Tactics to acquire backlinks that were viable just 5 years ago are now obsolete (like paying for low-quality links and automating mass outreach emails). 

Why is that?

There are many reasons, including Google Algorithm Updates, emerging search trends (like the use of AI), and the fact that some tactics simply lose their effectiveness after a while. 

For example, generic outreach email templates used to work fine for acquiring backlinks – but now site owners have grown tired of seeing them overflow their inboxes. 

That’s why SEOs need to periodically rethink their backlink strategies. 

If your tried-and-true tactics are no longer yielding results, it’s time to try something new. 

New link-building techniques are always popping up, so you shouldn’t have to look too far to find some new tactics to test out. 

To make things easier for you, we’ve compiled 6 up-to-date link-building tactics that have yielded amazing results for our clients. 

Read on to discover the best ways to get backlinks in 2024 and beyond.

Do Backlinks Still Matter for SEO?

Since SEO changes so often, is it still worth pursuing backlinks for your SEO strategy?

The answer is yes, especially if you’re optimizing your website for Google Search. 

Backlinks are still among Google’s strongest ranking signals, and they’re essential for achieving top rankings (positions 10 and above). 

As proof, research by Ahrefs shows that the #1-ranking page on Google’s search results gets an additional 5% – 14.5% dofollow backlinks from websites each month. 

In fact, whether a website can outrank a competitor usually depends on the strength of its backlink profile. 

That’s because, on search engines, a backlink is more than just a link. 

It’s effectively the site owner saying, “This is a source that I trust, go and read it!” As a result, backlinks act as endorsements of your brand. 

So, if you’ve hit a snag and can’t seem to climb higher than your current rank, your competitors likely have more backlinks coming from high-authority websites. 

The good news?

There’s no reason why you can’t pursue backlinks from the same sources to help even the odds. 

With the right tactics, you can acquire your competitor’s backlinks (or similar ones) and surpass them on the SERPs. 

However, if your SEO campaign focuses on Bing instead of Google, backlinks won’t matter as much. That’s because Bing uses different ranking factors, and backlinks aren’t very high on the list. 

Check out our Bing SEO guide to discover how to optimize your website for it instead of Google. 

What Makes a Backlink High-Quality?

The quality of a backlink matters, but what makes a backlink high or low-quality?

In terms of backlink quality, the #1 deciding factor is the source. In other words, a backlink must come from a relevant, trusted domain to be considered ‘high-quality.’ 

Remember how we said that backlinks act as endorsements of your content?

Well, you wouldn’t want your endorsements to come from untrusted spam sites with terrible reputations, would you?

It’s important to note that in the past, it was entirely possible to boost your search rankings with backlinks coming from spam sites. However, Google has become incredibly adept at identifying spammy backlinks, so you should only stick to links coming from trusted domains. 

Here are the characteristics of a high-quality backlink:

1. Authoritative: When a link is authoritative, it means the linking website has a strong reputation itself. It will have a solid backlink profile, high traffic, and good search rankings. Links from established industry leaders or educational (.edu) and government (.gov) websites carry extra weight since they come from such trusted sources.
2. Relevant: The page linking to you MUST cover a similar topic or niche to positively impact your search rankings. For example, a tech company won’t get much SEO juice from a backlink on a golfing blog.
3. Unique: If a website links to you but not your competitors, it’s a valuable backlink. It shows that you’re offering something distinct and worthy of recognition.
4. Natural: For a backlink to appear natural to Google, the link must appear organically within the content and shouldn’t be overly promotional. The anchor text (the clickable words) must be relevant and not spammy. 

Some SEOs falsely assume that they should build hundreds (or even thousands) of high-quality backlinks to safeguard their search rankings. 

However, this isn’t necessary. 

Even if you only build 20 – 30 backlinks, as long as they contain the characteristics listed above, they can significantly boost your search rankings. 

Building backlinks is an art form, and focusing on quality more than quantity is the key to success. 

6 Effective Ways to Get Backlinks for Your Website 

If you want to find lasting success with a link-building campaign, using the latest and greatest tactics is paramount. 

Here’s an in-depth look at 6 modern ways to get backlinks that will provide the best results for your SEO campaign. 

#1: Link insertions 

This technique involves contacting site owners to ask them to include one of your links in an existing piece of content. 

