5 Reasons To Hire A Dispensary SEO Agency To Grow Your Business

How to hire a dispensary SEO agency to market and promote your CBD and cannabis business.

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Have you ever considered hiring a dispensary SEO agency to help you drive highly qualified local traffic to your cannabis retail store or CBD e-commerce website? There are no advertising restrictions like Facebook, Instagram or Google Ads. Here are 5 reasons you should consider hiring an experienced dispensary SEO agency for your cannabis retail business.

Why Your Dispensary Website Needs an SEO Strategy From an Experienced Dispensary SEO Agency

While dispensary SEO may not be a priority for your dispensary’s marketing strategy, I want to show you how important it is for the long-term success of your cannabis business.

Search engine optimization has been an effective digital marketing tactic ever since Netscape Navigator made internet browsers a thing back in 1994. Since then, SEO and Local SEO have become essential tactics for any local business.

If you own a cannabis retail store and you want to be found in a Google search for people using terms like “buy weed near me”, “places to buy weed in [your city name], and “where to buy cbd oil in your city name]”, you should consider using an experienced dispensary SEO agency to implement your local SEO strategy.

Search engine optimization for cannabis businesses is an effective digital marketing strategy primarily because of the current advertising restrictions on marijuana and CBD products.

There are no advertising restrictions for you or your dispensary SEO agency to deal with because SEO is simply a mix of publishing relevant content on your website, that answers the questions people are actively asking Google, and optimizing that content to be search engine friendly.

If your dispensary’s website content is not optimized for both users (user experience) and search engines (SEO), you likely won’t show up in the local map on page 1 for profitable search terms like those listed above as well as many others.

This article will discuss 5 reasons why you should hire a dispensary SEO agency to help you grow your cannabis retail store business by using organic digital marketing tactics and no paid advertising!

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1. Forty-Four Percent of Online Shoppers Begin By Using a Search Engine

Just think about that for a second. Almost half of online shoppers start out by entering their query into a search engine. This is one of the main reason why you should consider hiring a dispensary SEO agency to optimize your website.

Think about your target audience who smoke weed, need to buy CBD oil, or are looking for other marijuana and CBD products that you sell. Do you feel that these people would hit up a search engine to find what they’re looking for?

You absolutely 100% know that this demographic is going to use a search engine to either research information to learn more about using CBD oil, or they are researching what marijuana strains to purchase next, or to buy right now.

In order for your dispensary to be found online for any of your target’s search queries your site must be properly optimized for Google and Bing search engines. This includes a comprehensive dispensary SEO and keyword strategy on every page of your site – especially your product pages.

Pro Tip: Make sure your dispensary SEO agency is using long-tail keyword search phrases and are analyzing each of them for the users search intent.

People looking for a dispensary will use the term "near me" when looking to buy weed near them. ColaDigital is a dispensary marketing and SEO agency. Dispensary marketing tips.

2. Eighty-Two Percent of Smartphone Shoppers Conduct ‘near me’ Searches

Have you ever done a search on Google to find something near your location and used “near me” at the end of your query?

Can you see your potential customers using a “near me” search on their smartphones when they are wanting to buy weed near “them”?

A recent study reported that 82% of shoppers conduct “near me” searches on their smartphones. I’d think you agree your target demographic is part of this group.

Google reports that there has been a 500%+ increase in “near me” mobile searches that contain a variant of “can I buy” or “to buy” over the last two years.

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So what does this mean for SEO and how can it help your dispensary’s SEO and search rankings? This is where you need the experience of a professional dispensary SEO agency.

In order to optimize your site for “near me” searches, you’ll need to do some specific keyword research and then audit your website’s pages to determine what pages on your site are most relevant and “optimizable” for near me searches.

Then, choose the pages that will have the most impact on your site’s profitability, and optimize the metadata including page titles, page headers, page description, as well as all images, with a “near me” keyword strategy.

In the SEO world, this was a huge revelation and has become an added tactic that we use in our local SEO strategy.

Smart SEOs who went back and re-optimized some relevant website pages for “near me” type searches have reaped rewards for their client’s for the last few years.

Ask your dispensary SEO agency about their thoughts on “near me” optimization tactics and if this type of optimization is part of their local SEO strategy for dispensaries.

Pro Tip: Local SEO should be a second SEO tactic your dispensary SEO agency ads to your website in addition to a site-wide SEO strategy.

Dispensary SEO ideas for cannabis retail stores. Why you need a dispensary SEO agency for your cannabis marketing plan.

3. Seventy-Two Percent of Shoppers Research Online Before Purchasing in a Store.

That’s a huge number of potential new customers for your cannabis retail store. But you need a dispensary SEO agency to complete comprehensive keyword research and execute an effective marijuana SEO strategy.

What if I told you there was a way for you to do a little bit of lucrative keyword research on your own, for free?

It’s totally possible! In fact, I use this keyword research tactic myself at my dispensary SEO agency.

The idea is to frame your keyword research around specific product searches as opposed to informational or “how to” type searches. Believe it or not, there’s a super awesome free tool for this!

It’s Amazon Suggest!

Ok, so maybe Amazon seems like a competitor to your dispensary, right? There’s a better way to look at Amazon, as a tool and a friend, not foe.

Since Amazon is the biggest commerce site in the world, to a smart SEO professional it’s also a product keyword gravy train.

There’s a free keyword research tool called Keyword Tool Dominator that scrapes the search suggestions provided by Amazon.com! This makes it super fast and easy to find highly targeted, long-tail keyword phrases that relate directly to your products.

