March and April 2020 have been a whirlwind of uncertainty, confusion, fear, confidence, and a mixture of everything in-between. Every person and business in the world has been affected by COVID-19. It’s how we allow COVID-19 to affect our business that dictates our future journey. We’re writing an article on why local SEO is important for your 2020 marketing strategy because we chose to be the positive light helping businesses get through this difficult time.
You have a choice as a business owner. You can fold your arms, play the victim, and wonder why this has happened to your business and you. Or, you can take a step back, breathe, and plan how you’re not just going to survive, but figure out how your business can thrive. What can you do right now to bounce back 10x stronger than before?
We work with a variety of different industries, both online and local businesses, and thankfully they’re all doing well. We’ve helped every one of our clients pivot their business during these uncertain times, and it’s paying off for them. We’ve also had an influx of companies reach out to us to rebuild their branding, websites, and SEO as before COVID-19, they didn’t have the time to start these types of projects.
Businesses all over have been drastically affected by COVID-19. Right now is the time for smaller companies to go head to head against their much larger competitor. If you own a local medspa with 3-4 employees and a 3,000sq ft office space, you have an amazing chance of surviving COVID-19 as you may not have the same challenges as the medspa with 20 employees, 10,000 sq ft office space and a $30,000 per month marketing expense.
We can speak on this topic as we have medical clients in that space right now who are planning on even financially helping or buying the other medspas that can’t weather the storm as it’s a smart play right now.
Now, before we go too far off track, we wanted to give you an example of businesses that are getting hurt from being closed, yet still keeping a positive outlook on life and doing whatever they can to grow their business during COVID-19.
Local SEO and Why It’s Important During and After COVID-19
We are going to go over why local SEO is so important now more than ever for businesses in the following industries: salons, spas, health and wellness, plastic surgery, medical, restaurants, massage, and cleaning services. It’s April 14th, 2020, as we write this article, and the State of Arizona, along with the rest of the country, is in complete lockdown.
Right now, most cities and shopping centers look like ghost towns, and that’s okay. Do you know how busy it’s going to be when everyone can leave the house and resume their normal lifestyle? We’re afraid most businesses won’t even know how to deal with the increase in demand for their restaurant, salon, spa, or shopping center.
Think about it. Everyone has been cooped up at home for two to three months with their spouse, pets, kids, etc. They want out, and they want to get back to their normal life of eating out, going to the gym, watching a movie, etc.
This exact reason is why local SEO is so essential for your business. You should want your business popping up on the first page of Google and #1 in the local 3-pack Google map when searching for your type of business. We are going to go over what local SEO is and five reasons why local SEO is important for your business right now.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO (search engine optimization) is a way to optimize your business and its website to be visible and populate for location-based searches on Google. Local SEO is a strategy that can be incorporated into your marketing campaign to drive more organic traffic to your website, to give the user directions, and for the ability to call your phone number to visit you or set an appointment.
When a user is searching for specific keywords with the city, state, zip code, or near me searches added, your business should populate. Local search optimization is one of the best marketing tactics and strategies to grow your local business.
Below is an example of searches
Restaurants near me
Bars near me
Scottsdale Medspas
Medical clinics in Phoenix
Avintiv Media has our proprietary process on how we get our local clients ranking on the first page of Google and in the 3-pack map. Some standard strategies can include content creation, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization with an emphasis on local directory listings.
5 Reasons Why Local SEO Is Important and Should be Your Main Marketing Focus for 2020
1. When COVID-19 is over, traveling, eating out, and shopping will be busier than ever.
One of the biggest misconceptions when wanting to grow your business is building your marketing around current events. That is slightly true but mostly false. True SEO campaigns and strategies take 60-90 days before Google fully processes all of the changes and starts sending you more organic traffic. If you started local SEO today, you would start to see results around June 14th, 2020. June 14th, 2020, which would be weeks after the U.S. has lifted its lockdown policies, and people would slowly going back out and looking at places to eat and shop.
Not only that, I can attest to this, but most of us do not look like our best selves right now, whether it’s from nails or hair not being done or gyms being closed down. Gyms, medspas, hair salons, and any type of medical or health enhancement company are going to be booming with customers wanting to enhance their look. Is your medspa going to pop up #1 on Google when a user searches, or will your competitor take that spot?
A lot of your competitors are probably doing worse than you due to their company being larger with much more expenses. They are more than likely taking their foot off the gas, which is the perfect time to catch up to them before they even notice. We love working with the Davids of the world as we take down the Goliaths of the world. We genuinely want everyone to win, so we say that half kidding, but the other half being dead serious.
2. Local SEO stats you should know.
We can sit here and tell you why local SEO is so important for your business right now and in the near future, but we’d much rather you see real research and data.
3. Getting Your Business Listed on the Google 3-Pack Map
You, along with everyone else, have searched for something on Google and have clicked a business listed in Google’s 3-pack map. Most people never even go past the 3-pack map since Google launched it.
Ironically, Moz completed a study where over 44% of the people who performed a local search, then clicked on the 3-pack listing. Only 8% of those people chose to press “load more” to see the rest of the results. Do you want to be a part of the 8% group of businesses?
The Google 3-pack map has made it extremely easy for people to find a business’s website, address, or phone number with just a few clicks. If you’re using a new smartphone, which is highly likely, your phone will give you turn-by-turn directions to that business within seconds.
Below is an example of one of our clients, who is a local dentist and periodontist. We’ve been grateful to have been working with them for almost two years now. We rebuilt their brand, website, and completed local SEO with ongoing SEO support. Within just a few short months, her business was on page one of Google and the Google 3-pack map for competitive keywords within her industry.
4. Tourists and people that are traveling are going to use Google to find businesses near them.
Although it’s hard to imagine people traveling right now with everything going on with COVID-19, there will be a time in the near future when the world resumes back to how it was. When tourists travel to different places, they search Google for what’s around them. Odds are if you haven’t invested in optimizing your business for local SEO, they will not be finding your business.
As you can see in the image below, search engines (SEO) is the number one online used source for travel planning by leisure travelers and the second source for business travelers.
Make sure that you have a nicely designed website that will give your visitors a phenomenal experience; otherwise, Google won’t want to rank you towards the top.
5. Local SEO has the highest conversion rates out of all local advertising channels.
This reason is probably one of the most important because as a fellow business owner, we all understand ROI and revenue is much more important than analytics in a monthly report. There are many parts of SEO, but the two most significant elements are: getting your website more organic traffic and then having that organic traffic convert into paying customers.
There was a recent study done that showed an astounding 78% conversion of offline sales through local SEO, with almost 90% of those purchases being a physical store or location. Out of those local searches, 76% of the offline sales happened the same day, and 63% within just a few hours. I don’t know about you, but those are some pretty fantastic conversion rates.
When people are searching on Google through their mobile devices, chances are they are ready to buy something or come to your business within the next 24 hours.
In Conclusion
With the addition of Local SEO, you’ll also be one of those businesses that can proudly say we not only survived COVID-19, but we also set our business up for future success and it’s now doing better than ever. Are you going to be that person? If so, schedule a FREE SEO audit with us today to see how well your local SEO is performing.
If you’re a dentist or periodontist, it’s no secret that there seems to be a new dental office that opens up on every street corner now. Do you know the actual numbers, though?
In 2012, an article by Dental Economics stated, “In the last five years, competition has increased in dentistry. Seventy-five percent of dental practices have experienced production declines since the Great Recession. Many offices are in danger of continuing this trend if they do not come to terms with what it takes to grow a practice in the new dental economy.
In 2015, the United States had 195,722 practicing dentists. That’s the equivalent of having 60.9 dentists per 100,000 population.
Now that you understand the dentistry industry across the board is becoming extremely competitive let’s switch over and go over statistics from the lovely customers in the United States that use local dental services.