All you have to do is write some optimized anchor text for the link, and you’re done. 

The catch?

You will have to find a way to add value to the original post, as adding one of your links to an old post doesn’t do much for the website owner. 

To sweeten the pot, you can add new insights/images/infographics to the post to make it fresh and rankable again. 

Our favorite method is to find one of our client’s products, services, or free tools and find web pages where it makes perfect sense to link to them. 

Here’s a real-world example. 

When building links for a landscaping company, we focused on sites where mentioning their mulch delivery service made sense and added value to their readers just by inserting one of our client’s backlinks. 

Here’s what it looks like in action:

As you can see, the link makes perfect sense in the context of the post and provides a valuable resource for readers – a true win-win! 

Also, since link insertions don’t involve any content creation (unlike guest posts), they’re a lot faster to acquire. Not only that, but you won’t have to wait long for the backlink to start affecting your SEO, as you’re inserting it into a piece of content that’s already in Google’s index. 

#2: Using Connectively (Help-a-Reporter-Out Requests)

Another effective way to acquire backlinks is to become a resource for bloggers, reporters, and journalists on Connectively (formerly called HARO). 

Here’s how it works: 

1. Sign up as a source: Create a free account on Connectively and select whether you’re a journalist or a subject matter expert (choose subject matter expert).

2. Select relevant queries: Search for keywords related to your industry or niche. Browse through the queries and identify those that align with your knowledge and experience.

3. Pitch your expertise: If a query aligns with your knowledge, you can submit a well-crafted pitch highlighting your expertise and offering valuable insights on the topic. Be sure to request a backlink to your website if your pitch is used. 

4. Get published and earn backlinks: If your pitch is selected, the journalist will typically include your information in their article and include a backlink to your website.

Here are some tips for finding success on Connectively:

Be thorough! Only respond to queries that you’re truly knowledgeable about. Your pitches should offer unique insights and demonstrate your expertise.

Be quick! Respond to queries within 30 minutes of receiving them.

Be resourceful! Before pitching, check the media outlet’s domain authority (you can use our free domain authority checker) to ensure a backlink from them is worthwhile for your SEO efforts.

#3: Guest blogging 

Some classic ways to get backlinks never go out of style, and guest blogging is definitely one of them. 

Writing high-quality guest blogs on trusted sites in your niche is still one of the most reliable ways to acquire desirable backlinks. 

In addition to landing backlinks, guest posts are excellent for raising brand awareness and introducing your content to a new audience. 

They’re a bit trickier and more time-consuming than link insertions, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth it. 

Securing guest posts 

Guest posting is a powerful tool for building backlinks, but it requires a strategic approach to achieve impressive results. 

Here’s what it takes to identify and secure high-quality guest posts:

Identify target websites

Look for blogs and websites that cater to your target audience and cover topics related to your niche. To find these websites, head to Google Search and type in the following formula:

niche keyword +”guest posts”

Here’s what happens when we use this formula for the gardening niche:

Once you have found a relevant website, check its domain authority and see if the website has specific guidelines for guest contributors. This will help you tailor your pitch and content accordingly.

Craft your pitch 

Website owners and editors are constantly flooded with guest post requests. To stand out, your pitch needs a personal touch that shows you’ve done your homework.

First, address the editor or website owner by name. Then, mention a recent article or blog post you enjoyed, or a specific topic they cover that aligns with your expertise. 

You must also clearly explain why your proposed topic is relevant to their specific audience. 

What unique insights, data, or expertise can you offer that their readers won’t find elsewhere?

You’ll also get bonus points if you can provide links to your previous work or published articles to demonstrate your writing style and expertise.

Develop high-quality content

If the website owner finds your pitch compelling, it’s time to create engaging content that offers a fresh perspective.

 Your copy should: 

• Follow guidelines: Adhere to the website’s preferred submission format, including its word count, image specifications, and citation style.
• Be well-structured: Use clear headings, subheadings, and bullet points to make your content easy to read and digest.
• Be optimized for SEO: Include relevant keywords naturally throughout your content, but avoid keyword stuffing (which is using the keyword even when it doesn’t make sense).
• Include visuals: Include images, infographics, or videos to enhance your content and make it more shareable.

Promote your guest post 

Once your guest post is published, share it across your social media channels, email list, and other relevant platforms.

