Cannabis Content Writing: Full Guide [With Examples]

Any cannabis brand that wants to win in 2024 has to have a standout content marketing program. 

At this point, “content marketing” has become synonymous with “marketing” because most online marketing activities involve creating content of some kind. 

Blog content, in particular, is important because it plays a major role in SEO, which is the highest-ROI online customer acquisition channel for many cannabis brands. When done right, blogging can also be the basis for your brand’s entire content engine, from emails to social media posts.

But how do you craft blog posts that are optimized to perform in search, but are still unique and build connections with potential customers?

It’s definitely possible, but you need a good process. 

So in this article, we’re laying out the exact cannabis content writing process we use to achieve outcomes for our clients in the cannabis and hemp space.

What is Cannabis Content Writing?

Cannabis content writing is the practice of planning, developing, and publishing written material for your cannabis brand, such as articles, blog posts, and product descriptions.

Given that most online marketing is content marketing, content writing is typically done with the purpose of engaging your target audience and accomplishing some specific objective with them. 

For the sake of this article, we’ll focus exclusively on SEO-focused blog content, as, for many companies, it’s the backbone of their SEO strategy and a major part of their content engine. 

Blog content offers a few major benefits for cannabis brands, whether they sell locally or nationally:

• Content builds topical authority: Writing helpful content about cannabis-related topics builds your site’s authority for these topics, which allows every page on your site related to these topics to rank higher on Google. This topical authority can then be leveraged to rank your valuable, revenue-producing pages and assets. Cannabis local SEO revolves around ranking your Google Business Profile and location pages, while national SEO focuses on elevating the visibility of your category and product pages. 
• Content drives top- and middle-of-funnel traffic: Blog content can address questions your potential customers search before making a purchase. These readers can be converted into email signups, then later converted to customers down the line. 
• Content can fuel your entire marketing engine: Most cannabis brands invest in multiple content channels and formats, including emails, short-form video, long-form video, and short text posts. One blog post can be converted into, or serve as source material for, many types of content. Assuming the original blog post is high quality, writing content on a regular basis can make the process of creating content for many channels more efficient. 

Cannabis Content Writing: The Basic Process

We break the cannabis content writing process down into eight steps:

1. Choose topic
2. Perform SERP analysis
3. Write headline & build outline 
4. Research article
5. Write first draft
6. Edit piece
7. Embellish
8. Publish

While getting good at writing cannabis content takes practice, if you consistently follow this process to a T, your content will perform well in search. 

Step 1: Choose Topic

The first step to writing is always figuring out what you want to write about. Or, in other words, choosing which cannabis keywords you’re going to target. 

However, when doing SEO, it’s always best to think first in topics, rather than keywords. Google often (though not always) understands that multiple queries that are worded differently, but mean the same thing, can be answered by one page, not multiple. 

Therefore, you’ll be writing content to rank for an entire topic (group of keywords), even though you’ll be formatting the post to target a single keyword. 

At a basic level, any cannabis keyword you choose to target should meet three criteria:

1. Maps to the products you sell (so you’ll build topical authority).
2. Has decent monthly search volume – to start, I recommend keywords with 50-100 searches per month starting out (so you’ll get traffic if you rank).
3. Has reasonably low competition – to start, I recommend a difficulty score (via an SEO tool) of 30 or under to start (so you can rank in a reasonable time frame).

To find topics that build your site’s authority, we recommend starting with your product line and coming up with ideas. 

Then, you can use search data to check your assumptions, find additional ideas, and prioritize your topics.  

Here, we’ll give an example of how to use a product line to come up with content ideas.

Let’s say you have a THC drinks product category, and you want to rank for terms like “THC drinks.” 

You need to find the main information-focused subtopics underneath THC drinks. 

These might be things like:

• THC drinks vs. edibles
• How long do THC drinks take to start working
• Where to buy THC drinks
• How do THC drinks make you feel

If a specific sub-topic is too difficult, you can get more granular and target sub-sub topics.

To check whether a topic is part of another, larger topic, or if it should get its own post, simply search the head keyword for each topic on Google and compare the results.

If the results are the same, you should write a single blog post to target both keywords. 

If the results are different, you might have two content opportunities instead of one. 

