Dispensary SEO: Everything You Need to Know About SEO

Marijuana Cannabis Dispensary Traffic That Actually Converts for Cannabis Dispensaries

Anyone can increase traffic, but few can generate traffic that converts to new revenue for you.

Unlike other dispensary SEO companies that focus on cannabis seo traffic before learning about your dispensary business and customer resulting in traffic that does not convert into new revenue for your dispensary business.

Our company’s approach to the cannabis industry starts with understanding your dispensary business goals, ideal dispensary customer, and dispensary products, so we know exactly what your dispensary customer is searching for on Google. Resulting in dispensary traffic that converts into new revenue for your marijuana dispensary business.

We are so confident in our proven approach that we will return your money if we are not successful.

Paid advertising of cannabis content from a cannabis business is banned or restricted on major digital marketing social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. Major search engines such as Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo ban or restrict the paid advertising of cannabis dispensaries in Google search using Google Ads. Traditional advertising of cannabis dispensaries using TV media ads, billboards, and radio is restricted or banned depending on the state your business is located in. 

Where can dispensaries advertise without restrictions?

Dispensary SEO or Search Engine Optimization marketing is the only advertising and marketing channel for dispensaries that are not banned or restricted. Suppose you are unfamiliar with search engine optimization (seo dispensary optimizing). In that case, it is the process of generating revenue and marketing traffic to your store from the organic search results in major search engines such as Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.

The organic search results are the results below the paid search results, which look like this:

In contrast, the paid search results look like this:

Advertising of marijuana and cannabis is not allowed in the cannabis industry paid search results on search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. However, the organic search cannabis industry results allow the direct promotion of cannabis and marijuana, so your dispensary could increase your revenue using cannabis seo. 

The best benefit of search engine optimization marketing on Google for your cannabis dispensary is it is the only marketing channel that has an infinite ROI. Even if you stop investing in SEO on Google, the traffic and revenue you generate continue to come in for your dispensary; this creates the potential for an infinite return on investment. 

Unlike paid advertising, the moment you stop paying for cannabis industry visitors and revenue is when the visitors and revenue permanently stop going to your store.

The only downside to marijuana seo on Google is that it’s a long-term investment for your dispensary. You could not expect to see results in months one, two, or three. On average fantastic results happen after months six, seven, and eight. Brand new websites expect to wait a minimum of a year to two years on Google to begin receiving fantastic results.

Here is a visual comparison of SEO versus paid advertising:

 If you need short-term revenue growth for your dispensary, then SEO on Google is not the strategy for you. However, if you want to dominate the market and build a powerful long-term brand, then SEO on Google is your only option.

Over 93% of marijuana consumers use online searches to find a dispensary, so showing up on Google when your customer base searches for marijuana online is crucial to driving in-store foot traffic. Considering 94% of clicks from online searches go to the organic search results and only 6% go to the paid search results. 

Chances are when your customer base searches for marijuana near them on Google, they click an organic search result, not a paid search result. Dispensary search engine optimization is the only way to show up on Google when your customer base searches for a cannabis dispensary near them. 

Local SEO services are used to drive revenue and traffic to your store using the local organic search results in the city and county your store is located. When your customer base is searching online for cannabis in Massachusetts, local SEO is the only way to show up when they search. 

Nearly 46% of all Google searches are local searches, and 88% of cannabis consumers who do a local search on their smartphone visit or call the store they find within the same day. You need to be the first option that shows up on Google when your ideal customers search for cannabis near them. Otherwise, your ideal customers will call or visit another store. 

Cannabis dispensaries are expensive and challenging to start. You face steep federal, state, and county regulations for advertising your store. Efficient payment processing is challenging, and state licensing costs make starting a dispensary very expensive. On average, it costs about $1 million to open a dispensary leaving a strong need for a positive return on investment from your marketing agency to succeed in the brick and mortar cannabis space. 

