Intersecting Cannabis SEO and Google’s E-A-T
The world of SEO is finding itself at a unique crossroads with the cannabis industry. Google’s Helpful Content Update has set up new benchmarks that dramatically affect the healthcare sector; which now includes cannabis. Let’s dig into what this means for cannabis SEO.
Understanding E-A-T and Helpful Content
‘E-A-T’ stands for:
- Expertise
- Expertise comes from using the product or going to the place you are writing about. Experience creates a greater depth of knowledge reflected in a writer’s output, ultimately granting a better payoff to the reader.
- Authority
- Authority is about your reputation in the industry. Consider the credibility of a doctor writing about the medical effects of cannabis to an architect writing on the topic.
- You can check your domain’s authority here. We at Create Venue will help you optimize your site for credibility!
- Trustworthiness
- Writers must be upfront about who they are and who they write for. Also, content should include credible sources so the weight of what one says is fact-checkable.
These core ideas that come with E-A-T are now the standard, as announced by Google in September 2023. Google is trying to ensure that searchers find helpful, valuable information.
The Helpful Content Update
A savvy and informed website owner must refrain from keyword stuffing or devising filler content. The Helpful Content Update means that only blogs with the most meaningful content rank the highest and make the most money!
The point is to reward good content when it truly satisfies its visitors.
Below are some questions to ask yourself when writing your content while keeping E-A-T in mind:
- Is your content geared towards search engines or humans?
- Are you simplifying what others say without adding valuable or unique information?
- Does your content leave readers having to continue searching to find the answers to their queries?
- Are you trying to reach an exceptionally high word count in an effort to stuff keywords? Google claims to have no such preference for content length.
There is much to consider when writing content, but the most important thing is how helpful the content is to your users. To help with some perspective, here is a link to Google’s Helpful Content Criteria.
Crafting Helpful and Compliant Cannabis Content
Adapting to the helpful content update is about resonating with authentic human experience and providing insight into the cannabis world.
Cannabis as a Medicine:
The most common reason people search the internet about cannabis is because of its classification by many as a medicine.
If you’re looking to use cannabis SEO to rank, medical marijuana should be your priority blog topic. You’ll want to write pertinent, helpful, and fresh content. Writing about how the ancients saw cannabis as medicine, for example, can be ‘helpful’ if your historical research is thorough and up to date. But, adding a section about how readers might help themselves may be considered ‘toxic content’ by Google.
Don’t violate E-A-T!
Pieces on medical cannabis must be Trustworthy. You’ll need proper peer-reviewed citations to back your claims.
Below are a few peer-reviewed articles you could cite for your piece:
This study covers the historical use of medicinal cannabis and how it may find its way into the Western medical setting.
In terms of behavioral health, this paper explores the effects marijuana may have on people suffering from mental disorders. It notes that treatment decreased chronic pain, relieved insomnia, and incurred no adverse effects.
It turns out that opioids are comparably as effective for pain relief as medical cannabis.
A study reveals that 93% of cannabis users who exercise feel that CBD aids in their muscle recovery. This result may be due to the reduced inflammation that CBD can render, but further studies are needed to find definite evidence.
This study is an analysis of clinical trials around the world researching medical marijuana and the struggles they face regarding legalization and compliance.
Even just one of these articles could provide the foundation for a complete and helpful blog post.
The cannabis industry is under strict scrutiny now that it is associated with medicine. Google’s Helpful Content Update has raised standards dramatically, and the responsibility of writers to provide credible information on the subject of pot is more pressing than ever.
Write fresh cannabis content. Don’t keep blogging about the same subjects. Go deeper. Read a genuine peer-reviewed article and offer readers valuable insight into the ancient green weed. Google will reward you for it!
Brainstorming Content: Cannabis and its Quality
This subject doesn’t have to be poetic descriptions of how a particular cannabis strain might smell or make one “feel.” Think bigger.
Consider writing about standards of quality beyond the THC potency or colors of a marijuana flower.
For example, A study done in Canada revealed that illicit marijuana on the market has far more detectable pesticides than its legal counterparts. People who live in a place where legal cannabis dispensaries are commonplace forget that many consumers risk exposure to the pitfalls of an underground marketplace.
The above example should serve as a reminder that there are tons of hardly explored topics when it comes to cannabis. One doesn’t need to cheat the system to have a well-optimized website. Just get creative and make content that’s new and unique!
Natural Language Processing: How the Search Engines See Your Content
NLP, or Natural Language Processing, is a newer venture; and perfect for cannabis SEO. It can help navigate one’s writing style around the confines of the helpful content update.
When a human reads content, they forget that they read through a lens of bias. A blogger may assume that the topic of their article is prominent, but to an automated Google crawler, it usually is not.
Some tools can read content and then show us what Google will see. This is measured in ‘entity salience.’
We have our very own NLP tool at Create Venue. Let’s explore an example of NLP and entity salience:
NLP Analysis: A Cannabis Product Page Case Study
I’ve taken a leading cannabis SEO contender’s content, Royal Queen Seeds, from one of their top pages, Feminized Cannabis Seeds.