“77% of patients use online reviews when finding a new healthcare provider.”
It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re in; customers are looking to see reviews from other real customers. It shows social proof on the level of care and quality that your business has to offer. With something as important as finding a new local dentist, you better believe that the potential customer is researching your business and your reviews before making a call.
“75% of customers expect companies to provide a consistent experience across multiple touchpoints.”
In 2020, the majority of the potential customers that are looking to bring their business to you are researching you on multiple platforms. They’re looking at your Google reviews, Yelp reviews, website, and social media handles. They want to make sure that you’re the real deal before they bring you their business. Switching dentists or periodontists isn’t as easy as changing which restaurant you want to eat tonight.
Your online experience has to match across the board. Now is the time to tighten up all aspects of your brand, or your competition who do that well will continue to grow.
“70% of customers say technology makes it easier for them to take their business elsewhere.”
As we’ve mentioned above, with the amount of competition and level of technology we all have at our fingertips, finding a new dentist has never been easier for a potential customer. They aren’t just looking at your business; they’re researching 2-3 dentists and periodontists at the same time to find the right fit for what they’re looking for.
What is SEO?
For those of you who are reading this blog and don’t know or understand what SEO is, fear not, we’ll explain it.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of your website through organic search engine results.
For instance, anytime you type something into Google, the SERPs (search engine results pages) are showing you the closest information that you were looking for. Although there are a lot of variables on how Google shows its results, the majority of the search results on page one or two of Google have heavily optimized their SEO to be seen over their competition.
Example: You’re a Scottsdale, AZ, dentist, and your website pops up on page 40 when someone types in “Scottsdale Dentist” into Google. You decided to hire an agency to improve your SEO, and after a few months, your business now pops up on the first page of Google for “Scottsdale Dentist.” You can see how much value that would be for you. Thousands of people in Scottsdale will now know what your business is and where you’re located, which will increase website traffic and grow your top-line revenue.
Why is SEO important for dentists and periodontists in 2020?
Back in the day, customers would look in the yellow pages to look up local dentists. I’m sure you remember those days. Now, Google and SEO are the new yellow pages. If your business isn’t adequately listed or you haven’t optimized your SEO for dentists, it’s highly likely that not many new customers are finding your business online.
Referral businesses are not scalable. There will be a time when the referrals stop coming in.
When you optimize your website with SEO for dentists, and your website is popping up on the first page of Google, you’re essentially getting free traffic. If your site is optimized correctly, then a percentage of that traffic will convert into paying customers.
In this article, we’ll be going over five need to know tips on SEO for dentists and periodontists for 2020.
1. Determining the right keywords
Before beginning SEO, you want to research and learn the right keywords for your business to rank for. We would start by listing the services that you offer and follow that by the general location (city, state, local) search terms. A couple of examples would look like: Teeth Whitening, Crowns, Braces, fillings, local Scottsdale dentist, etc.
You want to make sure that you’re focusing on keywords that have the intention of working with a dentist. For instance, “at-home teeth whitening” is still teeth whitening, but that person doesn’t plan on going to a dentist. You would want to use the phrase “dentist teeth whitening near me.” You have to remember that Google’s primary goal is to provide solutions that match what the user is searching for; otherwise, it doesn’t give the user the best experience. Picking the right keywords is extremely important.
Ideally, you’ll want to have a mixture of keywords that have high search volume but also long-tail keywords that will be easier to rank for. If you try to search for “dentist” when there are 823,000 search volume, that will be much more difficult.
If you don’t know how to do proper keyword research, you can always contact us for assistance. Every successful SEO campaign should have very in-depth keyword research and planning done behind the scenes. The research dives into your brand, your competition, your customers, and carefully decide keywords and key phrases that people are searching for based on the research. The research will be able to tell what your competitors are ranking for and how much traffic is going to their sites based on each keyword. Successful campaigns will ensure that the research is utilized in both the on-page and off-page campaigns to ensure that your website will be on page one of Google for many of your selected keywords.
2. Having a well-built website with user experience in mind
One of the most important aspects of running a successful company in 2020 is having an up-to-date website with the basics that every consumer expects you to have. If you’re a dentist or periodontist with a 5+-year-old website that hasn’t been updated, you are losing thousands of dollars every single week.
Unique Website Design
In 2020, you need to stand out from all of the other dentist or periodontist websites that are out there. You have a one in one hundred chance of having each new potential customer choosing you. If your website doesn’t have a unique design or stand out, you won’t be among their top three choices.
With how many choices are out there right now, your website design, structure, colors, and layout need to match the flow and experience that your potential customers are looking for. If it doesn’t meet their needs, they’re right onto the next competitor of yours.
Avintiv Media has been named top Web Design Agency in the United States for the past two years in a row, and that comes from us understanding what customers are looking for on a website.
Responsive Design & Development
In 2018, over 58% of site visits were from mobile phones. If that alone doesn’t show you the need to have a mobile-friendly (responsive design), we go into more detail why its a necessity for 2020.
Google stated that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing, and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead. That’s a pretty significant number.
Back in July 2019, Google switched its search engine to mobile-first indexing. Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. If your website isn’t developed for mobile, then you can expect to take a hit with your rankings while your mobile-friendly competitors start moving up the rankings.
If you’d like to find out how mobile-friendly your website is or isn’t, contact us today.
Website Speed, Performance, and Usability
The world we live in has become more and more impatient. We are all used to being able to access everything with a button press of a phone now. You can order a car, food, and anything else you’d like from your mobile phone.
If your website speed doesn’t meet the standards of what a potential customer is looking for, then they will leave your site and go to your competitor.
Google started using site speed and performance as a search ranking factor for their algorithm starting back in 2010. That means, if your website is slower than Google would like, they are going to move you lower in the rankings as they feel it will give the person searching a lousy experience. Google is a business, and they aren’t going to show off websites on page one that aren’t optimized properly as it shows the business owner doesn’t care that much.
One of our client’s Google rankings started to drastically climb up towards page one after we made significant updates to the speed of their website. The example below is after just one round of updates.
Content, Content, Content – Content is still king
Content on your website is one of the most critical aspects of your website and SEO campaign that you can do. Having the right type of content on your dentist website or periodontist website is crucial. Your website visitors want to learn more about the services that you offer and also know that you’re legit and an authority figure in your industry.
The more optimized pages of content on your website allow you to rank for even more keywords on Google. You can’t rank on page one for “Dentist in Scottsdale” unless you have content on your website or SEO campaigns that matches that description.
The majority of the dentists that we’ve been able to get on page one of Google for over 30+ keywords have over 30 pages on their website.
Each one of your services needs to have its page and go into detail explaining what you offer with that service.
For a great example of one of the service pages, we’ve built for our client, check out Malek Periodontics.
3. Enhancing On-Page SEO for Dentist Website
Before today you have probably heard the term SEO before, but a lot of you want to know, “What is on-page SEO?”
On-page SEO is the SEO work that’s done on your website and individual pages to rank higher in search engines, earning more traffic and an increase in revenue.
One of the most significant factors that Google makes as it becomes more sophisticated is relevance. How relevant is your page or content to the search query? Google doesn’t want to give its users a bad experience by showing a page that has nothing to do with what they were wanting.
Think of it like you’re at a restaurant (Google), you order a hamburger (search for local hamburger restaurant), and the server (search engine) delivers a taco (local taco restaurant). Tacos are still delicious, but it’s not what you ordered. Get the point.
Below are the areas that we would focus on for any beginners with on-page SEO.
Meta Tags
One of the most important things to consider for on-page SEO is your meta tags. Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content to Google search engines and crawlers.
Meta tags provide more relevance syncing between your content and a search query searching for similar content. You will get higher rankings if the relevance of your meta tag matches what the user is searching for, along with their satisfaction.
