legislation, and everything related to the marijuana industry. You fully benefit from this newsletter; you need to first sign up as a member. Then you have to submit a quote each time you see a match between your expertise and a request.

Do Something Remarkable

Lastly, you want your website and business to be what Seth Godin famously called “A purple Cow.” In other words, you want to be a remarkable brand. From your products, websites, blog articles, social media posts, and customer interactions, the best way to get consumers talking about your business is always to present them with something worth their time.

Most of the content that gets published online will go unnoticed due to the current attention deficit disorder. So only the attractive, new, and remarkable will generate the backlinks you want. This might not bring in immediate or direct sales but starting an exciting project may bring your brand more attention and love than you can ever imagine. Besides, it could be in the form of a philanthropic initiative involving your audience or a company-wide community project. Better still, it could be a story coming from your portfolio. Such remarkable projects produce great stories, and great stories are backlink magnets.

Final Words

Generating high-quality backlinks improves your cannabis SEO strategy and the overall marketing strategy of your brand. It has become fundamental for improving search ranking and increasing domain authority online. Hence, you can position your cannabis business as a credible leader in your niche by implementing a well-thought-out backlink strategy which will, in turn, bring in more web traffic. With these fourteen cannabis backlink strategies, you can begin turning the corner for your brand, boost sales, and expand your customer base, whether locally, nationally, or internationally. But remember, these are not meant as miracle touches and won’t do wonders overnight.