Make sure you engage with readers by responding to comments and questions on your guest post to foster discussion and build relationships with new readers.

#4: Create ultimate guides and infographics 

If you create outstanding content that provides value to your niche, then you’ll be able to acquire backlinks without even trying. 

That’s because content like ultimate guides and infographics (especially ones containing relevant statistics) generates the most backlinks online. 

So, if you can write an ultimate guide for a topic your target audience wants to learn about, the backlinks will start raking in. 

How do you find suitable topics to write about, though?

After all, the only way that ultimate guides and infographics are effective is if they’re relevant to your target audience’s current interests and needs. 

Enter keyword research and trending topics, both of which will help you get your finger on the pulse of your target audience. 

Our free keyword planner will let you know which keywords related to your industry are generating the most search volume (and how difficult they are to rank for):

Google Trends is an excellent tool for discovering what’s trending in your industry. 

Simply enter a keyword related to your niche, and pay attention to the Interest Over Time graph. If it’s pointing up, users are gaining interest in the topic. 

If it’s on the way down, that means interest in the topic is beginning to wane. 

Google Trends also provides a geographic view, which is helpful for identifying locations where your topics are popular:

This comes in handy if you’re trying to appeal to a local audience. 

#5: Build free tools 

Free tools are backlink magnets, and we can attest to this first-hand. 

That’s because our website contains a suite of free SEO tools, and they generate most of our high-quality backlinks. 

As proof, whenever we look at our top pages report in Ahrefs (which lets us know which of our web pages are performing the best/generating the most backlinks), our free tools dominate the list:

As you can see, virtually every URL on this list is one of our free SEO tools, and they all drive massive traffic for us. 

The concept is simple: free tools attract shares due to the helpful tasks they perform. 

Which types of tools should you create?

It depends entirely on your target audience. 

For instance, if you provide accounting software, then you’ll want to develop free accounting tools. As far as writing the code for the tool, you’ll likely need to enlist the help of a freelance developer (unless you’re savvy with programming). 

#6: Fix broken links

Broken link building is an SEO strategy where you find broken (dead) links on other websites and offer the site owner a replacement link to a relevant page on your website.

It’s a fantastic link-building technique because it’s mutually beneficial: you get a backlink, and the site owner gets to fix a pesky broken link on their site. 

How can you find broken links?

First, you should only target broken links on relevant websites. 

The free option is to use a crawler like Screaming Frog. Enter a competitor’s URL, crawl their site, and check the broken links. 

If you have a paid subscription to Ahrefs, then you can check for broken links using its Site Explorer tool. 

Here’s how:

1. Enter a competitor’s domain. Enter a competitor’s domain or a website in your niche from which you’d like to get a backlink.

2. Navigate to “Backlink profile” then “Broken Links”. This report will show you all the broken outbound links from that website.

3. Analyze the results. Look for broken links with high Domain Rating (DR) or referring domains. These are prime opportunities.

4. Create or identify replacement content. Check if you have relevant content on your site that can replace the broken link. If not, create a replacement post.

5. Reach out. Craft a personalized email to the website owners that A) links to the broken page and B) offers your content as a replacement.

Building Links = Relationship Building 

Since generic outreach templates are all but antiquated today, SEOs are flocking to building links by forming relationships instead. 

What’s that?

Relationship-based link-building involves forming long-term bonds with other website owners in your niche. 

That way, you can continue to generate backlinks for one another instead of a one-and-done deal. 

Not only that but forming relationships with other websites is a great way to network and discover new link sources. You’ll find new opportunities to acquire backlinks by sharing your sources with a partner. 

Of course, you should only try to form relationships with thought leaders in your industry, as partnering with low-DR sites will not do you any favors. 

Taking this approach requires most SEOs to rethink how they approach backlink outreach. 

Instead of asking for a link outright, you aim to connect with the website owner and form a bond. That means connecting with them on social media platforms and interacting with their posts in a genuine way. 

You introduce the idea of building links together only after getting to know them. 

Forming a network of high-authority link partners in your industry will make dominating the SERPs much easier. 

Wrapping Up: 6 Currently Effective Ways to Get Backlinks 

Link-building changes constantly for various reasons, which means that eventually, the tactics you use will go out of style. 

