You’ve heard this before: Content Rules.
New and searchable content is what makes the Internet hum. Fresh content helps improve traffic on your cannabis business website, drives sales and makes your business relevant to search engines.
Content is made up of text, images, video and audio that live on your website.
When properly optimized for search engines content is more easily findable by people looking for something specific. We won’t get into search engine optimization in this blog, but this video by Neil Patel is pretty useful for getting some basics about why you need to pay attention to this and what to do.
When you plan content creation for your cannabis business website, it needs to accomplish a few of these things. The more of these ideas you can include, the richer your content will be.
- Educational—tell people something they might not know
- Compelling—write or show the topic in a way that keeps people’s attention
- Useful—give practical advice or a “how to” to the reader or viewer
- Focused—stick to what you know and what your business is about
- Quality—if you’re writing, make sure your grammar is correct and if you’re making a video, the audio and picture need to be good, too.
- Relevant—produce content about something that’s happening now
- Entertaining—use humor and visuals that make your content fun (when appropriate)
- New—put a new spin on what you’re writing about and try to make it fresh for your web visitors.
- If possible, make it personal and always be aware of your brand voice.
Creating content takes time and effort. Whether you’re making a video, writing a blog or creating a podcast, you need to do a few things before you jump in.
- Think about and plan out what you want people to learn or know—what’s the core message? Are there other details and secondary messages that support what you’re saying?
- Make sure you have enough knowledge and expertise to say or write at least 400 words or create a 90-second video. There will be some topics that come naturally to you and others you’ll struggle to complete.
- Think visually. How can you show and tell your story? Are there images or video you want to include?
- Don’t plagiarize! Make sure what you write or say is original to you. Yes, you can read another author’s articles for ideas, validation or outbound links, but don’t steal someone else’s words or images.
- Create content in small chunks that people can easily skim. Like we did here.
- Think about the questions people ask about your business or products and use those to generate your content. For instance, we had someone on Linked In ask us about how to get a medical marijuana card in Michigan. While it wasn’t communication-related, we could see there was a need to share this information.
Every cannabis business website has some easy wins for content that are necessary. Team or leadership biographies and a robust about us section are essential. People like to see and know about who is behind the product or service they are using. It’s also a great place to share your brand personality and voice. Keep in mind the “why” of your business and use that for content, too. The reason you started growing, processing, testing, transporting or provisioning cannabis is something people like to know. If it’s personal, let that shine.
It’s important to create content that moves your cannabis business forward and looks to bring people to you for your expertise in cannabis.
When appropriate use a call to action like this: for help creating content give us a nudge. We’d be happy to work with you.