Dispensary Local SEO

How you can outrank competitors & drive more local sales for your dispensaries.

We’ve launched nearly 700 (661 & counting as of Feb. 2025) local SEO campaigns for dispensaries. Use this article to learn from our successes and failures.

Please Note: Terrayn, Co. doesn’t have any salespeople. Please enjoy the value of this article without the fear of being bombarded with sales pitches and offers.

Picture of Written By Jack Shirk
Written By Jack Shirk

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This article will walk you through some of the exact tactics we’ve used to help hundreds of dispensaries dominate their local markets. No fluff, no sales pitch. Just real, actionable strategies you can implement immediately. Let’s get started.

Does your dispensary's local SEO suck?

Let’s find out .

Is your dispensary suffering from the following symptoms:

If any of these sound familiar, your local digital presence is probably not optimal. This article will give you actionable strategies and tactics you can execute on today to improve your dispensary’s local digital performance.

Table of Contents

Why local SEO can make or break your success.

Not only are these issues frustrating, but they also dramatically affect the profitability and the long-term viability of your dispensary. 

Luckily, we know how to solve your problem, have helped fix it for 100s of dispensaries, and are willing to share.

Cannabis customers are local customers. 

When someone searches for a dispensary near them, they’re often ready to buy right now. These terms get search a lot, and capturing them can be the difference between an empty parking lot and a thriving dispensary.

But cannabis Local SEO is not like any other industry. 

Between regulatory restrictions, fierce competition, and frequent Google Business Profile (GBP) suspensions, getting your dispensary ranked takes a specialized approach.

The local search ecosystem is the key terrain your dispensary needs to win. ​

Local search platforms like Google Business Profile (GBP) and Apple Maps are key battlegrounds for local dispensaries. They supply, or don’t, your dispensary with a consistent, predictable flow of new customers. For some of our partners, their GBPs are responsible for upwards of 40% of their total revenue. Check out the example below from a real dispensary chain in Michigan, there GBPs crush local competition and make them a lot of money.

GBP & MAPS

But how do Google & Apple Maps control so much traffic & revenue?

Picture this: A potential customer is standing a mile from your dispensary. They’ve decided to visit a cannabis shop but haven’t chosen one yet. What’s the first thing they do? They pull out their phone and search for:

“dispensary near me”
“cannabis store open now”
“best weed shop in [City]”
This is the opportunity to capture a customer and all the lifetime revenue (LTV) they come with. If your dispensary doesn’t show up in the top results, you’re essentially invisible to them and have lost the opportunity to capture that customer to your competitor. And sadly, unlike other industries, you can buy yourself a top ranking position which further amplifies the impact that these profiles have on the flow of revenue into local dispensaries.

The Purchase Journey: How these online users convert.

Here’s how the journey typically looks for a cannabis consumer using local search:

The Search:
A user types “dispensary near me” into the search bar on their phone. This triggers Google or Apple Maps to show nearby dispensaries. Category searches like this are the most common, but there are huge opportunities to target more mature cannabis consumers who search slightly differently. You can learn how to do that on our organic SEO page.

The Decision:
They quickly scan the top 3 results and make a decision based on readily visible factors like:

  • Distance
  • Reviews
  • Photos
  • Business hours

The Action:
Users generally will click into a listing to confirm their hypothesis and take a few typical actions: 

  • get driving directions if they prefer to shop in-store 
  • click through to the website, survey inventory, and decide if they want to place an online order 

Once the users take this action, they are routed out of the profile and into two totally different ecosystems. This opens the door to a whole new arena of optimization strategies to ensure users convert at the highest rate possible. Check out our strategies for e-commerce & conversion optimization here.

So now you know local SEO works for a dispensary, here’s how to fix it.

How to fix your dispensary's Local SEO

Taking complete ownership and control of your local online presence and SEO isn’t a short-term game. It takes consistent effort and management, but we are going to give you as much value as we can without giving away the ranch so you can execute our top strategies on your own.

Get your Google Business Profile (GBP) right.

