How On-Page SEO can Increase Dispensary Visibility in Google
When newcomers first hear the phrase Search Engine Optimization, their first impression is often that it’s a complex and difficult to learn process only used by large enterprises with a budget.
You’re just a small locally run dispensary. Why do you need SEO? Can’t you just design a mobile-friendly website and call it a day? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy!
Statistics show that there are over 1 BILLION searches performed daily across all search engines. How do you make sure these searches are leading visitors to your dispensary? How will you ensure your target audience isn’t being directed to your competitors? There’s only one solution. SEO!
In this article, we will break down 11 simple, yet effective, On-Page SEO tips for increasing your Local Dispensary’s search rankings in Google:
1. Make Your Website Mobile Responsive
Here’s the thing: more than half of the traffic on the Internet today is being performed through smartphones and tablets. In fact, up to 52% of yearly global website traffic comes from mobile devices. If your site is not mobile-responsive – it will lead to a very bad user experience. Non-Mobile friendly websites are extremely difficult to use on a mobile or tablet device. Not only that, but mobile responsiveness is an extremely important ranking factor and Google will often rank websites that are not mobile-friendly below websites that are!
Therefore, it’s essential that your cannabis retail store’s website offers a smooth user experience on all devices, especially smartphones.
2. Write Long-Form Content
Long-form content, in terms of SEO, is always going to be better for rankings because it incorporates more keywords, and provides a medium to provide more thorough information to readers. Most SEO experts say that long-form content should ideally be within the range of 1,500 – 2,000 words, and contain high quality content that explains the topic covered in full detail. Quality is extremely important here, you can’t just write gibberish to meet the word count!
The good thing is – Cannabis culture now involves people actually surveying and researching. People who use cannabis are reading about it online. And they’re hungry for more elaborate content! The quality of the content is also of utmost importance because users look for unique and interesting content. Subsequently, this is the kind of content that gets picked up by Google’s algorithms. Voilà! Your dispensary now easily has a high ranking on Search Results.
3. Introduce Fresh Content
In addition to posting long-form content, you must also make sure that the content you are publishing is fresh and up to date. Google loves fresh content. Not only is this content more relevant for your readers, it also lets Google know that your website is active!
Now, we realize it’s not always easy to come up with new topics and content all the time. What you can do instead is make use of your existing content! One simple tip is to update your most popular posts. Simply add some relevant and current information and re-publish the article. When doing this, don’t forget to re-publish the article with the current date!
4. Host Your Site On a Secure HTTPS Server
If you sell products or use any kind of personal information from clients on your website, the website must be on a secure HTTPS server with a SSL certificate. This will allow for secure logins on your website, data transfer and credit card transactions.
All in all, if you operate or own a dispensary with a website – you must make sure your website is on a secure HTTPS server with an implemented SSL certificate.
5. Strategically place target keywords in titles, meta descriptions, and H1 tags
If you’ve done any amount of research on SEO, you’ve heard the term keyword research over and over again. Why is keyword research so important? It’s how you fill find the most relevant and high volume keywords associated with your business!
A comprehensive keyword and SEO strategy, with a targeted set of profitable and relevant keywords, will really help your dispensary get more exposure in local search results. Keywords act as a bridge between what your audience is searching for (intent), and what you’re providing them. The keywords you use on your website must be relevant to your content’s subject, so Google can index your website and understand the meaning behind your content. You don’t want to confuse Search Engines by focusing on keywords that are irrelevant to your business and send mixed signals!
6. Use short descriptive URLs
Let’s consider two URLs for the following (not real) website:
www.nyweed.com/382233/9e38202hqqa#loaddelay
Which one is more user friendly? Which one are you more likely to click on?
It’s important to keep the URL structure used on your website as simple as possible. This isn’t just for the sake of your users, (they’re not paying that much attention to the URLs). It’s actually because Google itself wants you to have readable, simple URLs to provide a logical URL structure!
This means that you should use text in your URLs rather than numbers and text strings. It’s also important that the URL clearly describe what the content is about while being as short as possible. You can also use the URL as a placeholder for your target keywords. All in all, your URLs need to be user (and Google-friendly).It’s as simple as that!
7. Work Hard to Earn Positive Customer Reviews on Google
The benefits of earning positive customer reviews aren’t just limited to one website or platform. In fact, your reviews will aggregate across multiple sources reflect greatly on your local search rankings. Online customer reviews are a strong signal to search engines that your dispensary’s website is both trusted and an authority within your space. What’s more;
- You’re able to improve the visibility of your cannabis store on search engines like Google. More visibility will lead to more traffic for your traffic, and even more in-store foot traffic!
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- You’re able to understand your clients better, as well as determine what your dispensary is doing right, and what needs improvement.
- You’re able to get real testimonials from real clients that you can utilize in your dispensary’s online marketing plan!
8. List Yourself on Dispensary Directories
Most cannabis enthusiasts do regularly check out websites like Leafly and WeedMaps to catch up on the latest industry news. Listing your dispensary on such directories has a massive advantage of giving your website a link from a strongly reputed website. Inbound links (which we’ll discuss in the next point) are one of the most primary factors used by Google to determine how your website ranks.
We suggest adding your business to these Dispensary directories.
9. Leverage Social Media
Having a strong social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even Linkedin is one of the basics of promoting your dispensary’s website. While social media platforms can offer an alternate medium for exposure for your dispensary, they also (indirectly) lead to more traffic on your website! Social profiles for your local dispensary will show up in local search results if your profile is optimized and has a sufficient engagement rate.
Make sure to optimize your social media posts, and distribute them across all platforms. Also, don’t forget the hashtags! The hashtags you use on social media should be relevant to your content. It’s always preferred that they have a high search volume, which indicates that people are actively searching for them.
10. Build Backlinks to your Website
A backlink is simply when one website mentions another website by linking to it (we’ve just linked Google here – but you get the point!). Why are backlinks important? Because Google looks out for them.
Because they are still the number one ranking factor Google uses when ranking a website.
Basically, Google treats backlinks as a vote that your content is useful to readers. It’s also important that these backlinks come from high quality websites that relate to your niche. It’s always preferred to link websites who have established themselves as reliable sources.The higher the domain ranking of the website you link, the more power each backlink will hold. Here’s a guide to earning the right backlinks.
11. Measure Your Results
How do you know which SEO tactics are actually bringing in traffic to your dispensary website, and which ones need improvement? Start tracking your data! Google Analytics is a brilliant tool that can help you both track and analyze your website’s visitor data. Google Analytics will track where the users of your website are coming from, and also what lead them there. You can also build custom reports for deeper analysis.
Using Google Analytics will help tremendously when making business decisions about where you should be investing your time, resources and money when it comes to your SEO strategy.
So, just make sure your content is inherently helpful to your dispensary customers, and then add some of the basic On-Page SEO tips we have detailed in this article. You’ll be seeing your website on Google’s top spots soon!
Are you struggling to get your Dispensary visibility online? There are a lot of little things that need to be done on a consistent basis to make this happen. If digital marketing is overwhelming you as a business owner, we have solutions to help you tackle this. Growth Dispensary Marketing has been helping Cannabis companies GROW their business and take their Internet Marketing to the next level.
Interested in learning more about how we can help your company GROW?