Cannabis Dispensary Search Engine Optimization
You’ve probably heard about SEO being tossed around content marketing or websites, at least altogether. But what does it mean?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process of improving your site or pages to increase visibility on search engines, such as Google and Bing. The higher your pages rank on search engine results pages (SERPS), the more likely you’re going to attract visitors, leads, and prospects to your dispensary.
Now that you know what SEO is, how does it work?
Well, search engines such as Google utilizes bots to crawl on pages in different sites, collecting information and putting them in an index. Beyond that, algorithms analyze the pages considering tons of ranking factors, such as quality of the content, freshness of content, keywords, and more to determine the order in which the pages will appear for a relevant search.
Why do I need SEO for my dispensary business?
SEO is the avenue of increasing the visibility of your dispensary in search engines. Today, people conduct trillions of searchers every year. If you have a solid SEO strategy, your dispensary is going to convert like crazy.
Search engines are the primary way in which people can find your business. But, if you’re not visible, chances are your customers won’t find you.
SEO is one of the most powerful online marketing channels that, when executed correctly, it generates a return on investment (ROI).
Here are quick tips to help you get started with SEO and rank your dispensary pages like a pro!
Local SEO for Dispensaries
Google has introduced local advertising whereby local customers can find your dispensary without any hassles. All you need to do is, claim your Google my business (GMB) by adding your brand’s name, address, phone number, photos, and website.
You also need to claim Google business listing since bots crawl and analyze several listings whereby algorithms index them according to relevant searches. That’s why it’s crucial to maintain the same name, address, and phone number across all directories.
By providing accurate business information, your full business listing will show up when customers search your brand. This will significantly improve your search visibility, driving more paying customers into your dispensary.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO, also known as on-site SEO, is the practice of optimizing your web page for search engines, mainly the title tags, content, and page structure.
Ideally, if you haven’t optimized your pages for on-page SEO, no one will find your dispensary or see what you offer because you won’t get any traffic.
When it comes to on-site SEO, there are three important categories you need to look into, content quality, keyword selection, and fresh content.
You’ve probably heard the phrase “content is king.” And this holds true to date.
Why?
Because quality content matters. Not only quality but also relevant and valuable content. Just like any marketing in the world, if your content sucks, you won’t sell any products or services even if it ranks higher than your competitors.
Gone are the days when you would publish quality content and stand out from the crowd. Today, optimizing great content is the avenue to driving traffic, leads, and, eventually, customers.
Quality content should be your #1 goal, but optimizing should be part and parcel of the process.
Doing keyword research and selecting relevant keywords beforehand is a vital part of great content.
Ideally, you would want to utilize target keywords in the headlines and throughout the article. Therefore, you need to select the right keywords before creating content.
Finally, you need to utilize target keywords with relevant and valuable content for your audience. Once your audience is engaged and stays more on your site, search engines will view you as a useful source of information. This way, your pages will even rank higher.
It doesn’t seem as hard as you think. But, if you’re thinking of hiring an SEO professional, Greener Elements is all you need to rank your pages and outshine your competitors.
Posting fresh content consistently improves Google rankings. Also, updating the content you’ve already published is one way to signal Google freshness.
While it’s important to publish content regularly, you can still get mind-blowing results by publishing a few in-depth posts a month.
Mobile-friendliness
Nearly 63% of Google searches come from mobile devices, and the number is growing every day. In fact, Google rolled out its first mobile indexing in 2018.
What does this mean?
You can use the mobile version of your page for indexing and ranking. So, optimizing your dispensary pages for mobile-friendliness is crucial for satisfaction.
In other words, the majority of your site’s visitors will hit the back button when a desktop version loads on mobile.