Meta Titles
One of the most critical meta tags we’ll be discussing is your title tags. Meta Titles have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the regular user who’s searching Google. The words will appear at the top of each tab in their browser for both organic results and paid ads.
The title tag explains to the user what the page is about before they click on it. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.
If you’re working inside of WordPress, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin. The Yoast SEO plugin allows you to create a custom title tag within each page very quickly. Make sure to keep your title tags descriptive and short. It will show “green” when it’s the correct length.
Think of this as you standing outside next to your competitors with billboards in your hands. What would you say about your webpage versus your competition? Be sure to add in your relevant keywords and location to help with rankings.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions help search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value. More importantly, the meta descriptions explain what users will find on the page if they click on the link.
When writing meta descriptions, keep in mind quality is still king (or queen). A very well written meta description can generate higher rankings in the search results, along with a higher click-through rate with users.
We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long. See an example of one of our local periodontist clients below.
Heading Tags
If you want to have any success with on-page SEO, heading tags are a necessity. Your website and every page should include multiple heading tags, ranging from the H1 to the H6. The most important heading tag is the H1.
The H1 heading is usually the page title or name of the page or post. On a category page, your H1 would be the name of that category. On a product page, your H1 would be the name of that product. You can only use one H1 heading per page. Otherwise, you will get docked for SEO.
As you write your page content, you can also use the H2 and H3 headings to introduce different sections of your page or content. An H2 heading is just like a chapter in a book. The section you’re reading now is an H4 heading since a section of a subsection. This will help Google and other search engines be able to read the structure of each page and rank them accordingly.
Internal Linking
Getting your website content to rank correctly is going to need links. Google begins to rank your pages and posts better when they’re linked to somewhere else on the web.
Internal links are also important in connecting your content to give Google a better understanding of how your website is structured. This will also allow link juice to pass through your site better.
Internal linking can get broken up into two categories: internal and external.
Internal links throughout your site and blogs will deliver a better user experience for your visitors and will also enhance your SEO. An example of this can be seen below.
An internal link is a hyperlink that goes from a word or phrase on your website page to another website page or blog within your website. An external link is a hyperlink that goes from a word or phrase on your website page, which goes to an external website page away from your website.
You want to make sure that the internal links open in the same web browser tab so the user can see the flow. When doing internal links to external websites, you want to make sure they open up in a new web browser tab, so the user doesn’t leave your site.
When doing internal links, make sure you’re using anchor text (the word or phrase that is being linked) that relates to the URL that it’s pointing to so you don’t get penalized by Google.
Optimize Your Images
When you’re deciding what images to use on your website, make sure they are unique and relevant to that page. Users are much more likely to react to an image before they begin reading a post.
With how popular Instagram and social media, in general, has grown to be, our society is trained to react to images first.
When using images on your site, make sure you’re using the highest quality images possible. Google and other search engines prefer higher resolution images.
You always want to keep page speed in the back of your mind when adding in images. Resize your images below a 150KB file size to ensure that it doesn’t negatively affect your website speed.
When adding in an image, make sure that you always add in the image alt-text. An optimized alt-text gives Google another clue on what your page is about. The alt tag should be used to describe what the image is about, so it’s visible by Google’s crawlers.
We’ve already gone over what SEO is and also what on-page SEO is. Your head may or may not be spinning already. Either way, fear not, we’re here to help you.
Off-page SEO (or off-site SEO) refers to actions that happen outside of your website that have an impact on how your website ranks within search engine result pages (SERPs).
If you haven’t started with working on your on-page SEO, make sure you start that before diving into your off-page portion of your SEO campaign.
True off-page SEO is one of the most challenging but essential aspects of your SEO campaign. There are a lot of variables that come into play when perfecting your off-page SEO campaigns.
You want to make sure you stay clear from companies that promise you “x” amount of links for $200 per month. The majority of those companies perform black-hat SEO and will eventually get your website banned from Google. Don’t take shortcuts when it comes to your SEO.
Building quality backlinks is one of the most important aspects of off-page SEO. Google and other search engines use backlinks to indicate the quality of the content that’s linked. A site with more high-quality backlinks will usually rank much better than the same site with fewer backlinks.
For today’s article, we’re going to keep our recommendations simple and geared towards dentists and periodontists.
Citations and Directory Listings
Citations and directory listings are the first and easiest step for you to get more links to your website. Citations are mentions of your practice name, address, and phone number (NAP). You first start with having that information listed on your website, mainly on your contact page and also in the footer of your website.
Citations are a significant factor in how Google ranks businesses in its local listings. The more your business is mentioned online also plays into how high you rank in the listings.
Once you’ve made sure that your citation matches across the board, you can then get it listed in relevant directories.
You will then want to get your business listed in all local directories that apply to your type of business.
Make sure that your actual business name is listed in all of your directory listings, and it’s not a combination of the business name and the dentist’s name. This causes a lot of confusion for customers trying to find your business.
There are a lot of industry-specific directory listings. If you search for “dentist directory listings,” there should be a ton that pops up. Otherwise, you can always hire a company to submit your information to every listing that has to do with your business and industry.
The top three directory listings are General Business Directories, Industry Specific Directories, and Local Directories.
Google My Business
Your Google My Business page will be one of the most important aspects when completing your citations and directories check-list.
Google My Business page is one of the fastest ways of seeing results for SEO. Setting up your account is extremely easy.
Once your Google My Business page has been verified, you can then add photos and add more content to describe your business better.
5. Reviews
Online reviews are critical for many reasons, so don’t bypass this thinking that it’s not a big deal. Over 90% of people searching online look at reviews before visiting the business. That’s a considerable number.
Online reviews are also another way to increase your SEO rankings since Google uses reviews as another way of deciding how to rank your website. If you’re a local business with 10x the amount of 5-star reviews, the chances are that your business is going to be at the top of Google’s local 3-pack.
As you can see, our SEO client, Malek Periodontics, has 38 reviews with a 4.6-star rating, and they are #1 in the Google 3-pack listings. This has drastically changed the amount of traffic they have gotten.
The more 5 star reviews you get on Google, the more Google will want to show your Google My Business page off in the Google local 3-pack and will result in moving up the rankings in the SERPs.
You should always have a patient leave a review as they’re leaving an appointment or in a follow-up email with a small gift or incentive.
In Conclusion
As you can see, we went over a lot of information regarding SEO tips for dentists and periodontists. We showed you the data on how many people search online, how they decide on what company they buy from, and how you can be seen by more of your ideal customers. If you follow the above tips and strategies, you should get a lot more website traffic and, in turn, a lot more patients coming through your door. If you have any questions or want a quality SEO agency to assist you with all of this, feel free to contact us today.
Whether you’re brand new to link building or you’ve been doing it for a while, you will find value in this article. We will go over why link building is important, what to look for and what to stay away from when kicking off a link building campaign.
The SEO landscape is always evolving especially link building. The importance of building high-quality links has never been greater. If you don’t know what you’re doing, building poor-quality links can actually hurt you more than helping you.
The need to understand and fully implement a white-hat strategy has never been more important. If you want to thrive online for many years to come, it is definitely worth slowing down and fully understanding what link building is and how it can benefit your business.
Don’t get overwhelmed by all of this information. We’ve broken it up in bite-size chunks for you to easily understand everything there is to know about link building.
What is Link Building?
Link building is an action that happens offsite when another website links back to your website. Link building is a form of off-page SEO. A link is another way for users to navigate between pages and sites on the internet.
All business owners should be very interested in building links back to their websites as it drives referral traffic and increases the authority of the site. If you ask any SEO specialist, mastering the art of building high-quality links is one of the hardest parts of their job.
Why is link building important?
