Public Relations and SEO company, NisonCo knows what it takes to be an industry leader. The first cannabis-specific PR firm, NisonCo launched in 2013 to represent clients as the industry’s foundations were just starting to take shape. Now, they’re working on a new venture– diving into the world of search engine optimization (SEO). In the beginning of 2020, Evan Nison, NisonCo’s founder, launched the company’s SEO sector. Since it’s foundation, the team has grown into a crew of four top quality SEO specialists. The team has already seen quite a bit of success, organically boosting visibility of their clients across the cannabis industry and beyond. How, might you ask? There’s only one way to know, so we asked the experts themselves.
What makes a successful SEO team?
A successful SEO team needs to be able to constantly learn, experiment, and adopt their processes based on what they learn. If you simply follow ‘best practices’ that you can find online you’ll never be the best SEO agency. To be the best requires outside the box thinking, which is sometimes hard to do while also creating a scalable company with systems and processes.
This sounds simple, but having a great SEO team also requires great employees that have a good working relationship. Although some of the work required for SEO can be repetitive, it should be fun too. Happy people who love what they do perform better as individuals and as a team.
Has SEO become essential to PR? Why or why not?
It can be easily argued that SEO, PR, and blogging are all (nearly) essential to each other. One can be done without the other, but they all help amplify the others and can create a cumulative exponential effect. For instance, links from SEO help your domain authority and rank, your rank helps your credibility with reporters, and blogs add fuel to that fire.
There is also no better way to improve your domain authority and rank on google than being an authority in real life. Establishing your expertise and legitimacy through the news media is the way to do that.
— Evan Nison, founder and owner of NisonCo PR
Why do you think PR & SEO services complement one another?
Public Relations and SEO services go so well together because that’s how they’re designed. PR is public facing, meaning you work to get companies recognized throughout the media, forging relationships with journalists and inspiring people to want to know more about your company’s mission. SEO, on the other hand, isn’t as public facing. It requires putting in that work on the back end to ensure that viewership is enhanced naturally, tuning your business into key audiences that would otherwise be seeking out what your company does.
— Kelly Ebbert, NisonCo SEO Specialist & Pitching Coordinator
How do you envision the future of SEO?
The future of SEO is quite exciting. As more companies come online, we will see them try to find a niche where they can really thrive. They will/should focus their SEO efforts on the things they are proud of, whether it be a specific product(s) or service(s) they provide. SEO will provide these companies an outlet to really highlight and promote themselves to their target audiences.
How will the SEO landscape change as more cannabis companies come online?
The current SEO landscape will see some changes but nothing too drastic in my opinion as more companies come online. At the moment there are many diverse companies that have their own place in the landscape. As the cannabis industry continues to grow and more states legalize, I am excited to see what the newer companies do to stand out. One can obviously be successful taking a traditional approach but there will be companies that come and blow us out of the water with their original ideas. As competition grows, innovation is what will set the good from the great.
— Tony Ham, NisonCo SEO Manager
What advice do you have for those who want to be successful in SEO?
My advice would be to never stop learning about SEO. Keep pushing yourself forward until you get to where you want to be, whatever your goals are. Don’t just sit there and read everything, but rather do that and then actually apply it in the real world. You have to take action if you want to get anywhere!
What’s one key takeaway that’s helped you thrive in the SEO space?
One key takeaway that’s helped me is knowing that there is always more than one way to go about things. You want to continually keep testing new ideas to find out what’s working.
–Colten Koch, NisonCo SEO Manager