Once you’ve identified a list of opportunities for each major product category you sell, write all the blog posts for each category one at a time, prioritizing lower-competition keywords first. 

Step 2: Perform SERP Analysis

Search engine result page (SERP) analysis is the critical ingredient in the cannabis content recipe that allows your post to rank on Google once it’s published. 

Essentially, SERP analysis is the process of reverse-engineering what’s already ranking to determine what you need to include in your article in order to rank.

Here’s the exact process we use at our agency:

• Do a Google search for the keyword you’re targeting.
• Write down all the subtopics in the titles of the top 10 ranking articles, making tallies next to a subtopic each time it appears.
• Perform a subtopic analysis; click in the Google search bar and see which subtopics Google autocompletes for your keyword (e.g. for the keyword “THC vs CBD,” Google might autocomplete “THC vs CBD vs CBN,” “THC vs CBD for anxiety,” and “THC vs CBD for pain.”) Write down these autocomplete subtopics in the order they appear.
• Determine which 1-3 search intents to answer, based on which topics appear most often in the titles of the top 10 articles and appear highest in Google autocomplete.
  • What subtopics of the main keyword are you going to focus on in your title and content? From the example above, are you going to compare THC and CBD for anxiety and pain in addition to giving a general comparison? Are you going to compare them to CBN? All three? This is the step where you decide, at a high level, what your article is going to cover.
• Figure out which subtopics are the most important to the topic by reading through the top 5-10 results and writing down all the topics you see covered in the Heading 2 and Heading 3 tags, making a tally for each time a topic appears. 

Step 3: Write Headline & Build Outline

Now that you know roughly what your article will cover, and what’s working for other people, it’s time to write your article headline and build your article outline. 

Your headline should meet these criteria:

• Include keyword your trying to rank for, or a close variant
• Include the top 1-3 search intents (subtopics)
• Be below 60 characters

From the example in step 2, our headline could be, “THC vs. CBD: Differences & How They Compare to CBN.” 

This headline includes our main keyword and focuses on the two main intents people have when searching this keyword: learning the difference between these two cannabinoids, and discovering how they compare to CBN.

To build your outline, do the following:

• Highlight all the most frequently-covered subtopics from step five of your SERP analysis. These are the topics you’ll need to cover in your article in order for it to rank.
• Write these topics down in the order you’ll cover them in your article.
• Add in additional subtopics, based on the opportunities you see to better fit the search intent of the keyword. 
• Convert these topics to Heading 2s in your article; this is your basic outline.
• Add in necessary Heading 3 topics, based on your SERP analysis, common sense, and what you determine would be beneficial to discuss.
• Add a conclusion/takeaways section at the end of your article.

One additional insight that can help you craft better outlines is the MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) principles. This means your article should cover every subtopic that is part of the main topic you’re writing about, but should NOT cover any subtopic that isn’t part of your main topic. 

While it’s not always clear whether a subtopic falls under the main topic, using this mental framework allows you to get into the mindset of crafting article outlines that make sense to the reader.

Step 4: Research Article

With your outline built, it’s time to do some research to gather the information that will fill in your outline and serve as the basis for the talking points you present to the reader.

By building a robust outline, you can spend 100% of your writing time on wordsmithing, as opposed to tracking down additional information when you realize you don’t have enough. 

When doing article research for our cannabis clients, we pull insights from five main sources:

1. Subject-matter-expert interviews: If you own or work for a cannabis company, you’re probably already enough of a subject-matter-expert on cannabis to create helpful content. But if you’re writing content for someone else’s cannabis company (as we do on a daily basis), you’ll want to interview someone with cannabis knowledge for every article you create. This will ensure your article includes insights that aren’t available elsewhere, which allows you to provide unique value to your readers and gives you a competitive advantage from an SEO and branding standpoint.
2. Scientific journals: If you’re writing about the benefits of cannabis or explaining how it affects the body, you’ll need to cite scientific research to back up your points. However, ensure that you don’t misrepresent the research, use it to claim your products can treat diseases, or use it to claim that your products will reduce disease symptoms – this is how you get into trouble with the FDA.  
3. Your other content: If you’re creating groups of articles around each of your product lines, every article topic will be a subtopic in another article in the same group. As you fill in your outline, add links to these related articles, and paste in relevant information from each. Many sections will be re-usable between articles; this is a timesaver and it doesn’t diminish the quality of your content.
4. Forums and social media platforms: Reddit, Quora, Twitter, and other discussion-based platforms are great sources of anecdotal insights and firsthand experience from real people about your topic. Lots of people share their experiences with cannabis products online (r/cannabis has 214k members); search your topic on these platforms and see if people bring up the same things repeatedly. You should seek to include these insights in your article, assuming they aren’t harmful or objectively untrue.
5. Other online resources: After you’ve scoured the four sources above to ensure your content is as uniquely valuable as possible, you can begin pulling information from other people’s content. But instead of searching your keyword and pulling from the top-ranking articles, add “filetype:pdf” to your search to uncover publicly available PDFs about your topic that most readers (and other brands) don’t know exist.