SEO delivers the largest return on investment from any marketing channel for your store. SEO increases profit margin while lowering the cost of acquiring a customer. Local SEO is the process of your store showing up first on Google when your ideal local customers search for cannabis.

On average, 78% of location-based mobile cannabis searches convert to an in-store purchase from your dispensary. Showing up first when your ideal customer searches are the difference between making a sale and not. Failing to invest in local SEO means your ideal customers will purchase from another store instead of yours. 

Since cannabis is technically federally illegal but legal recreationally and medically state by state, this has created a grey area for selling cannabis. Transporting and selling cannabis across state lines is illegal, which eliminates ecommerce sales of cannabis. However, this may not be the case soon with the recent introduction of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, referred to as the MORE Act. 

The MORE ACT will make marijuana federally legal nationwide in the United States of America. When the Act passes the house and senate and becomes a ratified law, this will open the door to interstate cannabis commerce. States that previously considered cannabis illegal for recreational and medical use will create new license opportunities for stores like yours to sell cannabis in the brick-and-mortar space. This creates new markets for your cannabis business to expand into. 

Acquiring new cannabis licenses is costly and time-consuming, making your marketing investment more important to deliver an ROI. Now more than ever, investing in SEO marketing for your cannabis business is crucial to being first in new markets that open up shortly. For now, marijuana is illegal in many states. However, there are still millions of marijuana users in states where it is illegal. These users are searching online to learn more about the cannabis plant they love. 

Showing up first when they search positions your brand as the ideal solution when cannabis is legal in their state. Since your ideal customer base will already know, like, and trust your brand because you have given them value by showing up first when they search online. 

Cannabis Tourism

Cannabis tourism is currently a $17 billion industry, with nearly 33% of American travelers 21 years of age or older interested in traveling to try cannabis from dispensaries in states where it is legal. Since advertising cannabis online and offline is prohibited or severely restricted. The only way to tap into the $17 billion cannabis tourism industry is by showing up first in the organic search results when cannabis tourists search to learn more about cannabis in other states.

SEO is the best option for your brick-and-mortar store to increase revenue and market share. Now the question is should you hire seo services websites or do SEO yourself? Hiring design seo content services to do SEO for you saves you time and money while increasing your profit margins, revenue, and market share. Building and managing an in-house SEO team is expensive, time-consuming, and ineffective if you do not know what you are doing. 

Here are the average expenses for building and managing an in-house SEO team:

• SEO Director [$80,000 a year]
• SEO Data Scientist [$102,149 a year]
• SEO Strategists [$88,190 a year]
• SEO Marketing Strategists [$61,362 a year]
• SEO Back End Developer [$69,430 a year]
• SEO Digital Public Relations Manager [$58,605 a year]
• SEO Data Researchers [$54,433 a year]
• SEO Conversion Rate Optimization Specialist [$75,000 a year]
• SEO UI/UX Designer [$110,315 a year]
• SEO Content writing [$54,184 a year]
• Technical SEO Lead [$67,070 a year]
• On-Page SEO Lead [$61,857 a year]

This totals $882,595 a year without payroll taxes which are outrageous in some of the most cannabis-friendly states. Put these expenses on top of the already expensive compliance, regulatory, and payment process financial and time expenses you have to operate. 

On the other hand, outsourcing SEO only costs $42,000 a year on average. SEO is challenging to scale efficiently because it is complicated and involves many moving parts. The only way to know what works and does not in SEO is to scientifically test every ranking factor, and there are over 1,200 known ranking factors on Google.

Even if you efficiently manage to scale scientific testing, you know what works and does not for SEO. Then you must efficiently hire, manage, and scale a full in-house SEO team to execute what works at scale for your store’s website.

Generating a return on investment from an in-house SEO team could easily take years and cost millions of dollars along the way. When you hire a local seo business, you get a proprietary process and proven team with a track record of success from generating over $19 million in revenue for companies like yours. This means you are guaranteed to get results or you get your money back. 

