In the not-so-distant past, entrepreneurs may need intense research about the business they want to pursue, but one thing they do not have to worry about is a website. Traditional marketing was the primary method of promoting and branding businesses. However, the emergence and popularity of digital platforms shifted the focus from traditional marketing to digital marketing.
With the rise of the cannabis business in a highly digital age, combined with the need for digital platforms due to the current global situation, more and more industries are panning their sights to digital cannabis marketing techniques.
Even to the uninitiated eye, the most obvious platforms where such marketing practices are held are social media and websites. This is an acceptable view, especially as these two play a vital role in promoting and branding businesses and their offerings. Nevertheless, there are less obvious strategies that make digital marketing an effective and efficient option for cannabis businesses.
Links play a big role in digital marketing. Some people might wonder how links can help cannabis businesses grow. Read on to find out.
The Potentials of Links in Growing a Business
Links, or hyperlinks, are those clickable items in a page that direct users to another page or website. Links are often attached to words or phrases, and images. So, how do links contribute to the success of a cannabis business? The not-so-simple answer to this is link building.
Looking at the name, link building is literally the process of building links. However, it uses different aspects of digital marketing to help grow a business. When done properly, this practice can help cannabis businesses not only increase their sales but also establish themselves in the competitive world that is the cannabis industry.
To understand how it can help, let us first talk about link building. Basically, it is the practice of getting backlinks from other websites. In a way, it involves the process of building relationships with other websites. Remember digital marketing is a strategic practice, so you should be partnering up with a site that can bring positive effects. You want to work with sites that are popular, trust-worthy, and high-performing.
Given that you are only starting to develop your website into an optimized and successful one, you want to make sure that you can bring something beneficial to the table. In other words, link building creates a symbiotic relationship between you and other websites.
What can you expect from an effective and efficient link building campaign? One of the most noticeable effects is an increase in traffic. The ideal partner site should be popular, which means that it receives significant traffic. When their visitors find content containing your links, there is a huge chance that they would click on it, bringing more visits to your own website.
In this way, you are tapping on your partner site’s pool of potential customers. This increases your chances of increasing your conversion rate. Remember, the first step toward booking a sale is to have your potential customer visit your site first. Depending on how conducive your site and its contents are, you are one step closer to getting sales, thus increasing your revenues.
A successful link building campaign can also improve your site’s standing. In digital marketing, a website’s potential for success is influenced by a number of factors and one of these is your authority in the subject matter of your focus. The challenging part is site authority matters not only to your visitors, but also to Google’s algorithm.
How do you convince Google’s algorithm that your site is considered an authority? You need to increase your visits, which can be achieved in different ways including link building. You also need to get more inbound clicks from high-authority websites. In digital marketing, getting backlinks and clicks from a high-authority website is equivalent to having a popular, trusted, and commercially viable personality recommend your offerings.
Lastly, a successful link building campaign can help improve your brand. Your branding surely involves positive messages, ideas, relevant visual elements, and a catchy and relatable tagline. You want to make sure that your partnerships reinforce this message.
The proper implementation of this process involves not only choosing sites that are popular, trusted, and high-performing, but also those whose goals and messaging is in line with your brand. Say, your cannabis business advocates for the responsible use of marijuana. You do not want to associate with a website that promotes the opposite. When you choose the right partner sites, link building can help strengthen your brand.
What Kind of Links are Beneficial?
Now, if you have been in the cannabis business for a while, you probably have had some sort of link building going on. This means that your links are due for an update. Remember that not all links are beneficial. In the example given above, backlinks from a site that promotes the opposite of what you advocate can be harmful.
If you have previously partnered with a site, you want to make sure that your links are still up and that they are not broken. Broken links, also called dead or lost links, refer to inbound ones published by good sites but are dead. This means that when users click on them, they lead to nowhere.
You want to make sure that any inbound clicks to your link will be productive. Remember, consumers tend to have short attention spans, which means that you only have one chance to capture their attention. You are likely to lose their attention if a link supposedly directed to your site leads nowhere.
Link building includes reclamation, which is the process of finding and fixing dead links. It can also involve the practice of replacing old content with new and more relevant ones.
Likewise, link building also covers claiming new links. If you have ever found content on other sites mentioning your company or your brand name but without links back to your site, then you know what we are talking about. Claiming new links is the process of looking for unlined mentions and getting in touch with the site owner to place a backlink.
Tools and Strategies that Make Link Building Work
Interested in utilizing links more to your advantage? You need to know how link building can relate to other digital marketing strategies. Here are some of the most important tools and techniques that can help you step up your game.
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Website and Link Audits
Before you do any digital marketing campaigns, you want to make sure that the very platform and tools that can help you achieve your goals are in good condition to enable your success. This is why you want to have your site and links audited. In the auditing process, experts will look for points of improvement in your website including your site map, backlinks, pages, and other elements of your site.
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Cannabis SEO
After finding out how your site can be improved, you can start planning for search engine optimization (SEO). Remember what we mentioned about the importance of domain authority and why it is important to Google? SEO plays a huge role in that. Google takes a look at different factors to rank websites so that when users search the Internet using queries related to your business, your site and pages will appear in the search results.
SEO is the process of using keywords, links, and other elements to make your site rank better on search engines such as Google.
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Online Reputation Management
As mentioned above, link building can help strengthen your brand. In connection with this, being associated with sites with good reputations can improve your reputation. Combined with SEO, you can put your best foot forward in search engines and make sure that good reviews, as well as fairly earned ones are seen by potential customers as opposed for unreasonably low reviews.
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Networking Sites
Posting links to your posts on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can have some form of benefits. However, you can greatly increase your cannabis business’ authority when it is posted on cannabis business social network platforms offering directories of reputable businesses. These sites can also be a great way to conduct business-to-business marketing, especially as there are cannabis-focused social networking sites for B2B transactions.
- CBD Marketing
You might also want to tap into the CBD market, if you are not already. CBD is one of the hottest products right now, especially with the federal laws technically allowing products within the legal threshold. Tapping into this pool of customers may not only be beneficial for your digital marketing campaign, but also your overall business.
The Bottom Line
Links can offer a whole lot of benefits for any marijuana business. If you want to do link building and a digital marketing campaign, you can seek help from a cannabis marketing agency specializing in marijuana SEO, reputation management, and B2B promotions. This way, you can have the help of experts in digital marketing with a focus on the marijuana industry.