Link Building for CBD Websites : Get More Web Traffic & Increase Sales

Are you struggling to rank higher and attract more cannabis buyers despite selling top-notch CBD products? You are not alone.

In a niche where regulations are tight and paid ads are practically off the table, being easily visible to your potential customers can feel like climbing uphill with one hand tied behind your back.

Cannabis link building is your trump card to build authority and show up on Google’s first page for cannabis-related searches.

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In this write-up, I’ll tell you all you need to know about link building for cannabis websites and how you can leverage it to become a leading player in the CBD industry.

What is CBD Link Building?

Cannabis link building is the process of getting other cannabis, health and wellness and fitness websites to link back to your own cannabis business website.

Think of these backlinks as online votes of confidence. When a credible source links to your site, it tells Google that your content is reliable, informative, and worth showing to users. This is especially important in the cannabis niche where trust and compliance are paramount.

As paid ads are heavily restricted, your cannabis SEO strategy needs to do the heavy lifting. Being an integral part of your SEO, cannabis link building is key to boosting visibility and building authority in the highly regulated market.

Why is Link Building Important for CBD Websites?

Check out the specific benefits of cannabis link building for your business below.

Enhanced Credibility and Trust

When credible websites link to your CBD website, it significantly boosts your dispensary’s reputation in the eyes of both users and search engines. These backlinks act as endorsements, indicating that your information is reliable, well-researched, and valuable.

As a result, potential customers are more likely to trust your brand. This trust factor is crucial in industries like cannabis, where consumers often seek assurance regarding product quality and safety.

Alternative to Restricted Advertising 

Stringent paid advertising regulations for cannabis products make it difficult to promote your offerings across traditional digital advertising channels.

Given the scenario, cannabis link building emerges as a powerful alternative to enhance your dispensary’s online visibility without relying on paid ads.

Higher Rankings

Google still relies on backlinks to rank sites in search results. More high-quality backlinks mean higher rankings for your business in search results for cannabis-related keywords.

With 75% of users not looking past Google’s first page, backlinks are a must-have to secure top rankings.

Increased Organic Traffic

Achieving higher rankings using cannabis link building strategies helps your website to be easily visible when people actively search for cannabis products and guides. This way, your website can attract more visitors organically.

Here’s an example from our own portfolio. What you see below is the organic traffic growth of one of our clients, CBD Dog Health. As we built powerful backlinks pointing to their site, their organic traffic increased simultaneously.

Boost Sales

With the growth of traffic and trust for your website, conversions follow. This way, cannabis backlinks can help you boost your CBD sales and generate more revenue.

What Makes a Good CBD Backlink?

While good backlinks complement your cannabis SEO efforts, bad ones hamper them. Here’s how you can identify good backlinks for cannabis websites.

• Quality: Focus on getting links from trusted websites with actual authority and avoid low-quality domains and PBNs offering shady backlinks.
• Relevance: A backlink from a health, wellness, or cannabis blog carries way more relevance than one from a random niche.
• Context: If your link is just dumped unnaturally into a page, that’s a red flag. Make sure it fits naturally within helpful cannabis content.
• Value-Added: Good backlinks offer value to users. Make sure your backlink from another site points to a useful and relevant page on your own.

What are the Best Cannabis Link Building Strategies in 2025?

Here we come to the execution part of effective cannabis link building. Check out the strategies below.

1. Guest Posting

Guest posting works like a charm in a niche like CBD where trust building is paramount.

Find cannabis-friendly blogs, wellness platforms, or even lifestyle magazines that talk about CBD, health supplements, or plant-based products.

Pitch helpful, research-backed content around topics like the benefits of CBD oil, choosing the right cannabis strain, or compliance tips for dispensaries. Make sure your guest post content is relevant to the host site’s audience.

Once your guest post is live, you get a quality backlink that helps boost your rankings and drive referral traffic to your cannabis website.

While this process sounds simple in theory, earning high-quality guest post backlinks can be time-consuming, especially amid your regular CBD business operations.

What if you could get the best of both worlds? Leverage Stan Ventures’ comprehensive cannabis link building services, covering everything from strategic blogger outreach to guest posting on authoritative websites relevant to your niche.

2. Skyscraper Technique

The skyscraper technique is a good way to earn high-quality cannabis backlinks.

Find top-performing articles in the cannabis industry and start creating content that’s even better. Yes, better than the best. That’s the idea.

Once you create content, reach out to websites linking back to the existing content to offer your content as a replacement and ask for a backlink.

Since your content offers better value, these sites are most likely to link back to you.

3. Local Directory Listing

If you run a physical cannabis dispensary or want to attract CBD buyers based on location, you need to build local directory backlinks. Let me explain.