Step 5: Write First Draft

Now it’s time to write your first draft, where you’ll tie your research together to create a complete article. 

While this step is largely self-explanatory, we’ll offer two writing tips in response to some of the most common blogging mistakes we see cannabis brands making:

1. Put the BLUF: BLUF stands for bottom line up front. People don’t click your content to read an intriguing intro: they click because they need an answer or an insight, and they’re hoping you can give it to them. So do that – answer the key question (which you should know based on your SERP analysis) in the first few sentences of the article. Use the rest of the article to expand on and give context to that answer.
2. Don’t use statistics or research as arguments: Use 3rd-party sources to support your arguments, but ensure your arguments and ideas stand on their own from a logic and coherence standpoint.

Don’t overthink this step; just get the first draft done. It won’t even be close to perfect, but that’s what step six is for.

Step 6: Edit

Editing takes your article from good to great. 

The first step is to run a spell check. This will fix easy, time-consuming mistakes before you dive into the complex editing work. 

Apart from fixing common-sense grammar and sentence structure issues, here are some things we do while editing that helps to elevate our clients’ content beyond what most cannabis brands put out:

• Avoid mixing up bullet points and numbered lists: If you say, “here are three things to keep in mind” or similar, be sure to present the information as a numbered list and not a bullet list.
• Avoid introducing each section: Don’t write “in this section, we’ll discuss…” Don’t introduce each section; it’s annoying to read and makes no sense if your article is already structured logically. Instead, get into the content of the section in the first sentence.
• Minimize your use of “more on that later”: This usually means you’re discussing topics out of turn. Sometimes this is necessary, but most of the time it’s not.
• Leave some eye relief: You’re not writing a research paper, you’re writing a blog post. Break up paragraphs of more than three lines (unless they’re in a list) to make your article easier to read. 
• Make headings scannable: Add context to your headings so that people are able to easily scan your article and find where their answer is. As an example, if you’re discussing scientific research behind cannabis under an H2, and discussing research for different uses in the H3s underneath, say “Research suggests cannabis may promote restful sleep” instead of just writing “Sleep.”

You’ll also want to perform a quick SEO edit of your article by running it through a tool like SEMrush or Clearscope. 

These tools suggest keywords to include in your article based on what’s already ranking, and they’re great at identifying if there’s a certain area where your article is falling short in terms of topic coverage.

Just be sure not to overdo the keyword suggestions to the point that including them begins to diminish the quality of your content.

Step 7: Embellish

After you’ve edited your article into a valuable, easy-to-read resource, improve it further by adding:

• Images and graphics: Ideally, these are custom graphics and images of your products, but at the very least, add a couple of stock photos with your logo or branding to them.
• Videos: If your cannabis brand has a YouTube channel, embed related videos into your articles. Not only does this improve the overall quality of your content, but it keeps people on the page longer, which results in higher rankings. 
• Calls-to-action (CTAs): Every article must have a CTA somewhere. You can use interstitial CTAs that lead to your category and product pages, or you can provide links in the text throughout that lead to these pages or to other articles on your site. Just be sure that your CTAs map clearly to the content of the article and that you don’t put too many.

Step 8: Publish

Now you can upload your article to your content management system (CMS). 