For now, the 6 techniques in this guide are the cream of the crop for boosting your backlink profile. 

Do you want to reach the top of the SERPs in your industry?

Don’t wait to check out our Link Insertion and Link Outreach services from The HOTH!

Our link-building gurus are well-versed in all the most effective techniques, so feel free to book a free SEO consultation with us today.       

The post 6 Modern Ways to Get Backlinks to Boost Your SEO Profile appeared first on The HOTH.

According to a 2021 study, 69% of marketers invested in SEO, and 75% said their SEO tactics were effective at helping them fulfill marketing goals.

But every marketer isn’t an SEO expert or even proficient in the field. Companies need to hire an SEO specialist who knows exactly what to do so their website and content rank on the first page of search engine result pages (SERPs) and bring in traffic.

This article explains the role of an SEO specialist in detail and lists the essential characteristics they must have to help companies get results.

What is an SEO Specialist?

In a sentence, an SEO specialist analyzes websites and optimizes them so that they rank higher on major search engine result pages. 

This individual is an expert in “organic search” — search results that aren’t ads, but that Google thinks are the best and most relevant content — and can create an SEO strategy that improves user experience while simultaneously appealing to the latest search engine algorithms.

Apart from a higher search ranking, an SEO expert can ensure your web pages appear for relevant search terms instead of random ones.

For example, if you search for “running shoes,” you get companies like Nike, which sells running shoes, and articles that list the best running shoes. Both of these results are driven by good SEO.

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A good SEO strategy can help companies, regardless of size, attract more users and generate high-quality leads. Consequently, conversions grow, and so does revenue.

While this sounds great, business owners often have surface-level SEO knowledge. They know it’s a marketing term but don’t understand the different components, such as on-page, off-page, and technical SEO, or how they impact search engine rankings.

They can also struggle to differentiate between SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing), which have the same goal — driving traffic and revenue from search engines — but varying components and tactics. This lack of understanding often leads to them making incorrect decisions regarding hiring and goal-setting in these areas. 

This is when SEO professionals are required. They can take charge of all the processes needed to boost your search rankings.

What Are the Job Responsibilities of an SEO specialist?

Every SEO consultant has a different set of responsibilities depending on the industry and company they’re working with. However, most SEO experts are proficient in the following:

Keyword research

A keyword typically corresponds with the main topic of the content on your page. It is a word, phrase, or question users search for to find specific web pages and content on the topic. It can be a single word such as “shoes” or a longer phrase such as “running shoes for women.”

An SEO specialist performs keyword research to determine which keywords each page on your website should target. They will then focus on how each of these pages can rank for their specific keyword(s).

Without keyword research, your content is a jumble of topics that you think your users might like. Unfortunately, most websites make this mistake, which is why a 2020 study found that 90% of them don’t get organic traffic from Google.

It’s the job of the SEO specialist to use keyword research to identify exactly what users are looking for and why. They then tailor your website’s content to match search intent.

On-page optimization

On-page optimization is a general term used to describe how an SEO expert cleans up all the elements that are on or behind your website. 

This includes meta titles and descriptions, header tags, using the right images, proper HTML structure, internal linking, and fast page load speeds (like always compressing images that go on your web pages).

Here the SEO specialist ensures every web page aims to show up for the correct search terms, provides a good user experience, and leads users towards conversion.

Optimization also requires testing varying versions of elements on the web page to see which one improves lead generation. For example, having a detailed call-to-action button can perform better than a basic “Click Here” button.

Mobile optimization

Mobile phone users accounted for more than 92% of global internet users at the end of 2021. Your website must be mobile-friendly, there’s just no way around it, both for general usage and SEO purposes. Every page on your website needs to be 100% visible and perfectly usable on mobile devices.

Search engines value mobile-friendliness in 2022. Google has implemented mobile-first indexing for years now, which means websites that are not mobile-friendly automatically get lower rankings. They even offer a free tool to test how mobile-friendly a web page is.

An SEO specialist must analyze how they can improve your mobile user experience and make your web pages easy for users to navigate, regardless of their device.

Link building & off-page optimization

Link building is a way to let Google know that your content or web page is valuable. It’s the process of getting links to your website from external websites to improve your authority.

The links could be someone referencing your blog post in their article or a reviewer adding a product link as part of a glowing review.

