By Celeste Miranda

You can convert more sales through video.

Yep, it’s proven. Cannabis products highlighted in online videos resulted in up to 35 percent more conversions on product sales.

The statistics go on and on, so yes, videos can help you make more sales.

First of all, you have to participate in the YouTube game. Yes, you have to. I think cannabis companies are overlooking this way too much.

The descriptions and tags on your video are so important. They need to be relevant. They need to be congruent and they need to be connected. If your title, description, and tags are unrelated, Google will immediately see that you are basically confused and you are going to go to the bottom of the pile.

Your title should be your actual keywords.

You have to stop thinking like a business owner, you have to stop thinking like a marketer, and instead, start to think like your ideal customer. Where would they go? Where would they look if they were going to try to find you? THAT is going to be your title.

When you set up your YouTube channel, keep in mind that Google owns YouTube. The name of your channel actually becomes a keyword.

Make sure title, description and tags are linked to your website. You want to give consumers two things:

1. The ability to call your business. When you are writing your description in YouTube, know that only your first two sentences are going to be viewable when someone is skimming through YouTube. They will have to click on a button that says “show more” if they want to see more. So make sure that your phone number and a link to your website are in those first two sentences.
2. Choose relevant tags. I can’t say that enough. Don’t shotgun tags. Be purposeful and relevant. Google will bury anything else.

You will want to back link the exact video that you are uploading. Say your title is “Cannabis Edibles.” It’s the same title that is going to match up on the keyword search. So if you want to show up on “cannabis edibles,” then that’s going to be the title of your video.

Don’t put the name of your business. If someone knows the name of your business, they already know about you.

Keep your description to less than 150 words. At the end of that description, do something very clever, but yet so simple. You are going to copy and paste the link to the very video you are uploading to YouTube. You are going to back link this video in your description back to YouTube itself. YouTube loves itself and Google will reward you for that.

One last thing: Transcribe your videos. When you post that on the back of your video, you are giving rocket fuel to the search spiders. You will be 53 percent more likely to jump into Google very quickly.

So, Cannabis entrepreneurs, don’t ignore the SEO power of video.