Link building is extremely important as Google uses it as a major factor in how it ranks web pages. Google stated: “In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”
Building high-quality links are one of the hardest aspects of SEO for any SEO specialist or SEO agency. With that said, to do high-quality links in volume, the costs associated are going to be much higher than what your competitors might be spending on SEO. When building links the correct way, it separates you from your competition in Google’s eyes.
There are many other benefits to link building that you will see later in this article.
The importance of links to Google and other search engines
There are ways in which Google and other search engines use links:
To discover web pages
To help determine how well a page should or shouldn’t rank in their search results
Google can extract the content of your pages and add it to their indexes once their search engines have crawled your site’s pages on the web. Once that is completed, Google will decide if they feel a page is of high enough quality to be ranked for relevant keywords. Google even made a short video to explain the process, called ‘How Search Works.’
As you’ll start to learn, Google and other search engines don’t just look at the content of each page, they look at the number of quality links pointing to that specific page from external websites. They also factor in the quality and authority of those external websites. The higher quality websites that link to yours, the more likely you are to rank well in search results.
In the late 1990s, one of Google’s founders, Larry Page, invented a way to measure the quality of a page based in part on the number of links pointing to it. PageRank took off and what a metric used as part of the overall ranking algorithm Google used.
The theory of a link being seen as a vote of confidence or authority was a huge hit. It wasn’t much longer before people discovered how to manipulate PageRank and certain search results for the keywords of their choice. Google was forced to continue updating its algorithm much more regularly to actively try to fight what was happening. They focused on filtering out websites that truly didn’t deserve to rank.
In turn, this is what led Google to begin to discredit a number of link building techniques that were previously accepted. One example is the Penguin update, which decreased the search engine rankings of websites that violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines or the use of black-hat SEO.
Google continues to enhance its algorithm to make it fair game to the over 1.94 billion websites there are in 2019.
What is a follow link?
As we’ve previously discussed, getting inbound links from authority websites provides an SEO boost. These links are hyperlinks that are pointing to a specific page on your website. The more links the better in Google’s eyes, as long as they are high-quality links.
Google looks at your website like you’re throwing a party. Is it 100 random strangers showing up that aren’t well-known or is it 300 well-known celebrities showing up to the party? Google watches your inbound links the same way.
As we previously mentioned, Google created a metric called PageRank to calculate the link points. In other words, link points are known as “link juice.” Hyperlinks allow link juice to flow through your site. The bigger and more reputable the site, the bigger SEO boost you get.
Follow links are links that Google counts as points or “link juice.” This boosts the page rank of the linked-to sites which helps increase the search results.
What are No-follow Links?
A no-follow link is a link tells Google to not count it as a point, so it doesn’t boost the PageRank.
A no-follow link is created with the no-follow link HTML tag, which looks like this:
A no-follow tag is a way that allows your site to tell search engines “Don’t follow links on this page” or to not follow this specific link. A link can have more than one relationship (rel attributes). These two attributes help Google define the relationship a link has with a page that it points to.
Here are a couple of examples:
Forum posts
Blog comments
Certain blog sites
Wiki Pages
Paid links
Comments
Anything involving what Google calls “untrusted content”
The importance of links for your business
As you’ve read through this article, link building is very important to grow your business online. Every day, Google gets smarter and SEO begins to get harder. It is important to begin building high-quality backlinks so you’re not getting left in the dust from your competition.
Online Authority
The more link juice that you have, the higher your website will rank for the keywords of your choice. When your website ranks higher int he SERPs, you have a much higher chance of turning much higher traffic into paying customers.
Brand Building
High-quality link building can help grow your brand online and as more people see your logo pop up, you will start to be seen as an authority in your niche. You can dive into content creation, which will help build your brand as an authority for the topics that you’re discussing. Those articles can then be used in a link building outreach campaign that should help bring high-quality links to your website.
More Visibility
The higher your website ranks in the SERPs, the more visibility your website has. The majority of visitors don’t go past the first page of Google, which shows the importance of ranking as high as you can for select keywords. More visibility equals more traffic which will equal more conversions as long as your website follows the standard UI & UX guidelines.
White-hat Strategies vs Black-hat Strategies
Black hat SEO refers to strategies and techniques that are used to get higher search rankings by doing short cuts that go against search engine rules. Black hat SEO focuses solely on search engines with no human element.
What hat SEO refers to strategies and techniques that target a human audience as opposed to just a search engine, which is what Google wants you to do.
What is a bad link?
Google has majorly cracked down over the years ever since people started to manipulate PageRank and certain search results for the keywords of their choice. Google actually created a list of poor link building tactics that they won’t tolerate anymore.
Google won’t tolerate manipulative links that provide a site zero value, just to try to trick Google’s algorithms. Don’t get tricked into buying links that have nothing to do with your site or industry. As long as you stay away from links that are purposely meant for manipulation, you should be in the clear.
What is a good link?
Google and other search engines want to see links that provide value to the internet. The last thing Google wants to do is send you to a site or a page that you weren’t wanting to go to and end up giving you a poor experience. Create links that are relevant and trustworthy. The Search Engine Journal released an article that detailed characteristics of a quality link.
10 Tips for Link Building
Build quality relationships
Ask for backlinks
Create quality content on your blog
Write good guest posts for other companies
Discover your competitor’s backlinks
Create and launch infographics
Make your way on a “top” or “best of” list for your industry
Hire a PR firm to get you more local press
Look for pages that mention your competitors but not you
Mention influencers or other companies in your posts
Sign up for our FREE SEO audit so see where your SEO is currently at.
A meta description is a snippet of up to 155 characters that summarize a page’s content for that exact page. Search engines show the description in the search results when a user is searching for a specific word or phrase. For that reason, optimizing your meta description is crucial for your on-page SEO success.
Search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value through your meta description. More importantly, the descriptions explain what users will find on the page.
When writing meta descriptions, keep in mind quality is still king (or queen). A very well written meta description can generate higher rankings in the search results, which will create a higher click-through rate for the user.
We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long.
Add in your brand’s name, a keyword or two and what users will find on the page. This could be the first interaction visitors will have with your brand. Make it a great experience.
How to create the right meta description
1. Include a call to action
Just like any type of marketing or advertising, action-oriented language is key. A meta description tells the reader exactly what they can do if they click the link. You can try out starting your meta descriptions with words like “Discovery,” “Learn,” or “Shop,” and list what they’ll get if they click.
2. Containing the focus keyword
Google will be way more inclined to use your meta description in the search results if the keyword being searched matches a part of the text in your meta description.
3. Unique to page content
One thing you don’t want to do is copy someone else’s meta description. Odds are if you’re the one taking it, their website is ranking higher than yours which puts you at a loss, to begin with. You want to focus on the user experience instead of winning at the ranking game. You want to make sure that each of your pages has a unique meta description to give the user a phenomenal experience. After all, this could be the first time they’re interacting with your brand.
4. Up to 155 characters
We recommend keeping your meta description under 155 characters. First, you should focus on the message that you want to convey. Keep it short and to the point while making sure you have your focus keyword listed in it. After you create your new meta description, show a couple of friends or team members to see if they get the point off the first glance. If not, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
5. Make it specific and relevant
People searching online are pretty seasoned by now. They’ve seen meta titles and descriptions showing up in search results for quite some time now. If you use a generic meta description, you won’t stand out at all. Users are wanting a site that cares about their user’s experience. Using descriptive words to connect with your target audience is key to having a high click-through rate.
6. Provide a solution or benefit
When writing content or creating new pages, you should always aim to provide a solution or benefit. Your meta descriptions are no different. Make sure you tell the searcher what to expect if they decide to click on your link. The last thing you want is an increase in your website’s bounce rate.
You can list the clear benefit of clicking the link and what they could potentially get in return for doing so. Valuable content is a huge benefit in a marketplace of so much noise nowadays.