Building a web of links from multiple sources increases your website’s chances of gaining a higher ranking. A recent study showed that top search results had significantly more backlinks than lower-rated results.

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An SEO specialist will have a link-building strategy that develops backlinks via guest posts, content-based assets (infographics, statistics, etc.), and other methods. Some might consider buying links, but this is risky as it violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, and you have to trust the seller to be honest and uphold their end of the bargain.

Link building has to be combined with every other SEO component to work. For example, you can have multiple backlinks to a page, but if the content on that page is poor, then your lead generation will take a hit.

Content marketing is an effective strategy for building your off-page online presence. If you invest time in building relationships with other bloggers in your niche, and creating stellar, valuable content, it’s only a matter of time before you earn several high-quality, relevant links.

Analytics

Every SEO expert has to know how to analyze the results driven by their campaigns, the different metrics to use, and what the numbers actually mean. Understanding this data is more complicated than it seems.

Sure, it’s easy to look at leads generated or web traffic and decide whether a campaign is successful or not. But, there are many smaller yet impactful metrics along the way. Each of which indicates how parts of your SEO campaign are working.

SEO specialists will analyze the correct metrics, gauge results, and make campaign decisions based on them. If a particular aspect fails, they will need to test new elements or implement process changes to get better results.

URL naming & titles

For accurate data collection and campaign tracking, SEO specialists need to use custom URLs. These URLs will let them know where the traffic is coming from, whether from a backlink, an ad, a social media post, or a marketing asset like a newsletter. 

Let’s say you hired an SEO expert to boost your traffic from search results. If there’s a sudden uptick in traffic, how do they know if it’s because they’re actually reaching the goal you set or if the increase in visitors is from other sources, like a social media contest?

Custom URLs are used to monitor data for different campaigns, assets, and sources.

The Characteristics of an Effective SEO Specialist

If you’re looking to become an SEO expert or hire one, here are six crucial characteristics you need:

#1. Understands the different levels of SEO 

There are three main SEO tiers — on-page, off-page, and technical — that every expert must deeply understand.

• On-page SEO is usually content-related but includes everything that goes into your web page. It’s the process of ensuring all the content on your website uses the right keywords, meta tags, title tags, and internal links. These elements let search engines know the topic you’re covering and why you’re a trusted resource on the subject.

SEO experts must know how to optimize content and form links between related web pages such that users are led from one page to the next, inching closer to completing the purchase.

• Technical SEO refers to optimizing components that are not content-based. It ensures that the foundation of the website is good.

Website speed, architecture, indexing, crawlability, and mobile-friendliness, are some technical factors that an SEO expert must analyze and improve.

Improving technical elements shows search engines that your website is well-built and provides a better user experience.

• Off-page SEO refers to activities outside your website that help improve search rankings. Backlinks are vital for off-page SEO as they act as social proof of your authority on a subject and let Google know that your web page is a trusted source.

Apart from backlinks, any external activity that can boost your search ranking is considered off-page SEO, including social media and traditional media marketing campaigns, brand mentions, and influencer marketing.

SEO specialists often work with marketing and PR teams to create external campaigns that will positively impact SERP rankings.

An SEO specialist is expected to be an expert in these core areas and know precisely how they affect your ranking. While they may not handle all of these factors personally, their knowledge will help them oversee other teams’ efforts.

#2. Stays current

Google constantly updates its search algorithm, and these changes can affect your rankings and domain authority. So how do SEOs stay up to speed? The SEO industry keeps evolving as experts discover new strategies or ideas to adjust to the latest developments.

An SEO expert must keep track of all these updates, trends, and methods to strategize effectively. Outdated tactics will often lead to poor results.

They must also be aware of the latest trends in the client’s industry so that they can create relevant content. For example, if everyone in the industry is focused on X, but all your blogs are about Y, the chances of gaining next-level traffic are minimal. So you want to capitalize on trends to capture user attention.

#3. Collaborates with other teams

Since so many factors go into SEO, a specialist rarely works alone. It’s more common that they work hand-in-hand with other teams, such as social media marketing, content marketing, and web development.

For successful campaigns, SEO experts must be excellent communicators and collaborators. They must communicate with clarity, so all team members understand why and how to accomplish campaign goals.

