With the inevitable regulation and legalization of marijuana in California, San Franciscan budtender, Adnan, recognized an opportunity in the increased demand for vaping supplies (like custom-branded batteries, cartridges, and vape packaging).
Thus, budtouchvape.com was born. Adnan started developing his clientele from industry networks and connections. But then his first mishap with Google search occurred.
BudTouchVape was thought to drive higher search volume due to its partial-match brand name for the keywords, ‘bud’ and ‘vape’. Unbeknownst to Adnan, this partial-match URL was a double-edged sword.
Due to federal regulations on credit card processing for company names using cannabis-related keywords, BudTouchVape was flagged and was divested of its bank accounts.
Determination and Dedication Keep the Dream Alive
Despite the hiccup with budtouchvape.com, Adnan remained resilient, quickly rebranding under the new name, Oji Vape. After he switched payment platforms and processes, he knew he had to build up his online presence to attract customers.
But in a competitive landscape where paid cannabis ads on search and social platforms were aggressively monitored and removed, Oji Vape’s best bet was SEO.
Adnan engaged with several digital marketing consultants who “specialized” in SEO, all of which ended in unfulfilled promises. Ultimately, he was provided only barebone data on reports with ‘no meat’, a sure sign his SEO lacked a data-driven strategy.
Pursuing paid/retargeting, and social was very difficult. Cannabis (still) has a very negative connotation with Google, which makes it hard to run paid ads. Even if you do run an ad, you have to tread very carefully. SEO is a much better long-term investment.”
Supported only by his own offline sales, Adnan knew he had to cut his losses and quickly find a reputable SEO agency to lift Oji Vape out of its struggles. He pulled up a simple Google search, ‘best SEO company in San Francisco’.
And that’s how he found Victorious.
A Duly Deserved Reward
Having been burned by his prior SEO relationships, Adnan wanted the reassurance of working with a team with a proven track record. Victorious understood the significance of SEO for a cannabis company plagued by online limitations.
Though there was minimal search data from Google, we married our SEO expertise with Adnan’s understanding of the cannabis industry. As a result, we developed a fundamentally-sound keyword research strategy that sprung our partnership forward.
Convinced by the transparency surrounding our data, timeline, and people-first approach, Oji Vape bought into our SEO strategy right away. For Adnan, the decision to commit to our strategy brought forth a gold rush of value.