If you’d like assessing how your meta descriptions are, use our FREE SEO Audit.
A meta title or title tag is an HTML element that specifies the content of a web page. SERPs display title tags as the clickable headline for a given search result. Meta titles are both helpful to search engines and users. An internet user needs a website title so they can see an accurate description of what the page’s content entails before clicking on it. Search engines need a title to determine the relevancy of a web page, so it can show the user the content they’re looking for.
Title tags have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the average user searching Google. The words will appear at the top of each tab in your browser for both organic results and paid ads.
The title tag explains what the page is about. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.
If you’re working inside of WordPress, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin. The SEO plugin allows you to create a custom title tag within each page very easily. Make sure to keep your title tags descriptive and short.
Think of this as you standing outside next to your competitors with billboards in your hands. What would yours’ say about your webpage versus your competition? Make sure to add in your relevant keywords and location if you’re a local business.
Why are Meta Titles Important?
1. SERPs Rankings
One of the biggest reasons you want to spend some time choosing the right meta title is two-fold. First, you want to make sure the SERPs are ranking you correctly but second, you want the title to be clearly relevant to what they’re searching for. You can rank high but have no conversions because your title doesn’t match what the user is searching for.
2. Social Networks
When posting your phenomenally written blog or web page on social media, you want to make sure that it’s a title people will want to click on. This is the same as searching online. You have a split second to capture someone’s time on social media before they scroll right past your post. Make your title catchy but relevant to what they may be wanting to see.
3. Web Browsers
Your title tag will show up at the top of your web browser. More than likely, your user has many tabs opened up at the top of their website browser. A good way to make sure they don’t accidentally close the browser window is by clearly listing what the title is.
How do I write a good Meta Title?
1. Write unique titles for every page
Just as your website has unique pages, your title needs to be unique to that page as well. Your title should reflect exactly what’s on that specific page. You want your title to catch the user’s eye but also to make sure that search engines know what that specific page is all about. Make the title super easy to read so there is no confusion for the user or a search engine.
2. Watch your title length
Each search engine has its own number of characters they’ll display in the title tag. Google and other popular search engines will usually display 50-60 characters for a title tag in the search results before cutting it off. You should have for right around 50 characters.
Make sure that your most important keyword is toward the beginning of the title. Avoid using ALL CAPS for your titles as it makes it harder for search engines to read.
If your brand name is smaller, you can always add a “| brand name” at the end of your title to get more brand authority.
3. Use your target keyword but don’t overdo it
Yes, it’s true that keywords in your title help you rank higher in the SERPs. There is a right way of adding keywords into a title and the wrong way of doing it. You want to make sure that you’re only adding in keywords that have to do with that specific page. It wouldn’t look good if you ranked for a keyword that has nothing to do with that specific page.
It’s a great opportunity for you to rank higher when you include the main keyword(s) of that page since Google’s algorithm uses the title tag as one of the main ways it determines what the page is about.
This helps Google determine how relevant that specific page is to what the user is searching for. This is another reason you don’t want to add too many keywords in the title so Google doesn’t get confused about what the page is truly about.
4. Put important keywords first
Just like anything else in life, you have a split second to catch a user’s attention. Adding keywords closer to the beginning of your title tag may have more impact on them clicking the title and also search rankings.
Research has shown, people may scan little as the first two words of a headline to tell if it’s worth reading or not.
Good example: Buy CBD Oil | CBD Hemp Oil | Pure CBD Oil | Goat Grass CBD
Bad example: Brand Name | Major Product Category – Minor Product Category – Name of Product
5. Write with your customers in mind
As you now know, title tags are very important to SEO and search rankings. Also, remember that it is even more important to get users to click on the title. Make sure you think about the user experience when you’re creating title tags and meta.
6. Leverage your brand
If you’re trying to get your brand more well-known, it’s smart to add your brand name or site title to your title tag. We recommend putting your brand name or site title at the end of your title.
Learn more about Meta Tags or if you’d like us to take a look at your SEO, get your FREE SEO audit today!
One of the most important aspects of your on-page SEO is meta tags. Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content to search engines and crawlers.
Meta tags provide more relevance syncing between your content and a search query searching for similar content. You will get higher rankings if the relevance of your meta tag matches the user’s satisfaction.
These are common meta tags that should be on every page of your website. It’s a small list but they pack a lot of power for your basic SEO needs.
Canonical Tags
A canonical tag is a way of telling Google and other search engines that a specific URL on your site represents the master copy of a certain page. Using the canonical tag prevents issues caused by content appearing on multiple URLs.
If you have a page with multiple URLs or different pages with similar content, search engines might see those pages as duplicate versions of the same page.
Example: you might type in “www.google.com” or “https://google.com” and it’ll point to the same page. Google sees “www” and “https://” as duplicate versions of the same page so you need to make sure you identify which is the original source page.
For this exact reason, it’s important to include a canonical tag, which tells Google to disregard other content other than this page. This is especially important for your homepage.
Robots Meta Tags
The robots meta tag is an HTML tag that gives instructions to web crawlers to either index or no-index a web page. If you don’t specify a robot meta tag, search engines will choose the default index.
Here are a couple of common robot meta tags
Follow – The search engine crawler will follow all links on the web page
Index – The search engine crawler will index the whole web page
Nofollow – Stops Googlebot from following links on this page.
Noindex – Stops the page from being indexed.
Nosnippet – Stops a text snippet or video preview from being shown in the search results.
There are many reasons you could use robots meta tag. You could input the “nofollow” rule if your web page has a comments section. Due to how many spam comments can come in, you can eliminate search engines from following any links left in the comments section.
The most popular attribute used is the “noindex” tag. A lot of developers use the “noindex” tag when they are developing a brand new website on a development server and they want to make sure Google doesn’t index the site too early.
You can also use a “noindex” tag if you have gated content that you don’t want users to be able to find through search engines.
Title Tags
The most important meta tag we’ll be discussing is your title tags. These tags have a drastic impact on your search rankings and are visible to the average user searching Google. The words will appear at the top of each tab in your browser for both organic results and paid ads.
The title tag explains what the page is about. Google and other search engines look at the title tag and compare that to the rest of the content on the page.
If you’re working inside of WordPress, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin. The SEO plugin allows you to create a custom title tag within each page very easily. Make sure to keep your title tags descriptive and short.
Think of this as you standing outside next to your competitors with billboards in your hands. What would yours’ say about your webpage versus your competition? Make sure to add in your relevant keywords and location if you’re a local business.
Meta Descriptions
Search engines determine the page’s topic and the audience that will find value through your meta description. More importantly, the meta descriptions explain what users will find on the page.
When writing meta descriptions, keep in mind quality is still king (or queen). A very well written meta description can generate higher rankings in the search results, which will create a higher click-through rate for the user.
We recommend keeping your description between 165 and 175 characters long.
Add in your brand’s name, a keyword or two and what users will find on the page. This could be the first interaction visitorsTitle will have with your brand. Make it a great experience.
Heading Tags
Heading tags are a necessity for any success with on-page SEO. Your landing pages and blog pages should include multiple heading tags, ranging from the H1 to the H6. The most important heading tag is H1.
The H1 heading is usually the page title or name of the page or post. On a category page, your H1 would be the name of that category. On a product page, your H1 would be the name of that product.
As you write your content, you can also use the H2 and H3 headings to introduce different sections of your page or content. An H2 heading is like a chapter in a book. The section you’re reading now is an H3 heading since it’s a sub-section of a chapter (H2).
It’s extremely rare for most content to get ‘deep’ enough to need the use of H4 tags and beyond unless you’re writing extremely long or really technical content.
If you’d like assessing how your meta descriptions are, use our FREE SEO Audit.