When I searched for “Best cannabis dispensaries in Austin”, 2 out of the top 3 organic search results were local listings.

Earn backlinks by listing your business on trusted cannabis directories like Weedmaps, Leafly, and more. As these platforms already attract cannabis consumers, getting listed on them puts your CBD brand in front of high-intent cannabis buyers.

Make sure your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are consistent across all directory listings. Add photos, product descriptions and reviews to increase your credibility and attract more potential buyers.

4. Unlinked Brand Mentions

An unlinked brand mention is when your cannabis brand is mentioned online without a backlink. That’s an untapped backlink opportunity.

Set up alerts using tools like Google Alerts or BuzzSumo to track where your brand is being talked about, including news articles, cannabis blogs, or forum discussions.

If you come across your brand mention without a link, reach out to the publisher with a professional email asking for a backlink.

Since they are already familiar with your brand, most site owners will gladly offer you a backlink.

Note: When you build backlinks using unlinked brand mentions, make sure the social sentiment of the content surrounding your backlink is positive.

5. Niche Edits

Tired of creating content for cannabis link building? Enter niche edits.

This strategy is all about placing your backlink inside existing cannabis articles that are already published, indexed, and ranking well. Since the content is already driving traffic, your niche edit backlink gets instant visibility and SEO value.

Shortlist cannabis-friendly blogs and request them to add a link to a relevant page on your CBD website. Highlight how your page’s content adds value to the host site’s audience.

Need help building niche edit backlinks that drive real results? Leverage our niche edit services. Focus on your core cannabis business activities while we get the job done for you.

6. Resource Page Link Building

Resource page link building is one of the best ways to build authoritative backlinks to your cannabis website.

Look for cannabis-related pages like “CBD Resources,” “Helpful Cannabis Links,” or “Medical Marijuana Guides.” These are curated pages designed to point readers to trustworthy sources. That’s exactly where you want backlinks from.

Craft a short outreach email that highlights how your content is a valuable addition to the corresponding resource page.

Make sure you pitch your best educational or compliance-focused cannabis content for resource page link building. This can be anything, including beginner’s guides to cannabis, CBD dosage tips, or updated legal information.

7. Cannabis Industry Partnerships

Do you work with other cannabis vendors, packaging suppliers, or local dispensaries? Make sure you translate those relationships into powerful backlinks.

Ask your partners if they can feature your brand on their websites through a dedicated blog post, a partner page or a supplier listing. Make sure the link makes sense contextually.

If you choose to exchange backlinks, make sure you keep it limited. After all, Google hates unnatural link exchanges. A few wrong moves there can bring you search engine penalties that can reverse the results of your genuine cannabis link building efforts.

8. Sponsorship and Community Engagement

Strengthen your dispensary’s local presence and earn backlinks by actively sponsoring or taking part in cannabis-friendly events like educational seminars, wellness fairs, and advocacy meetups. These events often earn your brand mentions and backlinks from event websites, cannabis blogs, and local press.

Plus, collaborating with local cannabis influencers, advocates, or health professionals can organically boost your visibility while creating natural link building opportunities within the niche.

9. Press Releases and Interviews

Get in touch with local digital media for interviews, press releases, or feature stories about your dispensary. Make sure your content is news-worthy.

When the news, interview or press release goes live, corresponding local websites link back to your website. This can increase the local relevance of your dispensary and drive more local leads and foot traffic your way.

10. User-Generated Content

User-generated content like online reviews can also help you earn natural links to strengthen your backlink profile.

Encourage your satisfied customers to post reviews on your Google Business Profile and other local review sites. This can help build social proof and earn backlinks simultaneously. Create a Google review link or a QR code to make leaving online reviews for your CBD dispensary seamlessly.

What are the Common Cannabis Link Building Mistakes to Avoid?

Here are the most common cannabis link building mistakes you should dodge.

• Low-Quality Backlinks: Backlinks from spammy blogs, PBNs, or irrelevant sites don’t add up. Ensure you prioritize link quality over quantity.
• Not Creating Industry-Compliant Content: Google doesn’t take unverified claims lightly, especially in a sensitive niche like cannabis. Stay compliant every step of the way.
• Excessive Reciprocal Link Building: Too many link exchanges can seem like an attempt to tamper with search engine algorithms.
• Over-Optimizing Anchor Text – Over-exploiting exact match keywords for cannabis link building is a red flag.

Remember, even if you sell top-shelf cannabis products, your brand won’t get enough visibility and customers until you position yourself as an authority in your niche.

Investing in link building for cannabis websites is a must to go the extra mile and shout out your presence online.

Implement the cannabis link building strategies we discussed here and I’m sure you will see a difference.

Want help creating your personalized link building strategy? Book a free link building consultation with our experts to get a bigger picture of our CBD link building services.