Unlike other companies, here are three ways our dispensary SEO strategy services local seo company provides unique value you could only get with us:

1. Our Proven Process That Increases Your Revenue and Market Share With Search

    

2. Money-Back Guarantee

3. Performance-Based Payment Process

Our agency invests hours learning about your company, ideal cannabis customer, and products or services before creating content. Doing so ensures the seo traffic becomes new revenue for your cannabis company using our seo strategy.

Creating the customer journey marketing strategy enables our agency to reach your ideal cannabis customers with Search from when they have a problem to when they purchase your solution.

Creating SEO-optimized marketing content that shows up for the relevant keyword phrases your ideal customers are searching on the search engine at each step of their journey. Focusing on when they are ready to buy from your brand.

Speeding up your website and improving the user experience and interface increases conversion rate, organic traffic, and revenue.

Earning more high-quality votes or links is crucial for your cannabis company’s SEO website visibility. Using our proprietary link-building marketing process, we earn votes or links from websites where your ideal cannabis customer spends their attention. Search engine crawlers find these links and count them as votes to your website. The more high-quality votes your website has, the more traffic and revenue search engines award your website.

Lastly, our proven cannabis and CBD marketing process uses the sales funnel and follow up to ensure your leads convert to sales. We use email marketing to capture leads and nurture those leads until they are ready to buy from you today.

Another agency typically skips the first step of business research and goes straight into SEO tactics and creating content. The issue with skipping this first step and going straight into SEO tactics and content creation is that your marketing content generates traffic that does not convert into new seo revenue for your brand. Suppose a seo firm does not understand your business, customer, product, or service. In that case, the seo firm will not generate marketing content traffic that converts into new revenue for your cannabis company.

Other services and seo companies skip step #2, creating the customer journey and going straight into SEO tactics focused on generating traffic. Services that skip creating the customer journey do not find the terms your customer is searching for on Google. They find terms that they think will work. What ends up happening is that your traffic increases, and your revenue does not increase.

90% of SEO agencies “pay for links or votes,” which could permanently ban your website from Google and erase all organic revenue for your business.

Lastly, they do not understand how SEO as a marketing channel fits into your sales funnel and how to follow up with leads using email marketing to ensure they become sales over time.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Success Story

Publicly Traded Company Lagging Behind Their Competitors In SEO Search Traffic.

Learn how we helped increase their revenue by $15,231,409 in this cannabis case study.

Companies That Trust Our SEO

Ecofibre

How Can I Promote My Dispensary?

The best way to promote your dispensary is build a strong foundation by creating your marketing and sales strategy.

Can You Advertise a Dispensary on Google?

Advertising a dispensary in the paid search results of Google is banned but you can advertise without any restrictions in the organic search results on Google.

How Do You Increase Traffic in a Dispensary?

The only way that has a near infinite ROI to drive traffic to your dispensary is using SEO.

What is a good profit margin for dispensary?

According to Projection Hub, the average profit margin of a dispensary is between 10% to 30% and $1 million to $4 million in annual revenue. If you have a profit margin over 30% then your dispensary is killing it and above average.

Can Dispensaries Advertise on Google?

Yes, you can advertise on Google in the organic search results but not in the paid search results. Cannabis marketing in the paid search results using pay-per-click ads (PPC) is banned on Google. The only way to grow your business using Google is through organic search results, where you can directly promote cannabis for sale without restrictions. 

What Does SEO Do?

SEO marketing is the process of increasing your sales and traffic from the organic search results on Google.

Why Do I Need SEO?

SEO marketing is the only advertising and marketing channel that allows the direct promotion of cannabis. 

What Does SEO Stand for in Marketing?

SEO marketing is a long-term branding strategy that increases your market share and revenue over time. SEO marketing is not for you if you need short-term revenue and cannot invest long-term in your brand’s development. However, suppose you want to dominate the brick-and-mortar space, acquire customers for a lower cost, and increase your profit margins. In that case, local SEO marketing is the only option for you.