Here are the results it shows from our NLP:
These results are not bad, though their page could use some optimization. Their entities are high-ranking keywords like cannabis seeds, but their leading word is ‘numbers,’ which could be changed with some editing to their content.
One needs to reorient the undesired word to fix it until Google ranks your preferred keywords with the highest entity salience.
Our tool is perfect for understanding what a page says from a more comprehensive lens – a Google crawler standpoint.
The critical thing to remember is that your page’s topic needs to stand out. Google will read your keywords and rank you based on that. Tread carefully!
Internal Linking and Helpful Cannabis Content
If you want your site to be navigable and provide authoritative information for your users, your internal linking needs to be flawless. Perfection begins with understanding what internal linking is.
Internal linking is the practice of linking some text on one page to another page.
For example, text leads to Create Venue’s Homepage. It is an internal link to our page.
As your site grows with content, you must begin to link to your internal pages more often than external pages. Make your site a reference index for the subjects you cover. Internal linking plays further into your expertise as a writer and website host!
Anchor Text: Helpful Hyperlinking
Anchor Text, the clickable words in a hyperlink, guides the reader to relevant content. It explains to users where a link leads them and aids search engines in understanding the linked page’s context.
Good anchor text is like giving a friend clear directions – it’s specific, relevant, and avoids vague phrases like “click here.” This approach makes your content more user-friendly and aligns with Google’s Helpful Content guidelines, ensuring your website is informative and easy to navigate.
Navigational Links:
Navigational links are links inserted into headers and the like. They help users find things like a homepage or specific product category.
Contextual Links:
Contextual links are links found in a blog or product description. They link to other pages, lending further context to the subject so Google might better recognize it.
Hierarchal Links:
Hierarchical Links organize the content on a site into a logical hierarchy of main category pages above sub-category pages. This structure helps the search engines understand the layout of your site.
What will Google Do About Un-Helpful Content?
Google’s crawlers scope the internet, looking for pages that provide little value or anything that’s not particularly helpful to the exploring web searcher.
Even if you have some helpful content, the search engine has vowed to flag your page as unhelpful if your good content is mixed in with unnecessary fluff. Here are some of Google’s notes on quality content and ranking.
Here are a couple of examples of what describes unhelpful content:
- Grammatical mistakes and syntax errors. Google will see this as a sign that your site isn’t that informative or helpful.
- Unoriginal content. If you are regurgitating a subject covered by multiple pages and blogs, you’ll be seen as invaluable and rank lower when people search Google.
- Content that lacks credibility. Write pieces relevant to your expertise, and if you make claims, cite your sources!
Google has announced that once a page is classified as unhelpful, it will take a few months for them to note the fixed content and adjust their classification.
The image below is an example of what is happening to pages with unhelpful content in this past Summer of 2023:
A Case Study
On an internet forum in September of 2023, a website called https://approvedmodems.org/ was flagged and lost 40% of its traffic, according to the owners. When the owner posted about this on Google’s forum page, the moderators informed the owners that the site had too many ads and affiliate links.
The site did not bring more value to customers than a well-run website that can fulfill customer orders and provide authoritative content on the subject. This points to the strict nature of the E-A-T guidelines guiding website owners into becoming more helpful.
This case study applies to cannabis pages as well. Google will flag your site if your only goal is to earn money via traffic. Attracting customers to a page solely to take their money is not what the internet is for. One must learn to provide people with concise, credible information if they want their pages to rank well.
If you don’t want to lose 40% of your traffic, write helpful content!
Conclusion
Adapting to Google’s Helpful Content Update, especially in the cannabis SEO sector, demands a strategic, thoughtful approach. Focusing on E-A.T. principles — Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness — is now more critical than ever. By crafting content that genuinely caters to user needs, provides in-depth, reliable information, and steers clear of redundant or keyword-stuffed filler, cannabis businesses can significantly boost their online presence and search engine rankings. Remember, the goal is to create content that satisfies the algorithms and, more importantly, genuinely informs and assists your audience. Stay true to these guidelines, and you’ll be well-positioned for digital success in an ever-evolving SEO landscape.
FAQs:
What is the helpful content update for SEO?
The Helpful Content Update is Google’s initiative to prioritize and rank content that provides genuine value to users. It aims to reduce the visibility of low-quality, unhelpful content in search results, emphasizing content created primarily for user benefit rather than ranking manipulation.
How do I restore my site after Google’s helpful content update?
To align with the Helpful Content Update, review and revise your website’s content to ensure it provides real value, addresses user queries effectively, and demonstrates expertise and authority in your field. Avoid filler content and keyword stuffing.
What is the Google algorithm update for September 2023?
The September 2023 Google algorithm update is part of the ongoing series of updates aimed at improving the quality of search results. It reinforces the importance of creating user-focused content, adhering to E-A-T guidelines, and ensuring websites offer a beneficial, informative user experience.
