Our Local Cannabis SEO Guide
Cannabis SEO is evolving, and local SEO has made a massive impact on the growth of the cannabis industry.
The unique interplay between cannabis and Local SEO unveils new challenges and opportunities. This article delves into adapting cannabis SEO strategies for dispensaries, ensuring they not only comply with healthcare standards but also thrive in their local markets.
Unique Challenges in Cannabis SEO
Cannabis SEO diverges significantly from traditional SEO tactics. Being part of the healthcare sector it demands strict adherence to Google’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) principles. In large part, this is because of the association cannabis has with medicine, more than ever before.
Cannabis, now emerging as medicine, means all content on the subject must be accurate and legally compliant on account of cannabis legality varying by region. This new designation presents a challenge regarding which markets to target and which demographics to avoid.
Another significant challenge is ensuring business profiles regarding Maps apps are in order. An unchecked Google Maps profile may produce devastating results.
Critical Components of Local Cannabis SEO Strategy
Local SEO is vital to a cannabis dispensary’s business. It’s about capturing the essence of local searches, ensuring your dispensary surfaces when potential customers look for “cannabis near me.” These ‘locals’ are some of the most fruitful customers a business owner can attract.
For some perspective:
- 80% of local queries on mobile devices convert
- 86% of buyers use Google’s local search feature to find a business
- 46% of all Google searches utilize the location of the searcher
Statistics from this article were found on Google Maps for professionals.
Local dispensary SEO leads high-purchase-intent customers, ready to buy cannabis within a few hours, to your dispensary. That’s the primary purpose.
If you want the people around you who are looking to buy marijuana to know you exist, your local SEO strategy must be perfect. Perfection starts with the Maps apps.
Business Presence on Maps Applications: An SEO Imperative
- Google Maps
Google Maps is the most critical application for a business that relies on Local SEO. It is the most utilized Maps application in the world and the US. A presence on Google Maps can make or break a small business like a dispensary.
Google relies on three main factors to determine a site’s local ranking:
Relevance
A local business’s profile has to address what people are searching for. Google uses all of the information it can get to match a customer with their query. So, the more information a business provides on its profile, the more likely it is to serve a local customer properly.
Distance
Fairly obvious is the location of the web surfer. The closer a business is to them, the better. This further reinforces the need for a proper address on your business profile.
Prominence
Prominence refers to the fame of a business. How well-known is it? Does it have tons of reviews and articles written about it? These significantly factor into a business’s local search engine ranking.
For example, a business may be nearby that has a high-cost inventory of cannabis. But a dispensary slightly farther away with better reviews, an updated profile, and lower prices may get precedence over the nearer business if the searcher is looking for “Cheap Cannabis Dispensaries.” Google serves customers and their needs, not companies.
If you need further guidance on setting up your Google Business profile, check out this guide.
All Maps Applications
Google Maps is the most important app to be on, but there are others.
In terms of ALL Maps applications, it is essential that you:
- Complete your business profiles.
- Make sure your hours, address, and phone numbers are accurate. Make your location clear to Google by adding your city to the URL.
- Provide an accurate and helpful description of your business.
- For example, “We sell premium products” indicates your store may be a bit more expensive and of higher quality than the average dispensary. Google doesn’t want to bring customers to stores that don’t serve them.
- Update your social media (including Yelp) with helpful content like menus, prices, and pictures of your store.
- Become part of the ‘Map Pack’. This term refers to the first five results when searching on a Maps application. These results receive a tiny pinpoint of their location and pictures from their profiles. Being part of the “Map Pack” should be the endgame goal for all local businesses.
The Maps applications like Google Maps, Apple Maps, Weedmaps, and Waze are essential for dispensary SEO. So, how do we use these apps to reap profits!?
Cannabis Brand Strategy and Keyword Research: Step-by-Step
You want to update your profiles on all the Maps applications, but what do you say? How do you figure out what locals type into their phones when they are looking to acquire cannabis?
May the Keyword Research commence!
There are many ways to research keywords for your brand strategy, but you must begin by:
- Figuring out Your Desires as a Dispensary Owner
- Do you want to spend time writing articles for your blog so your site becomes referenced and authoritative? It can be fruitful but is time-consuming. Consider contacting a company full of experts like ours to create profitable content.
- Do you want wealthier customers to come in from the affluent neighborhoods a couple of miles away, or do you want to attract a more local customer base who may desire marijuana that is of a more average quality and price?
Decide on your approach before doing your keyword research.
- Discovering the Right Keywords for You!
List all the words a person might type in to find your product. This intuitive exercise will pay off tenfold for the time it takes to comprise the list. These phrases you come up with are what you’ll use to begin your research.
