Not only is the cannabis industry exploding in Denver, Colo. but all over the U.S. states are starting to legalize cannabis on a state level. 

On Jan. 1, 2014 Denver started the sale of Cannabis had $64 million grossed in healthcare sales, and fast-forward to 2019, $330 million was grossed in retail sales and  $116 million was grossed in medical sales. As these statistics show, the cannabis industry will continue to grow, and as more dispensaries and companies appear, how can you rank against the other thousands? 

A great way for this to happen is with a responsive, fast-loading website that is optimized with website optimization Colorado strategies! 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basically can be summarized to organic search engine ranking results! This is done with on-page and off-page strategies which deals with keywords, backlinks, optimized websites, meta-tags and everything else in-between! 

Keywords. That is the one thing any company should remember if nothing else from this blog. As SEMRush states a keyword is, “is a word that serves as a code.” A code? This code is written within a landing page, service page or blog tells a search engine to crawl this specific page and narrow down a search result. 

The wrong “code” on any website can start to negatively affect the organic ranking of a website. This is because the keyword is not corresponding with what search results are showing, and when this does occur, Google starts to notice and once this happens the website, page or blog will slowly start to lose its ranking. 

Search Engine Marketing 

The SERP real estate is a competitive place. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the practice of a company using paid advertisements on search engines. As WordStream suggests, “Search engine marketing’s greatest strength is that it offers advertisers the opportunity to put their ads in front of motivated customers who are ready to buy at the precise moment they’re ready to make a purchase.” 

Paid advertisements are one of the biggest strategies on search engines due to their “almost instant” gratification and return of investment. Now, the difference between SEO and SEM is one of organic strategies and one is paid; however, both of these strategies need website optimization Colorado experts to find the best keywords. 

Keywords 

The goal of SEO is to drive organic traffic to service pages, landing pages or blogs from search engine result pages and keywords that are being targeted specifically for those pages. 

Each page of a website should have its own keywords based upon volume and opportunities to rank overtime for that search query “code.” A website optimization Colorado company will optimize pages based on long-term strategies, while blog content is about grabbing quick wins. 

This is also done so pages do not cannibalize themselves on the website. When several pages are trying to rank for the same keywords on a website, often times, the pages will start to outrank and compete with one another. 

Here’s a great example from Search Engine Journal where cannabis tincture and marijuana tincture have the same search intent, and because of this, only one page should be using this keyword or both keywords. 

Backlinking 

Repeat after us, it is nearly impossible to rank without backlinks. A website HAS to have backlinks. As Moz states, “a backlink is a link created when one website links to another. Backlinks are also called ‘inbound links’ or ‘incoming links’.” Backlinks are critical to website optimization Colorado strategies because the higher quality of backlinks on the website possibly means a higher ranking in SERP. 

This is due to this backlinks creating credibility in search engines, specifically Google, and because of this, Google starts to rank the website. The process of gaining backlinks is not an easy strategy and one that is a constant work in progress. A backlink can easily be lost just as easy it is to garner them. 

Are you ready to be the leading Cannabis company in the Denver area? Give our experts a call today to discuss your goals and strategies!