Just go to the site, enter your keyword, and you’ll see dozens of relevant keyword suggestions to use to optimize your dispensary website or to your blog content marketing strategy.

The search filed for CBD keyword research. Enter your keyword here. Dispensary SEO Agency in USA and Canada. Marijuana SEO services for cannabis companies and CBD brands. Dispensary search marketing services.

Here’s how it can help you and your dispensary SEO agency find highly lucrative keywords that will help grow your retail dispensary business. I entered “CBD Oil” and here’s what it provided:

CBD search results and keyword research. Dispensary SEO Agency ColaDigital.ca. SEO services for dispensaries. Cannabis and marijuana SEO services.

The value of this type of keyword research is exponential. Not only can you and your dispensary SEO agency utilize these keywords for your website optimization, you can also use these as blog topics.

By creating SEO optimized blogs from keyword research, you know you’re publishing content that will answer the exact questions your potential customers are asking about the products in your dispensary.

Almost 40% of traffic to ecommerce sites comes from search engine. Hire a dispensary SEO company for your cannabis SEO strategy.

4. Thirty-Eight Percent of All Traffic to E-commerce Sites Comes From Search Engines

I’m guessing you have an e-commerce website for your dispensary retail store. If you don’t operate a retail store and only operate an online dispensary, you certainly have an e-commerce website.

Did you know that 37.5% of all traffic to online stores/ecommerce websites comes from search engines?

There are people actively searching on Google and Bing, right now, to buy CBD oil online or to pick up some weed at a local dispensary. The online market space for CBD oil and marijuana products has become extremely competitive.

The most effective way to market your dispensary, without advertising restrictions, get an edge over your competition, and drive the right traffic to your online dispensary and cannabis retail store is with search engine optimization.

If you’re not ready to hire a dispensary SEO agency, here are a few things you can do to your dispensary website to help your dispensary SEO and search rankings.

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1.1 Optimize your Google My Business Page:

  • This can be as easy as going in once a week and uploading a week’s worth of photos from your dispensary. Use keywords along with local city name in your file name and Alt attribute.
  • While you’re here, you should also take time to update your store hours, holiday hours, and any new information. Google likes updated Business Profile Pages.

2.2 Optimize Your Images With Local Keywords

  • This step is an easy one for non-SEO professionals and SEO newbies especially if your dispensary website is built with WordPress or Shopify.
  • We suggest using local keywords in your image file names, alt tags, and title attributes.
  • You, or your dispensary SEO agency can add this metadata bu editing your images in the Media Library of WordPress.

3.3 Write Long & Unique Product Descriptions

  • SEO pro’s at your dispensary SEO agency will know that longer product descriptions contribute to a website’s SEO in many ways.
  • One of which is that longer product descriptions allow SEO professionals to add more keyword variants, including long-tail and semantically related keywords, to your product pages.
  • This shows Google that the page more relevant to a user’s search query and can potentially rank your website product pages higher in search results.
  • It’s also important to keep your product descriptions unique. You’ll no doubt have similar products but make sure you dispensary SEO agency writes unique page titles and descriptions.
  • If your product descriptions are similar and the headlines almost match, Google and Bing won’t be able to distinguish your products and therefore won’t be able to rank your product pages properly, causing you to lose potential traffic and sales.
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5. Twenty-Four Percent of E-commerce Orders Are Directly Tied to Organic Traffic

Are you starting to realize how important organic search can be to your cannabis retail business?

Are you spending too much time on promoting your CBD Oil on Instagram instead of investing in your dispensary SEO strategy?

Business Insider recently reported that 23.6% of all e-commerce store orders are directly tied to organic traffic from search engines.

This tells me that all cannabis and CBD businesses with retail stores and e-commerce websites should add search engine optimization to their marketing mix along with their social media marketing, paid search advertising, and email marketing campaigns.

Remember that organic search is a useful way for you to reach current and potential customers. You’re likely to sell more CBD products through organic search than on Instagram.

Reason being, people go to Google when they want to buy weed near them. No one is going to Instagram to buy weed. Not now anyway, but maybe soon. Search engines are very much more intent oriented when it comes to the user.

I’m not discounting the power of social media marketing for dispensaries. Not at all. I’m advocating for more of an omnichannel approach to your dispensary marketing strategy.

Search drives traffic, but so do other digital channels like social media, email, and paid ads.

For example, paid search results drove the second-highest portion of e-commerce orders, with 20% in 2016 and email campaigns accounted for 18% of e-commerce orders.

Combined, free search and paid search account for over 40% of all e-commerce orders.

In order for dispensaries to maximize revenue, we suggest you focus on enhancing your dispensary SEO, i.e. your presence across search engines, along with using other digital marketing channels.

Get a quote from ColaDigital.ca a professional and experienced dispensary SEO agency.

We Can Be Your Dispensary SEO Agency!

If you’ve been frustrated trying to market your dispensary on social media and trying to sell CBD oil via your online dispensary, a dispensary SEO program could be the solution.

Just think, no advertising restrictions, no getting banned form Instagram, having your account shut down, and losing thousands of followers, only to start all over again.

We’ve been there. We’re still here here fighting the good fight!

But we also have identified other digital marketing tactics that dispensaries can use to drive highly qualified traffic to their websites or retail stores.

SEO for dispensaries is your answer.

If you’re ready to start your dispensary SEO strategy with a professional and experienced dispensary SEO agency, we’re ready to help get it done for you.

Please contact us to discuss your project or to request a free quote.

We Ready To Help You Grow!

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