It’s no secret that the cannabis and CBD industry has been growing at light speed for the last couple of years. Both cannabis and CBD are mainstream where every day people are talking about the health benefits and are curious about learning more about them.
In fact, the cannabis industry is projected to hit $66.3 billion by 2025 and the CBD industry is growing to all new heights as well. The CBD industry is expected to reach $22 billion by 2022.
With those times of numbers with a big fat “B” behind them, you know there are a lot of people trying to rush into a goldmine and make a huge profit.
In this article, we’re going to talk about how our client, 3Win Corp, decided to skip the gold and sell shovels to all the gold miners like back in the 1800s during the gold rush.
Who is 3Win Corp?
3Win Corp is a wholesale CCELL® distributor, in 29 states in the US and 5 foreign countries. The company originated in 2015, growing from 6 employees to 38 employees within the last 12 months, with over 50 in 2019.
Their main clients are dispensaries, research labs, and extraction facilities. 3Win Corp is one of only four distributors worldwide that can sell and distribute CCELL® products, known for being the industry standard.
Selling Shovels in the Gold Cannabis Rush
Ever since the cannabis boom, everyone is trying to get in somehow. The majority of business owners and investors try to break into the industry by owning dispensaries, growing cannabis, or launching cannabis products.
Not 3Win Corp. They noticed a need in the market. Marijuana and CBD aren’t going anywhere and they knew that. Instead of offering the actual product itself, they offer the highest-quality accessories.
3Win Corp offers CCELL® products that are known for being the industry standard in vape technology. The vaping market is estimated to reach almost 55 million adults who vape by 2021. That’s a lot of people who need high-quality products to go with their marijuana and CBD products.
The Cannabis Market is Cut-throat Competitive
In 2018 alone, the cannabis industry had over $10 billion in investments that went towards marketing, advertising, and R&D. Some might think that the marijuana industry is a bunch of “hipsters” or people that just like to smoke pot. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Everyone is wanting a piece of this pie.
With that said, it has gotten more and more difficult to grow your cannabis brand over the years. Major investors and funding have got involved, which has made the playing field a bit unfair unless you have some massive firepower behind you.
This is one thing that 3Win Corp has ran into as the majority of its competitors are doing over $100 million per year in revenue and have major funding. They knew that they had to put forth more marketing firepower to saturate the market. They’ve since done just that but first, we’ll go into what they were dealing with.
Poor UI/UX/CX – Lack of Clarity and Consistency
3Win Corp was experiencing slower growth and loss of revenue. They had a website, but it wasn’t converting. Call-to-actions on the site were poorly displayed, and the customer experience was lacking – the site was not leading to an increase in sales.
The site did not highlight 3Win Corp’s phenomenal product offerings and capabilities. This made it nearly impossible to close deals unless they were in person, resulting in high costs for travel and print collateral. The sales team was frustrated with the sales process, and customers were frustrated with the lack of clarity and accessibility of 3Win Corp’s product offering.
Poor Search Engine Visibility
3Win Corp had little no SEO work done prior to working with Avintiv Media. With how many laws and regulations hinder how the cannabis and CBD industries advertise their brand, SEO and content creation have become the most important tactic in growing these types of brands.
3Win Corp was resting close to the 26th page of Google for every keyword that they wanted to rank for, which put them very far behind their competition.
Extremely Slow Load Times
3Win Corp had a landing page with not much usability or functionality. The older website experienced extremely slow load times which made it harder to grow the business. Due to slow load times, visitors would leave before engaging with the site leading to little to no conversions.
Slow load times were hurting 3Win’s Google rankings and increased bounce rates exponentially. Google now expects every website that wants to rank to have their website built properly with an amazing customer experience.
Over 47% of users expect a website page to load in two seconds or less. Even worse, over 40% of users won’t wait more than three seconds before leaving the site. Everything is customer-centric and to win in a competitive market, you must focus on the customer and not the competition.
The Solution – How 3Win Corp Grew 2000% in 2018
Custom UI/UX Design and Development
3Win Corp knew they needed a higher converting website and reached out to a couple of agencies, but the others didn’t play the part of what they were looking for. 3Win Corp stated, “When we reached out to Avintiv Media, we knew it was a no brainer with how professional you guys are and the experience you gave.”
Brand awareness and consistency built into the user interface and experience
Mobile-first and device responsive design
Conversion focused on engaging CTA’s built with clarity and consistency
Easy navigability, mobile-friendly and clean functionality
Built each page with on-page SEO enhancements
Website currently gets over a 92% rating with Google
“We get so many compliments on our website and brand, which gives more confidence to the employees and people that work with 3Win Corp.”
SEO Strategy and Implementation
We implemented SEO initiatives, strategies and campaigns focused on Google algorithms and visibility growth. 3Win Corp’s competition has invested heavily in SEO so there was a lot of catching up to do.
3Win Corp now has a convertible website and ranks on page 1 of Google for many of their targeted keywords.
3Win has experienced consistent growth and the ability to build out entirely new teams for customer service as a result of steady traffic flow and lead generation.
3Win Corp has experienced 8x growth in hiring employees since our campaign launch. In 2018, they increased 35% in sales, getting 8+ new leads per day, and their website traffic has gone up 2,000%.
As you can see, 3Win Corp experienced crazy amounts of growth in 2018. We can’t wait to share what we’re up to for 2019-2020 as it’s MUCH BIGGER!
If you’d like to see how Avintiv Media can help your brand become an industry dominator, reach out to us.
Seems like you can’t leave your computer to see how dinner’s coming along without Google pushing out a new algorithm. Just this year, for example, we had 2 big core updates. Before that, we had Pirate, Pigeon, Panda, and Hummingbird among a long list of others. That makes it hard for even the most seasoned of SEO pro’s—and for newbies, it’s like running through a minefield.
Above all, site developers need to know what’s new, and what’s going to impact how their companies appear in search results. To simplify matters (if only a little), here are 3 of the biggest SEO trends for 2019:
1. THE RAPID RISE OF VOICE SEARCH
“OK, Google.” You hear it more and more these days. The preeminence of voice search is rapidly changing the way people get information from the search engine, and that means site developers need to change the way they respond.
As Forbes notes, “The number of people who use voice assistants is actually growing year by year, at a very rapid rate; for example, 35.6 million Americans use a voice-activated device at least once a month, and one in six Americans now own smart speakers. While it’s true that the world of search engines and SEO is constantly changing and evolving, the increase in voice search usage is one of the biggest changes yet. That’s because it’s something completely different and it requires a completely different optimization strategy.”
What does this mean for your SEO strategy? Well, to begin, it means delivering content that conforms to the more natural language queries typical of voice search. And it means providing more concise responses—the average voice search response is delivered in just 29 words.
2. MOBILE-FIRST INDEXING: SPEED COUNTS
It’s only been a year since Google announced that 60% of all searches were now on mobile devices—and quickly followed that announcement by rolling out its mobile-first algorithm—but it’s already having an impact on search results. For one thing, sites that aren’t fully responsive will soon feel the sting, moving closer to the back of the pack (if they haven’t already). For another, it means that load time is more important than ever.
Said differently, Google is clearly convinced that speed is among the most important factor in mobile searches and mobile user experience. Add to that nugget the fact that (according to Big Commerce) a delay of just one second in page load time cuts conversions by 7% and page views by 11% (do the math: for a store that makes $50,000 a day, that’s about $1 million in lost sales per year), and it’s clear site developers will be doing everything possible to speed up mobile site load times.
3. BLOCKCHAIN TECH MEETS SEO
When you hear “blockchain,” you probably think Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general—but understanding blockchain technology is also increasingly important for SEO. That’s because Blockchain can verify that users are who they say they are in online transactions with 100% accuracy.