They also need to be persuasive. You often have to explain why changes are needed and how they benefit the website to people who don’t have any SEO knowledge, such as stakeholders or the web development team. You must be able to get these people on board.

#4. Has a marketing mindset 

Search engine optimization and marketing go hand-in-hand. Effective marketing campaigns lead to better search rankings.

SEO specialists need to have a marketing mindset, where they are focused on the target audience and know how content plays an overall role in achieving business goals.

Moreover, an SEO consultant will often work with a company’s internal marketing team. So, they need to be up-to-date on current marketing trends and strategies. The content you create must appeal to readers if it has a chance of rising up the rankings.

Additional knowledge in social media trends, consumer psychology, web development, and viral strategies enables SEO experts to create more compelling content and optimize websites to make the most impact on users.

#5. Able to define and track SEO goals 

SEO experts must be able to look at the bigger picture and set the right goals. Is the overall goal to build brand awareness, increase rankings, drive traffic, or boost conversions? These are interrelated, but understanding the main objective helps set smaller SEO-based milestones.

For example, if the goal is to drive traffic, you can set milestones based on the number of visits via organic search per month. A free website traffic checker can help with that.

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Knowing how to set goals, using the right metrics to measure them, and analyzing initial results to make changes or increase production are all expected of an SEO consultant.

#6. Adaptability 

You’ve created the perfect roadmap for getting the company website to the first page of SERPs, and then BAM! Google switches its search algorithm, or a new viral marketing trend takes over.

This is a common scenario for an SEO expert, and they must be able to adapt to it. 

SEO experts often work with multiple companies across industries. Adaptability is also essential here. You need to understand your client’s needs, their industry, and how you can take them to the top of search rankings for their specific keywords.

Where to Find SEO Specialists?

You can hire a freelance SEO specialist or consultant for one-time projects. These are experienced individuals that work with companies on a per-project, contract, or retainer basis. 

However, they may not be viable for many organizations as freelancers can be expensive, and there’s no guarantee of stability or results or productive, long-term relationships. Moreover, a single SEO specialist can help strategize, but they struggle with implementation, especially at a larger scale. 

The second option is to hire a full-time SEO specialist who works with your marketing teams to get results. But again, this can get expensive, and their skillset is often limited to one aspect of SEO.

This is why most companies opt for a digital marketing agency like The HOTH. Agencies have a group of experts at their disposal. They can also produce content faster, meaning you can scale your marketing efforts exponentially. 

To add to this, agencies can be cheaper and often have a subscription-based model where you only pay for what you need and can cancel at any time.

SEO Specialists Can Elevate Your Brand and Business

Every business that wants to succeed digitally needs SEO experts to guide them to the top of SERPs. SEO agencies can help you target the right users, create personalized content at scale, and boost traffic. 

Get industry-leading SEO specialists working on your website by using our HOTH X service. Our experts have spent years of their lives diving into the technical (and often tedious) world of SEO, so you don’t have to.

The post What is an SEO Specialist? Here’s What You Need to Know appeared first on The HOTH.

That’s why SEO is often the only option for CBD companies. If you want to expand your reach beyond a local brick-and-mortar store while complying with ever-changing regulations, this post is for you.

We’ve put together the best CBD SEO practices that can help businesses rank higher on Google Search. You’ll learn how to reach your target audience and stake out a good spot for your brand early in the game.

Why Do CBD Companies Absolutely Need SEO?

The CBD market was valued at $4.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach a whopping $47.22 billion by 2028. You still have a chance to become an early adopter — start leveraging SEO to promote your CBD business before the segment gets too crowded and competitive.

SEO will remain relevant to businesses as long as search engines exist. It’s true that their algorithms get smarter day by day, and it’s getting harder to achieve quick wins, but the SEO basics haven’t changed too much.

If you invest time and effort into your CBD SEO and SEM, you can expect to see positive long-term results in a few months. Since the CBD industry is here to stay, it is a reasonable timeframe, especially considering the SEO benefits for cannabis brands.

So, what exactly can you achieve by optimizing your website for search engines?