But before you hit publish, be sure to do the following:

• Write your SEO title: This is the title that will show up in the search results. Generally, it will be the same as the regular article title, but you may want to change it slightly to improve clickthrough rates. Just be sure to keep it under 60 characters, or it will be cut off. 
• Write meta description: This is the text that is displayed just below the title in the search results. To write it, briefly summarize the value someone will get from reading your article (what topics you cover or questions you answer), or, address the main question your article answers. Keep it under 160 characters.
• Write slug: This is the URL of the article. Your slug should be the head keyword you’re trying to rank for.
• Add the article to appropriate categories: If you have blog categories, be sure to place your new article in all the correct ones before publishing. 
• Add a featured image: Depending on your site, this may or may not show up in your article, but it will likely show up in your blog feed and it may also show up in search results.

And after you hit publish, do the following:

• Add links to your new article from relevant existing articles: This will pass authority to your new page immediately, and will help Google find your new content faster. 
• Submit your new article for indexing in Google Search Console: While not required, this also helps Google index and rank your article more quickly. Also be sure to re-submit the old articles in which you added links pointing to your new article. If you haven’t yet connected your site to Google Search Console, here’s a guide to doing so.

And there you have it! You just published an awesome piece of content. 

Three Excellent Cannabis Content Writing Examples

To help make the processes in this article more concrete, below are three examples of excellent blog content written by cannabis companies.

1. Leafly

There’s no doubt you’ve heard of Leafly, a platform where users can buy cannabis and learn more about it. Given they provide services to customers through their website, Leafly has invested heavily in SEO.

Leafly’s guide to consuming edibles ranks in the top 5 positions for keywords like “how to take edibles” (170 searches/mo) and “how to eat edibles” (110 searches/mo). 

In addition to covering the topic of edible consumption in great depth, Leafly links out to their related content throughout the article. While this piece contains lots of internal links, they’re all very relevant. Therefore, Leafly is able to reap the SEO benefits of internal linking without taking away from the user experience.

Overall, this article provides useful information while bolstering other pages as part of Leafly’s larger SEO strategy. 

2. Lifted DC

Lifted DC is a dispensary and weed delivery service that serves Washington D.C. and Virginia. They’ve invested in blog content as part of their comprehensive SEO strategy.

Their blog post titled “Here’s What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Edibles” ranks in the top 10 for keywords like “how do edibles make you feel” (210 searches/mo), “do edibles make you tired” (70 searches/mo), and “do edibles make you sleepy” (90 searches/mo). 

Despite this post not being optimally structured from an SEO performance standpoint, it still ranks and creates value for Lifted DC because it’s high-quality: it covers every relevant subtopic and provides in-depth explanations of how edibles do what they do. 

3. Mission Dispensaries

Mission is a five-location dispensary chain in Illinois and Massachusetts. As part of their local SEO strategy, they’ve invested in blog content to bolster their authority. 

Their guide to making cannabis tinctures performs very well from an SEO standpoint, ranking #1 for keywords like “how to make cannabis tincture” (1,600 searches/mo) and “how to make weed tincture” (1,300 searches/mo). 

And after you scroll through their article, it’s not hard to see why. The article presents the process used to make cannabis tinctures in a logical, easy-to-understand way, and it goes extremely in-depth on how to do each step. 

Conclusion: How to Create Cannabis Content That Ranks & Turns Heads

The key to creating great content for your cannabis brand is, first and foremost, to put yourself in your reader’s place – what are they really looking for when they click on your blog post?

Understanding your potential customers is a requirement: the process outlined here is just a guide to turning this understanding into helpful pieces of content that rank on Google and drive results for your cannabis brand. 

But remember, too, that content writing is just one part of a cannabis SEO strategy. 

Watch the video below for a comprehensive breakdown of how to use SEO to acquire more customers for your cannabis brand:

Learn More or Work With Us

• Our Cannabis Content Writing Services: We help cannabis companies scale their content production with end-to-end blog content writing services. We cover everything from ideation to production to publishing the content on your site. But what really sets our content writing services apart is that we build the keyword strategy behind all the content we produce for you. We hone in on the topics that will help your lucrative pages rank higher, then create world-class pieces of content targeting each.
• Our Blog: Weekly posts on topics about cannabis and hemp SEO, marketing, and content creation. 
• Our YouTube Channel: Weekly in-depth videos on all elements of cannabis and hemp SEO, marketing, and content creation.