Augmenting their sites with a ramped-up ability to record the identities of site visitors—or spot which visitors have added value to key content—is something that’s grabbing the attention of search engines and site developers alike. It’s one of the reasons, for example, Microsoft among other industry giants is already working with blockchain identity systems (like Blockstack Labs and ConsenSys) to enhance its apps and services.
CONCLUSION
Admittedly, search engine optimization is not for the faint of heart. It can be both confusing and frustrating, even for those relatively well versed in its nuances—and the stakes couldn’t be higher. If you don’t have the in-house talent to keep pace with the rapid change and need for immediate response inherent in the SEO universe, your best bet is to partner with SEO experts who can give you the advice and guidance you need to stay at the front of the pack.
To learn more about the ways we can take your SEO and digital marketing to the next level, contact us. Better still, get your free SEO audit today.
With the boom of the cannabis industry over the last couple of years, it’s no surprise that an easier go-to-market solution has emerged and is BOOMING. Cannabidiol (CBD) is the new craze and everyone wants in. Even if you already own a CBD brand, keep reading to learn how to start and market your CBD brand correctly.
Starting and marketing your CBD brand is not as easy of a task as it was two to three years ago. The market is extremely saturated and there are some extremely big players in the game now with unlimited funding. CBD is officially mainstream in the entrepreneur and investor world, which makes everyone want to join the bandwagon.
We’ve been waiting for our 80yr old grandparents to give us a call saying how they are launching a CBD brand. All jokes aside, it seems like everyone is wanting a piece of the pie. How big is the CBD pie?
What is CBD?
Before we dive into how big the CBD market is, we want those of you that don’t know what CBD is.
CBD is short for Cannabidiol. CBD is one of over 100 known compounds found in the cannabis Sativa plant. This compound is found in both THC-rich strains of marijuana and also hemp. These plants are both classified as cannabis but the difference is that hemp produces only small amounts of THC, which are less than 0.3%. The compound carries much higher amounts as CBD, which is non-psychoactive eliminating the “high” feeling that THC has.
How Big is the CBD Industry?
Before we dive into how to start and market your CBD brand, you need to know how big the industry as a whole is.
Brightfield states that the market for hemp-derived CBD products was around $591 million for 2018, and speculated to grow to $22-23 billion by 2022. Yes, that is a B for billion!
Below is a chart of the industry’s growth and future sales forecasting.
• 2014 – $108 million industry
• 2017 – $190 million industry
• 2018 – $591 million industry
• 2022 – $22 billion industry
Is CBD Legal?
Everyone wants to know, “Is CBD legal?” If you’re growing industrial hemp with the sole purpose of extracting high-quality CBD, that sole purpose is currently backed by the federal government. In December 2018, the 2018 farm bill was enacted. Among many of its other provisions, it removed hemp (not cannabis) from the list of prohibited substances. Hemp is now a legal agricultural commodity, and so are the products made from it.
Some individual states have taken a much different stance on this and have chosen to ban CBD products which is key for anyone who has an eCommerce CBD store. You can always see which states CBD is legal.
CBD is still available to purchase and consume across the majority of the United States and in most places products still appear to be available, although some cities have banned the sale of food containing CBD. “CBD cannot be lawfully added to food or be labeled a dietary supplement,” was stated by the FDA with their public hearing on May 31st, 2019.
How much THC can your CBD have to be Legal?
Hemp and certain forms of CBD are federally legal, but you need to understand what aspects to look for when purchasing a CBD product. Many CBD brands that start decide to work with white-label CBD manufacturers because they don’t have the necessary capital to go to some of the larger manufacturing companies. Do your homework before deciding to work with a white-label manufacturer.
For CBD to be considered legal, the industrial hemp must contain .03% or less of THC. Any more and the plant is classified as marijuana and has many different laws that will drastically affect you and your customers.
There is still much confusion between CBD vs THC, which leaves a lot of questions for the general public. Federal agencies have started enforcing 0.3% or less THC policy much harder, which will keep the public much more well informed and safe.
Start Your CBD Brand
After reading the above information, you now realize how much work you have in front of you. At Avintiv, we are very data and research-driven. Everything we’ve done with building and scaling over 200 successful brands, starts with research and strategy.
This information will help new start-up CBD brands and CBD brands that have hit a plateau. We highly recommend building a brief business plan or investor pitch deck that you can use as a roadmap towards success.
CBD Business Plan
Writing a business plan is a good idea even if you never plan on getting a loan from a bank or bringing on investors. You are able to use this business plan as a road map and allows you to benchmark your progress to see how on or off track you are. We won’t go over all aspects of a business plan today. We will point out the key factors to focus on.
Market Analysis – The market analysis will give you a break down of the CBD market, what segments there are, and what type of consumers your company will be marketing to.
Competitive Analysis – You must research and present a clear comparison of your business to your direct and indirect competitors. You need to know your strengths and weaknesses between your business and the competition.
Products and Services – What type of CBD products will your brand carry? Are you launching CBD oil, edibles, topicals, cosmetics or vapes? What will differentiate you from the competition?
Marketing Plan – Your marketing budget must clearly explain how you’re going to reach your ideal customers to hit your sales forecasts. You must clearly define how it’s going to be done and what your marketing budget is.
Sales Strategy – This portion of your business plan explains how you’re going to be selling your CBD. Are you only selling on your eCommerce website or do you have national CBD wholesalers or retail accounts?
Funding – From personal experience, Avintiv Media is currently growing many CBD brands, and the average monthly marketing budget is $10,000 – $20,000. You need to list out how you are going to fund your CBD brand. Whether that’s personal cash infusion by the owner or going for funding.
Sales Forecasts – You must create a realistic sales benchmark of what your business can do in sales over the next 3-5 years. Break the first year down to monthly sales goals and then do years 2-5 by year. This will help you determine if you’re on or off track from your goals.
Grow and Market Your CBD Brand
Growing your CBD brand in 2019-2020 is going to be much harder than it was years ago. The market is flooded with new CBD brands every single day, so what is going to set you apart from the competition? We’re going to go over how we’ve been able to grow our CBD clients.
Branding for Your CBD Brand
Branding is and will be one of the most important aspects of your CBD brand. This part is often overlooked as many business owners want to rush to market. They care more about Instagram, influencer marketing, and getting sales. Don’t fall victim to this or you won’t stand a chance with how competitive the CBD market is right now.
Company Naming
A lot of business owners pick a company name that they like for some reason and it never becomes a massive company because the owner was thinking about themselves versus the customer. When picking a company name, ask yourself these questions:
Can I build a $100 million brand with this type of name?
Will customers know exactly what we do when they hear the name?
Does this name clash or interfere with any other CBD brand? (hire a lawyer for this)
Is this a name that our company can build a community or tribe of customers around?
Logo and Brand Styleguide
Developing a logo and brand style guide is much more in-depth as this but for this article’s purposes, we are going to go in order with how our creative team decides on branding direction for our CBD clients.
What is this brand’s ideal target market (customers)?
What type of color scheme is this market used to?
What are other major brands these customers buy from?
What does our brand want to look like? Create a storyboard of brands, colors, and styles your company represents.
What does our brand not want to look like? Create a storyboard of brands, colors, and styles that your company doesn’t want to represent.
Hire an agency or freelancer to help begin the logo sketch phase
Have them finalize 3 variations of logos to choose from (black and white – no color)
Choose the top logo direction
The agency or freelancer will then take your market research and decide on the 3 top color schemes to go with
They will then present your main logo in 3 different color options to go with
Once that is completed, the agency or freelancer should create your brand style guide so everything you do moving forward matches your branding 100%
We won’t go into detail on how to develop your CBD product design or packaging as there are far too many steps to list in this article. Just know that this is by far one of the most important aspects of where your money should be going. If you want to win in the CBD game, it’s going to be the companies that products look better, feel better, and gives the customer a far greater experience.