• Generate more quality leads. If you target the right keywords, your website will attract users with strong purchase intent but also educate and convince those still on the fence about CBD products.
• Build brand authority and credibility. Users trust high-ranking resources — over 25% click the first organic search result, and less than 2.5% scroll beyond position #10.
• Target multiple audiences. CBD products have a wide target audience, including various age groups, so you can gain more attention by targeting different segments with a wide range of keywords and content.
• Reduce your brand’s dependency on social media algorithms. Make sure that your marketing efforts won’t go down the drain just because someone reported you on Instagram or TikTok suddenly banned your viral video.
• Avoid the risk of being banned for paid advertising. In the case of CBD products, the unwritten rules of SEO are more straightforward, reliable, and predictable than the Google Ads policy or Facebook’s guidelines.
• Save time and money by getting more organic traffic. SEO means playing a long game and ensuring that your website will bring you more and more leads in the future without your active participation.
• Improve your general brand visibility. Increase brand awareness by getting more unique visitors and placing your brand name among the most trustworthy and sought-after CBD brands.
• Invest in a long-term marketing strategy. Working on your SEO will help you polish your offer, make valuable connections through link-building, improve the usability of your website, and fill it with content that your potential customers truly need.

10 SEO Best Practices for CBD brands

If you’re new to SEO, it’s quite easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information out there. Thankfully, you won’t need to dive deep into technicalities if you are using any of the top code-free content management systems — they’ll do most of the work for you.

For example, they can automatically generate your XML sitemap or instantly compress, resize, and convert your images to make your pages load faster. That being said, some SEO activities can’t and shouldn’t be automated, and that’s what we’re going to discuss in this section.

Follow these tried-and-true tips and best practices for cannabis SEO to get ahead of the competition without having to spend a fortune on risky ad campaigns or play it too safe on social media.

#1. Run an SEO audit

Before you start doing any optimization, you need to find out what exactly needs to be improved. An SEO audit is the best way to do that.

It helps you identify issues affecting your organic search performance. In other words, it’s like a full health check-up for your resource, and it also needs to be done regularly.

An SEO audit can show you if your website has:

• JS and CSS errors
• slow load time
• poor website architecture
• unnecessary code
• duplicate content and titles
• missing alt tags
• duplicate or missing meta descriptions
• broken or irrelevant external and internal links
• any of the common UX mistakes
• identical or missing header tags
• content gaps

A thorough audit can take days or even weeks to conduct. You can perform some parts of your SEO audit yourself using intuitive online tools like this free website SEO audit tool. However, to fully understand the bigger picture, you might need to hire an SEO professional or an agency.

#2. Analyze your competitors and their keyword strategy

The CBD market gets more crowded day by day, so you need to monitor your direct and indirect competitors and the keywords they’re targeting.

This helps you not miss out on opportunities and better understand how to start winning in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

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In addition, keyword research helps you discover trending searches and generate new keyword ideas.

You can do this manually on Google or use the Google Ads Keyword Planner, but most marketers rely on keyword research tools. You can, for example, use our free keyword planner for Google, which shows search volumes, competition, difficulty, and relevant keywords.

#3. Improve your website loading speed

According to a Google and Deloitte study, a mere 0.1s increase in loading time can boost sales conversions by 8.4%, average order value by 9.2%, and bounce rate by 8.3%. Plus, it’s an official Google ranking factor in and of itself, so speeding up your site is a must.

There’s no need for guesswork — just try Google PageSpeed Insights, Test My Site, GTmetrix, or Pingdom Website Speed Test to measure the loading speed of your website and pinpoint any potential issues.

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The aforementioned website speed test tools can also generate recommendations for your website and help you address specific problems to improve your site’s loading speed.

#4. Make your website mobile-friendly and conversion-oriented

Mobile-friendliness is a crucial factor for cannabis SEO, which hardly comes as a surprise. If you sell lifestyle and wellness products, you want your customers to be able to purchase from you with ease, without having to change devices. Otherwise, their bumpy user experience will totally undermine your selling proposition.

That’s another reason to conduct an SEO audit. A comprehensive audit will tell you how mobile-friendly your website is, which is a huge ranking factor since mobile devices account for more than half of organic search engine visits. Also, companies that commit to great mobile design see increases in revenue of 32% on average.

#5. Analyze user intent and target more specific keywords

The CBD market is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21.2%. It makes sense to target a specific niche instead of trying to fight all the biggest players at once.

To achieve that, you need to target low-competition, long-tail keywords that are more relevant to what your target customer is searching for. Targeting more general, highly competitive keywords would be more expensive. Also, many of them are purely informational.

