Last Updated on by Artem K.
Promoting CBD products is tricky because entire marketing channels (e.g. Facebook) aren’t available for use.
This places added importance on organic traffic.
In this case study, I want to demonstrate how we helped a little affiliate site grow its traffic 6 X (going from ~10,000 to 60,000+ monthly unique visitors).
All in less than 600 words – read on! 😎
Table of Contents
- Results
- 1. The Kick-Off
- 2. The Progress
- 3. And Then the Medic Update Came by…
- 4. The Magic of Recovery (via Algo Adjustment)
- Need Links? Get In Touch
Results
- Our former client – Herbonaut.com – now gets 60,000+ organic unique monthly visitors (via Ahrefs estimate; in reality, the number is significantly higher)
- 40 links acquired via white hat outreach
- Their traffic grew from ~10,000 to 60,000
Comments and details are down below – check them out! 😉
1. The Kick Off
We kicked off this project in March, 2018.
After giving it a quick look we discovered that the website had some quite amazing content that was easy to promote.
Here are some of the examples:
- 17 Potential Benefits of CBD Oil (Plus Effects and Side Effects)
- 61 Potential Benefits of Marijuana and Its Cannabinoids that Are Backed By Scientific Research
- How to Quit Smoking and STAY Clean (Backed By Science)
- Are Vaporizers Safe? A Guide on How to Avoid Health Disasters
The initial idea was to use a healthy combination of:
- Resource page link building
- Competitor-based outreach
- Guest posts (I’m not a fan of “write for us” guest posts, so we kept these at a minimum + had additional safety margins to keep things clean)
2. The Progress
The theory worked. 😎
Soon enough we started getting great backlinks just like these:
- http://nationalhempassociation.org/can-cbd-really-help-our-opiate-epidemic/ (DR 55 via competitor-based outreach)
- https://www.medicann.com/resources.html (DR 27 via resource page outreach)
On top of that we were able to secure amazing guest contribution opportunities (without paying a single penny for them):
- https://theheartysoul.com/10-medical-benefits-cbd-oil/ (DR 66)
- https://www.daimanuel.com/2018/05/16/the-5-healthiest-ways-to-use-marijuana/ (DR 55)
We also created an outstanding infographic and pitched it to various websites for extra exposure, getting it featured in top-level blogs like this:
- https://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/infographic-european-countries-mj-legal/ (DR 70)
We built a total of 40 backlinks using nothing but white hat outreach (without paying for any of the links).
This helped to grow from ~10,000 all the way to 60,000+ unique monthly visitors.
3. And Then the Medic Update Came by…
In fact, it was the 2nd wave of the “Medic Update” that hit the client.
We made every effort to help the situation but nothing really helped (anyone saying that they knew exactly what was wrong was a fraud).
We theorized that the update wasn’t about the links we built…
And it turned out to be true.
4. The Magic of Recovery (via Algo Readjustment)
As it often happens with Google (and its notorious updates), you have to sit and wait for the readjustment to kick in (this is only true, however, if you are confident in what you do, the content you create, the methods you use to promote it, etc).
It’s also important to note that no major changes were made on the website during the “down” period.
So approximately 4.5 months after the initial KO, the traffic recovered and…
Hit the new heights (currently standing at 60,000+ unique visitors per month).
Need Links? Get In Touch
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P.S. Need more info about our process and how we do things at Linkshero? Check it out here.
