Dispensary SEO Guide – How to Rank Your Website Above Your Competitors

Wondering how to start with Dispensary SEO? Below is our tested rank-boosting SEO for Dispensary plan that got our clients pleasing results.

The online sales of hemp CBD products have been dominating offline sales from day one. On average, Google reports around 7.4 million searches for these products each month. If you are in this industry, your business can substantially benefit from this immense fan following of the magical herb.

However, given the rising count of CBD sellers, your brand must stand out from the crowd to earn the said advantage. That is where an effective Dispensary SEO strategy helps. It ranks your website on those of millions of CBD searches above your competition.

What does that mean for your business?
More organic traffic – more potential leads – more sales.

To start, let’s dive into what Dispensary SEO is and why it is important.

What is Dispensary SEO?

Dispensary SEO is not a new jargon term of the digital world. It is simply the process of optimizing your dispensary website with every possible effort to make it appear higher on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). This can be for any search engine – Google, Yahoo, or Bing. There are a variety of tasks that come under Dispensary SEO which you will find below in this blog with complete explanations.

Why SEO For CBD Dispensary?

With restrictions on PPC advertising in the CBD niche, SEO becomes the main marketing channel for Cannabis Dispensary websites. Moreover, people trust and use search engines to solve their problems. And most Hemp CBD products solve some sort of problem – anxiety, depression, pain, skincare, bad sleep, Inflammation, etc.

So, a good Marijuana Dispensary SEO plan compels search engines to suggest your products to people looking for solutions to such problems. Thus, it becomes easier for potential customers to find your website and you get a high-rise in your organic traffic.

According to Search Engine Land, 53% of all internet traffic is organic. For retail & eCommerce, it is 41%, which still beats out traffic from social media, paid media, and other channels. So, with a productive Dispensary SEO strategy, you generate more visitors and revenue.

Benefits of SEO For Marijuana Dispensary

Increase Your Sales
SEO is the best way to build your brand over the long term. By bringing organic traffic to your site, you will increase sales and grow your business.

Reliable And Productive
SEO is the most reliable marketing method in terms of ROI in CBD Dispensary marketing. If done well, it allows you to create a source of long-term sales.

Outrank Your Competitors
With SEO, you can get ahead of your competition by developing your brand and appearing on the top of search engines.

Dispensary SEO Strategy – Blueprint of Our Action Plan

CBD or Marijuana Dispensary SEO plan involves working and improving a list of factors. We will discuss each of them one by one.

Local SEO

Local SEO for Cannabis Dispensary revolves around a local SEO campaign to attract people of your chosen geographical location. The goal is to make your website easily discoverable online in your locality. So, next time when someone searches for CBD oil in “your city name”, your website will appear on top. The key elements of local SEO are:

A Location Page: It represents your location to search engines and visitors. Plus, it makes people feel a connection with your brand as they are most likely to purchase things from a store in their own town and city.

Example: Check out this location page.

Google My Business Listing (GMB): Your potential customers are most likely to search “dispensary or edibles near me” to find a local dispensary.

How can you make your website show up on such searches?

Answer – by listing your business on Google My Business listing. It is the most crucial step of your local SEO for Dispensary plan. Your GMB profile serves as a quick getaway to your website for your customers.

Some pro tips on using GMB:

• Have a robust description of your products, services, and working hours.
• Ensure that there is the correct name, address, and phone number on the profile.
• Make regular updates (product photos, reviews, holidays updates, etc) to the listing.

Local Map Pack: Local map pack displays the top three closest local businesses for a local search query on Google. Dispensaries with an optimized GMB profile with reviews and frequent updates are offered priority to appear in the map pack. It can offer massive lead generation for your dispensary.

Implement Structured Data: It is a piece of code that you can add in your website to make it more search engine friendly. This code offers more information about your business to the search engines. It can drastically raise your search engine rankings.

National SEO

Whereas the local SEO focuses on customers near you, National SEO focuses on promoting your brand as an expert at the national level. It mainly relies on content strategy. You need to make your website a hub of relevant CBD information with your content.

Blog articles like Guides to CBD basics, how-to guides, product usage information are the best type of content to start with. You can also go for videos and podcasts. Videos are a great way to create a social connection with your audience.

Some sites, like WordPress, even give you the option of turning your blog posts directly into podcast episodes. A survey shows that 76% of UK podcast listeners make CBD purchases just by listening to podcasts.

On-Site SEO For Dispensary Websites

Onsite SEO for CBD dispensaries majorly involves these things:

Website Content Audit/strategies

In SEO, quality content is the heroic king. It can make people learn whatever they want in seconds. It attracts people like a magnet. You need to take advantage of this.

Think – what your target audience can be looking for?

Usually, they’re searching for information about a subject or the answer to a query. To answer their questions, perform comprehensive research, and understand your customer segment persona. Then strategize your content for them.

Remember that your content should always focus on what the reader wants to know, for example:

• Information about CBD products
• The benefits of CBD
• Information on the different ways to take CBD
• Where they can buy the best CBD products

While you can’t make medical claims about CBD, you can provide customers with in-depth ideas on how to integrate your products into their daily lives and routines, as well as give them realistic expectations about it. Above all, how your CBD products can solve their problems.

Post regularly (once or twice a week) to boost your online presence and build long-term readership. On top of that, update your old posts with the most recent findings and data, so new readers always find the most relevant information on your page.

Keywords Selection

Before writing the content, do your keyword research. Tools like Google Analytics and Ahrefs can help you determine which topics are worth discussing in your content. They help you to learn about:

What search queries is your audience looking for?
What do Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) look for to rank a webpage for your chosen keywords?

