Are your website designers cannabis SEO experts?

Are you dealing with cannabis SEO experts?

Finding a reliable search engine optimization company isn’t easy. For every established company, there are 100 individuals just cutting their teeth with just enough acumen to build a website and sell themselves. Cannabis SEO is a long-haul. It can take anywhere from 4 months to a year on average to see results. That means a poor SEO company can collect months worth of payments before a client realizes they’re being had. So, how can you tell if you’re dealing with an expert?

A cannabis expert knows the industry.

Established SEO companies may be good at ranking their own site, even if they have limited experience in the field. That may lead you right to their door with a simple Google search. The website and sales representative you talk to may tell you all about how they work in the cannabis field, but there’s one thing a company cannot fake.

Grill your potential SEO company representative on the cannabis industry.

What should you ask?

• Ask about optimizing specific product types. Does your prospective company know the difference between shatter, wax, and crumble? Do they know what dabbing is? What’s the demographic difference between concentrate users and tincture users? What about the difference between the CBD and THC market?
• Ask if they’ve looked into “X” market. X can be any state that has recently legalized marijuana. If you want to test them, name a state that hasn’t legalized yet and see if they catch it or not. An SEO company that actually specializes in cannabis is up to date on the latest legalization reform on a state level.
• Ask for white papers and portfolio samples. If a cannabis website optimization company doesn’t have active cannabis clients and work samples to back up their talk, they probably don’t have it at all. Our industry runs on data and sample work. A company without a portfolio may as well not have performed any previous work at all. The cannabis industry isn’t new—if your chosen SEO doesn’t have a wealth of work to display, they haven’t been in the business very long.

A cannabis SEO expert understands your payment processing woes.

Even companies selling legal goods related to the cannabis industry are having trouble with payment processors.

As one of the leading digital payment options, Paypal is harming the cannabis industry while investing in it at the same time. It may be one of the most common payment gateways, but a cannabis-specialized SEO company knows clients that use it may face monetary freezes and account shutdowns.

Your SEO company must understand the E-commerce side of the industry.

Even brick and mortar dispensaries are taking advantage of crypto-currency and marijuana-specific payment platforms.

Here at Sherpa we provide recommendations for clients, set up payment gateways in WordPress, and actively stay up to date on the newest options and shutdowns. If your SEO company doesn’t know payment issues are a major hurdle for cannabis companies, then they aren’t involved in the industry.

A cannabis SEO expert knows how to work around industry limitations.

The cannabis industry is still in its infancy. Legalization is continuing to grow state by state, but federal limitations restrict how that growth can occur.

It’s currently illegal to take cannabis outside of the state it was grown in. That leads to problems like the one currently facing Oregon.

SEO for cannabis companies is quite a bit different than other verticals.

• Google doesn’t store cannabis-related search data.
• Product stores need backup payment gateways and restricted shipping options.
• Cannabis-specific directory sites are going under every day.
• Social media profiles must follow strict guidelines.
• Rule enforcement by Google, Facebook, etc, is spotty and arbitrary.

The number of restrictions an optimizer has to work around affects how they do their work.

If you choose a company that doesn’t understand the impact these issues have, how to mitigate them, and other problems you may encounter, you’re in for a tough go of it. SEO is equal parts science, data analysis, experience, and intuition. You want an expert that understands how to perform and implement the scientific aspects but has the experience and intuition to see how real-world actions affect results.

We’ve been providing cannabis SEO to our clients since 2016. With a 100% client retention rate, our growing list of clients speaks for itself. If you’re interested in search engine optimization for your cannabis site, call or contact us today.