Use the keyword tools we’ve mentioned above to discover easy-to-target keywords your competitors are sleeping on.

Most even calculate the so-called keyword difficulty for you — a complex metric showing how easy or hard it is to rank for any particular keyword.

#6. Don’t forget about meta tags, H1s, and alt tags

It’s easy to get carried away and forget about the essentials — even if your CMS auto-generates meta descriptions for you, it’s still better to double-check them and manually optimize them for your key website pages.

The same goes for headings — make sure that all your important pages include semantic keywords and relevant questions in subheaders and use the correct header tags. Your headings should accurately summarize the contents of your page, not only highlight relevant keywords. By using different header tags, you can create a clear and intuitive hierarchy for each of your pages.

Although image alt tags aren’t as crucial for SEO, they can positively impact your ranking because they make your content more accessible for visually impaired users and visitors with slow Internet connections.

#7. Focus on local SEO

If you own a physical store, you can target potential customers living or working in close proximity to your business. To put it another way, when someone performs a local search for CBD products, your store’s name will pop up in the results.

Local SEO is another way to create organic visibility for your brand. Unsurprisingly, Google does not reveal the exact ranking factors, but the company does shed some light on what business owners should do to appear in local results on Google Maps and Search:

1. Enter complete business data (address, phone number, category, etc.) and keep your information up to date.
2. Verify your business location.
3. Update your business hours info regularly.
4. Actively respond to customer reviews.
5. Add photos demonstrating your products or services.

#8. Work on your internal linking

Internal links point from one page to another and help users and search engines discover related pages on your website. They create logical connections between your website pages.

This optimization tactic is often completely neglected or underutilized, even though it’s practically free. You can use it strategically to boost your cannabis SEO by:

1. Passing authority from “more influential” to “less powerful” website pages.
2. Enhancing your UX by helping your visitors discover more of your content.
3. Using internal links to provide more context.

You can evaluate your existing internal linking by using one of the SEO tools we recommended earlier.

#9. Create authoritative CBD content and earn strong backlinks

Backlinks are considered to be the lifeblood of SEO — they give your pages “weight” and make them more trustworthy resources in the eyes of search engines like Google.

Create authoritative, in-depth CBD-related content and use it for guest posting and earning quality backlinks. Participating in the online CBD community allows you to improve your SEO while also sharing your knowledge and expertise.

You can work with opinion leaders and lifestyle bloggers to get extremely valuable backlinks from related websites. Since CBD oil is all the rage, many creators and magazines will be happy to review a new product or interview you as a CBD entrepreneur.

Here are more reasons why you should double down on content marketing to boost your CBD SEO:

1. Educate your audience on the science-backed benefits of CBD to increase dwell time and win their trust.
2. Use informative SEO-friendly blog posts to drive organic traffic.
3. Prove your brand legitimacy and leadership.
4. Attract a new audience through guest posts.

Make sure to run an SEO link audit regularly — it will allow you to check your website link profile and spot broken or low-quality links.

#10. Use social media to drive website traffic and help your SEO

Even if you can’t run promotional campaigns on social media, you can still attract attention to your CBD brand and make it more visible. Here’s how Instagram and other social platforms can help you with that:

1. Distribute your content more efficiently and attract high-quality leads.
2. Use social shares to signal to Google that many users are interested in your offer.
3. Create searchable high-value content pieces such as podcasts and share them on social media.
4. Publish expert videos to encourage backlinking.
5. Build your brand community and make your audience more engaged.
6. Strengthen your brand reputation to indirectly demonstrate the validity of your website to Google.
7. Increase brand recognition and get more organic traffic.
8. Boost your local SEO by getting tagged and mentioned in relation to a specific location.

Create your CBD SEO strategy in a hands-off manner

While you can invest the time in managing these SEO best practices yourself, imagine the luxury of having your own personal SEO expert working one-on-one with you. That’s what HOTH X is — we offer comprehensive and personalized SEO services.

We design a customized CBD SEO strategy for you, execute it, and send you transparent reports showing everything we’ve achieved. On top of that, we offer flexible pricing and packages.

Book a call to get your free 30-minute strategy session!

The post High on Google: How to Improve Your CBD SEO appeared first on The HOTH.