All you have to do is think about how you can replicate that content in your own style. Focus on a few high-volume keywords relevant to your products and make sure your articles, social media, and blog posts use them.

This will tell Google that your website is a content center for these phrases, where people can find a lot of useful information about these keywords.

Page Experience ( Core Web Vitals )

Among its long list of criteria, Google’s algorithm gives more importance to the user experience of your site. The search engine now considers core web vitals a must-to-have component for ranking a website. So, Audit your website for Google’s core web vitals – page load (LCP), interaction (FID), and stability (CLS). Your dispensary website should have high Core Web Vitals scores.

For this, you need to work on:

• Optimize your heavy images
• Navigation speed
• Loading speed
• Preloading important resources
• Minimize long tasks
• Reserve spaces for uploading images
• Make your website mobile-friendly

Here’s our complete guide on it – How To Optimize Google Core Web Vitals

Voice Search Optimization

By 2023, 70% of internet searches will be voice searches. So, it is imperative to perform voice search optimization on your Dispensary website. To do this, align your content with

• Local search queries
• Long-Tail keywords
• Conversational tone
• Covering ‘What, ‘Who,’ ‘ ‘Where’ And ‘How’
• Simple keywords
• Easy to understand terms
• Follow EAT and YMYL Updates

Other on-site Dispensary SEO parameters include optimizing Title tags, Header tags, Image alt/title tags, URLs, 301 Redirects. You can read about them in our technical SEO guide.

Off-Site SEO For Dispensary

Offsite SEO parameters include getting high-quality backlinks and good reviews on your business listings. So let’s see how you can do it.

Backlinks (Quality, Not Quantity)

The links pointing to your site improve Google’s trust in your website and the search engine positions your dispensary better in its search results.

• But, Remember, you need quality, not quantity.
• Only go for the links from high domain authority for your site.

Use guest posting networks of relevant websites to get organic links. Reach out to relevant sites, authors that can publish or write blogs about your brand. Create listings on relevant directories and business listings websites.

Getting Reviews

Good reviews establish a bond of trust between you and your audience. It influences them to visit your website and make the purchase. Start with Google reviews.

Google considers Google reviews as a ranking factor. As a result, they can improve your search rankings. So, ask your loyal and happy customers to give your products a rating on Google.

Moreover, if you have social media profiles of your brand, take reviews on these profiles as well. People feel more comfortable leaving reviews on social networks. Don’t forget to respond and engage with each review that you get.

Furthermore, there are many third-party product listing websites that rate products and services like Trustpilot. You can also include them in your list.

SEO Tools

A marketing strategy, to be successful and profitable, needs to be evaluated. Tools like SEMrush, Kissmetrics, and Google Analytics can help you examine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of your Dispensary SEO Strategy in real-time. You can monitor which content topics your readers enjoy the most and write more about them, which will generate more website clicks and eventually sales!

Pro Advice: Set some realistic goals for your Marijuana Dispensary SEO Campaign. They will allow you to compare your analytics in real-time. If something doesn’t work, modify your plan until it works, or abandon the idea.

FAQ About Cannabis Dispensary SEO

What is Marijuana Dispensary SEO?

Marijuana Dispensary SEO or Cannabis SEO is the process of optimizing a CBD brand, CBD dispensary website to make it Google and other search engines friendly. The goal is to make the website rank higher on search engines.

Can we pay Google to rank well in SEO?

No. You can pay for Google Ads ads that will show on engine results pages, but this has no direct connection to SEO.

Can your CBD website appear first on any SEO query?

Yes, but it takes time, a successful Dispensary SEO strategy, and the guidance of professionals with years of experience in SEO.

How long does it take to be visible in SEO?

It depends on many criteria, the competitive aspect of the chosen query, the age of the site, and the quality of content and backlinks. That said, for a good quality site, you can see positive results in a matter of weeks.

Can anyone guarantee Marijuana Dispensary SEO positioning?

No, it’s impossible. Algorithms change very often, sites are born and die every minute, and search results often move. And above all, we do not know the exact mode of operation of search engines.

How do I know if my dispensary site is well-indexed?

Type “site: www.yoursite.com” on Google, the pages that Google returns are indexed. Also, in the Coverage part of Search Console, you will know the volume of indexed pages.

Note that it is very useful to compare this figure with the actual volume of pages on your site. In the event of a large differential between the two indicators, it may be essential to audit.

How much time per week should I spend on SEO?

There is no optimal time period. You can spend your entire week there. What matters is to work on the parameters that are useful for you and your business.

How to effectively use my dispensary blog?

The blog is useful if you have a lot of information to communicate about your brand.
You can publish content on your topic of expertise and display your products and services.
It serves as a commercial medium since you display your products/services.

What is Search Console?

The Search Console is a tool developed by Google for site owners to monitor, analyze and understand Google’s way of analyzing the content of the pages. The tool gives us lots of very interesting information:

• The loading time
• The number of 404 errors.
• The volume of pages crawled per day.
• A sample of the queries on which your site is positioned.
• Mobile efficiency errors.

In short, it is a powerful monitoring tool that is free and very easy to install.

What is the difference between crawling, indexing, and positioning?

At first, the engines will read the source code of your pages, going from page to page each time they find a link. This is crawling.

Depending on the relevance of the content, its uniqueness, the page will be indexed (not all crawled pages are indexed).

If a said page is indexed, depending on its relevance to a query, the engines will position this page on their results lists on a given query.

Should I index all the pages of my site?

Not all the pages of your site are necessary to index. The objective is to focus search engines on crawling and indexing only useful pages, i.e., pages with a traffic and business objective. For example, products pages, service pages, blogs, and home pages. Conversely, do not index pages without a traffic or conversion objective.

Want to know if your Dispensary SEO strategy is good?

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