Here are some examples of recent products we’ve designed in the CBD market.
Marketing Your CBD Brand
SEO
Anyone who’s been in the Cannabis or CBD industry knows the trouble everyone has run into with properly being able to advertise or market their brand. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is by far going to be one of the best investments you can make for your marketing plan.
You will want to have an agency that are experts at SEO as the CBD market is a completely different ball game when it comes to SEO versus many other industries.
Just like SEO, content creation for the CBD industry is extremely important. For one, not everyone knows what CBD is just yet and people are wanting to learn more about CBD before investing in it.
Writing content around your ideal customers and your keywords that were chosen from your SEO strategy will help you choose what articles to write.
If you’re a CBD brand, you should be launching 2-4 blogs per week of at least 750 words. Below are things to make sure you do:
Install Yoast SEO for WordPress
Make sure your blog has an A+ readability score
Add in your keywords throughout the blog
Carefully choose what your Meta Title should be
Carefully choose what your Meta Description should be
Make sure your slug is done correctly
Make sure you internally link 2-4 times throughout your blog
Make sure you link external sites 1-2 times throughout your blog
Social Media
Social media has been the craze over the last 5-10 years but it has gotten extremely pricey to play on the advertising end of social media. For today’s purposes, we’re going to focus on posting organically on Instagram with 0 paid ads.
Tips for social media content:
Thinking of your ideal customers, decide on what types of pictures or posts they will want to see
Think of the verbiage or messaging your ideal customers will want to see
Create a grid mockup over posts that all flow well with each other from an aesthetic standpoint (See below)
Use a social media scheduler like Hootsuite to preschedule all of your future posts
Make sure to engage with everyone that DM’s you or comments on your posts
Example of Instagram Grid that we did for our client, Goat Grass CBD.
Advertising
As Facebook and Google start to loosen up with CBD advertising, there are still other ways to advertise your CBD brand.
A number of our CBD clients hire Avintiv to run retargeting ads for their online CBD stores. Below is just one of the options that’s available to advertise for the CBD industry.
Avintiv has access to a private display network that uses artificial intelligence to
aggressively optimize for click-through rate and conversion using a number of different
data signals that generate excellent results. On average our CTRs range from 1-3%
and up to as high as 8% (No this is not a typo). We offer this in the form of standard
display advertising, site retargeting or a blend depending on how much traffic the site
has.
We can run as many creatives as you like and can track conversions from the campaign as well.
This is helpful for tracking ROI.
Below are some examples of display advertising creatives that we’ve created.
In Conclusion
As you’ve read through our article, we hope you’ve learned how to start and grow your CBD. As you can see, there is a lot of information that you need to know before launching and growing your CBD brand. The days of quickly getting to market and making a million dollars are long gone.
If you’re interested in seeing how Avintiv Media can assist you with growth, feel free to reach out to us on our contact page.
Page one ranking guaranteed! SEO services starting at $500 per month! We’ll optimize your site in 24 hours! If these taglines remind you of cut-rate used car dealerships or late night weight loss infomercials, you have good instincts. You need to cut through the BS and really ask yourself, “how much should SEO cost?”
While you can absolutely compare “before” and “after” SEO results, there is no magic pill to boost your website rankings. Effective optimization is a customized, multi-phase process, and honest SEO cost estimates reflect reality-based strategies.
Keep that in mind as you read on.
There’s no cookie-cutter template for determining the cost of SEO, but when you’re shopping for a search engine optimization firm, these are the points to keep in mind when you’re accepting proposals:
Important Factors That Positively Impact SEO
1. Website architecture
Search engine optimization begins with responsive, fast-loading websites and user-friendly navigation. Outdated servers, media-heavy sites, and cumbersome coding aren’t as easy to remedy when a site has hundreds of product pages or content assets. Clients in a position to take advantage of our free SEO audits are often ready for a top-down website overhaul, though our comprehensive analytics often reveal opportunities to streamline existing properties until our clients are ready to invest in a redesign.
2. Management practices and preferences
Prior site management factors into pricing. We encounter more than a few clients who have assigned their digital marketing managers with the task of in-house updates and SEO management. Digital marketing and content managers are experts in their own field and often rely on the elementary and often incorrect advice of popular SEO “gurus”.
We respect the desire to manage websites in-house—for some businesses, it’s a necessity. If that sounds like you, you’ll want an SEO firm prepared to help you establish SEO best practices for continuity and performance, with scheduled audits and evaluations for course corrections.
3. Relevant keyword research
Who’s your intended audience, and how will your SEO strategy predict their query habits? Is your brand competing for high-volume keywords, or targeting a local niche? Do your keywords attract qualified leads or traffic that will increase your bounce rate?
Dynamic keyword research, integration, and reporting demands time, skill, and intimate knowledge of the customer’s audience and goals. SEO is less about competing for high-value keywords than it is about understanding your user’s search intent. That requires your SEO team to understand your market as well as you do.
4. Technical page optimization
Do your page titles, URLs, and schema send the right signals to search engines? Can search engine crawlers understand each page’s purpose when the on-page content is limited to alt text? After all, crawlers can’t “see” images or videos so metadata and page descriptions must advocate for your page’s value and relevance.
Snippet-savvy site descriptions help Google decide that your content aligns with user queries, and URLs and titles containing your prime keywords induce a better click-through rate. Your SEO consultant should identify and test technical page optimization techniques not just for SERP placement, but for traffic quality and conversion rates.
5. User-valued, optimized content
It’s true: Quality content reinforces your brand’s legitimate use of keywords. But more important, content that’s useful to your audience keeps them engaged and draws them through the sales funnel. Longer dwell times improve SEO, as does content your audience shares on social media or their own sites. Blogs, infographics, and video generate legitimate, quality backlinks while elevating your brand as an industry authority.
Content isn’t about stuffing keywords. We believe quality transcends quantity, and we connect our clients with creators who adapt to your brand character, speak to your buyer persona, and write with the skill and knowledge you’d be proud to present as your own.
6. Backlinks and off-site authority
How often is your brand referenced by other authoritative sources? On-site content generates backlinks, but we can help you identify and use off-site opportunities to generate domain and brand authority. Engage your audience on third-party review sites, update your Google My Business posts, and exchange guest posts with strategic partners and high-profile industry bloggers. Genuine, organic backlink acquisition takes time and effort, but it scores higher with search engines than do purchased backlinks or other “black hat” cheats.
7. SEO analytics, reporting, and interpretation
Any SEO—or do-it-yourself site operator—can generate traffic and conversion reports. There are excellent keyword research tools available to anyone willing to pay the subscription costs. Even free plug-ins can provide useful insight into SEO success, but context is key. Your SEO success isn’t measured by charts and graphs alone. SEO strategies include A/B testing, industry-specific conversion experiments, and benchmarks set to monitor visitor behavior during cross-channel campaigns.
Who you are and what you do influences your SEO strategy
We at Avintiv Media service clients in a variety of industries, tailoring our services accordingly. Our approach for optimizing a regional luxury auto dealership website will barely resemble our recommendations for a national organic skincare line, and both would very much differ from an eCommerce CBD brand. Site structure, content, keywords, and local SEO emphasis all differ among the three, as do customer intent and behavior.
Think of us as your strategic partners. Like you, we’re not cheap; we’re experts in our field delivering measurable results. Quotes for our average cost of SEO reflect our dedication to your business’ growth and market agility, and we encourage you to regard the cost of SEO in terms of value rather than price. Contact us for a FREE SEO audit.
Once we know more about you and where you stand, we can tailor your SEO roadmap to help you achieve your goals. See how our Cannabis/CBD client grew 2000% in under a year or how our Supplement eCommerce client increased organic traffic by 600%.