- Keyword Research
Keyword research is the bread-and-butter moment. One must make sure to put authentic time into this.
You’ll find many paid research tools that can help with organic and paid search, such as:
- Conductor and Searchmetrics
- Conductor is the best for giving you ideas on competitors’ actions and how to format things like headers in your content. You can paste your competitor’s URL into Conductor and have it assess the keywords and such they are ranking well for.
- SearchMetrics provides an editing window that will let you know if you have enough of the right keywords in your content.
Both are helpful, but to an average dispensary owner, they may be overkill.
Some FREE tools are Google’s Keyword Planner and Keyword Surfer.
Google’s Keyword Planner will assess your page and help immensely in understanding how people perceive the content and keywords on your page.
Keyword Surfer is a Chrome extension that enables one to type in phrases on the search engine and see specific metrics pertaining to that phrase, such as search volume, cost-per-click, and where most people searching for it are located.
- Refrain from falling for the novice trap of thinking that something with a high search volume is the best option. If you optimize for keywords that everybody in town uses, you won’t be that competitive. Optimize your business descriptions with more niche keywords specific to your business!
Now that you’ve chosen your tools, there are a couple of things you’ll want to focus on:
- Emphasize Local Keywords:
Highlight the importance of local keywords, like “cannabis dispensary Los Angeles” or “medical marijuana near me.” These localized terms are crucial for attracting nearby customers who are ready to buy your product right now.
- Long Tail Keywords:
These are more like a phrase than a word. A high-ranking keyword might be “cannabis,” but it’s vague. Millions of people type in that word, but they all may be looking for different things about cannabis. Plus, competing for that word on Google will likely not be easy and will definitely be costly. That’s why you should choose keywords that are longer and more specific.
- “Premium cannabis in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles”
- “Cheap cannabis in Downtown Los Angeles”
- User Intent:
Are you looking to provide informational, navigational, or transactional content? It depends on your target market! In the case of a brick-and-mortar dispensary, navigational may be your priority because you want to lead people to your door.
It may seem like transactional is the most obvious choice for people looking to make money, but that is more so for companies who provide click-to-buy options. However, it may apply to you if you’re a delivery dispensary!
Here are some screenshots from Conductor displaying how keyword research should look:
Go to ‘Discover,’ then the ‘Content Guidance’ tab. Once there, type out a keyword and a competing URL you want to utilize.
Then, Conductor will provide results on your query. It’ll show you how your chosen topic ranks and some keywords relative to your topic.
It will also show you more significant details for creating content, such as appropriate title tags.
Do not be intimidated by these research tools. They are user-friendly, and will payoff exponentially for the time it takes to learn how to use them.
- Google Search Console: The Final Step
Google Search Console will help you:
- Check your competitor’s tactics.
- Meta Tags such as meta descriptions, title tags, and alt tags on your competitors’ pages are noteworthy and worth considering when writing your own Meta tags.
- Assess your own pages to find out what brings people to your site and what parts of your cannabis business site are the most attractive.
- Provide Keyword insight for your descriptions and body copy.
Then, use Google Search Console to filter all the keywords you came up with to see how the search engine connects people already with your business and how much is from organic search.
Once you’ve researched, it’s time to implement your findings. Utilize those valuable keywords and do everything possible to optimize your site and descriptions for your target audience!
Conclusion
In conclusion, mastering local SEO for the cannabis industry is essential to ensure your dispensary stands out in a crowded digital space. By focusing on Google’s E-A-T principles, maintaining accurate and comprehensive business profiles on Maps applications, and leveraging thoughtful keyword research, dispensaries can effectively connect with their local audience.
Contact us if you want to know more! We are experts and can do ALL of this work for you with practiced expertise that will pay off for you!
FAQ:
How to do SEO for CBD products?
The approach to CBD products is nuanced. It is often seen as a medicine but requires no prescription. Off the bat, one must provide credible information on your product. The more authoritative, the better. Regarding medicine, peer-reviewed studies will trump any blog as a citation.
How to optimize for CBD depends mainly on your business type. Transaction and informational approaches will be suitable if you sell people CBD oil bottles online. If you want to bring people into your store to buy CBD, navigational and informational may better fulfill your goals.
How do cannabis companies advertise?
Cannabis companies can use traditional channels like billboards to get their name out there. Dispensaries, however, will find the most helpful way to advertise is by optimizing their dispensary for the Maps applications: Google Maps, Apple Maps, Weedmaps, etc. Cannabis companies need to ensure their store is visible if they expect to be seen!