Your Google Business Profile is your biggest digital asset, by far. Here’s how you can make it work harder for you:

Naming Conventions – How you name your GBP profile matters. Aligning it with searcher intent helps Google relate your listing with top keywords & phrases. Similar to how a “direct match domain” works and why that is valuable. Run a quick Google search to learn more on that.  We do not suggest keyword stuffing your naming convention, but consider getting a DBA for your dispensary that includes some juicy search terms and phrases. The best thing you can do is check out what top performers in your market are doing and use that to inform your strategy. There’s a balance between optimization and compliance, be cautious & have your business documents prepared in case you trigger a dispensary Google Business Profile suspension. (<– Check this out to figure out how to get it back online)

Photos, Descriptions & Categories – Your profile should visually represent the quality and professionalism of your dispensary. High-quality photos, detailed descriptions, and accurate categories can make a massive difference in how you’re found & perceived online. Use consistent photo uploads to show Google you’re an active, reputable cannabis store. We’ve found that uploading photos on a consistent schedule can increase local rankings.

Reviews & Reputation Management – Reviews are one of the biggest ranking factors for GBP. Encourage happy customers to leave reviews and respond to all feedback as quickly as possible. We help our partners implement review generation and response systems to help remove workload off their plates. The velocity at which your profile receives reviews can make or break local performance.

Furthermore, thoughtful responses show customers (and Google) that you care about your community and are an active business owner.

Use high authority citations to prove to Google you are who you say you are.

Citations are mentions of your dispensary’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) across the internet. Think listings. Platforms like Yelp, Apple Maps, Foursquare, YellowPages, BBB, etc.. These are all high-authority sites that can help Google understand your dispensary is legit and not “crap on the map”.

A few key points on citations:

Consistency Across Platforms – Google relies on citations to verify your business’s legitimacy. Inconsistencies can crush your dispensary’s rankings, so ensure your NAP is perfectly uniform across ALL directories. There are services that can manage this for you instead of having to login into all the platforms separately. 

Get Listed in Relevant Directories – Beyond the big platforms, there are niche cannabis directories where your dispensary needs to be listed. These include places like Weedmaps, Leafly, Dutchie, Potguide, etc. Most offer free accounts and are more valuable than non cannabis citations.

A dialed location page is your secret weapon to dominate local organic search.

A dedicated, well-optimized location page on your website is your secret weapon for ranking in the local organic search results. This adds another piece of real estate in the SERPs for your dispensary in addition to your GBP. SEO is a lot like a game of Monopoly; you want to acquire as much digital real estate on the 1st page of Google as possible.

This image from a few years ago shows one of our partners in MO is occupying 5 of the top 7 spots in Google. The good ole’ days! Dominance like this is much harder to achieve now.

Unique Content for Each Location – Avoid cookie-cutter location pages. The same design is okay, but each page should include specific details about that location’s offerings, its neighborhood, and any unique features or landmarks. For example, if your dispensary features a drive-thru and competitors don’t, that is something you definitely want to mention.

Here is an example of a blog of location-specific content from one of our partner’s high-performing location pages. It is complete with location photos and a video walk through.

Customer Testimonials – Feature reviews from GBP profiles that include target keywords on your location pages. Testimonials add authenticity and help potential customers trust your business, but sharing reviews that include verbiage like “best dispensary in {city}” helps establish local rankings. We know without a doubt that Google pulls from reviews for subjective search terms like “best edibles near me” etc. 

Keyword Rich FAQs – Do customers come in the store and always ask the same questions? Do they call into the store with the same ones before visiting? They’re also searching these on their phone and these are the FAQs you need to have on your location page. Think terms like “how far is your dispensary from {insert landmark}”. Not only is this content helpful, is it rich with locally relevant keywords that your customers are already searching. 

Designing them into an accordion-type widget allows you to pack tons of great content without damaging the user experience (UX) of the page.

Here’s a look:

Shopping Focused – Ultimately, this location page is going to serve as a homepage for that specific location. Just like the actual homepage, we want to include shopping focused sections to help boost conversion rate. If all goes as planned, this page will rank for a lot of geo-identifier keywords like “dispensary in {city},” so including shopping widgets will help users get through the purchase journey faster. 

Here is a full example of an extremely high-performing location page complete with all elements we just covered:

Get your local events listed digitally

Hosting events isn’t just good for building community, it’s also great for Local SEO and grabbing some extra exposure for folks who are in your immediate vicinity.

Think about it, have you ever been bored and jumped on your phone and looked for events near you? Maybe you hit a search like “things to do in {city} this weekend,” and Google returns something like this: 

Notice how all these events are from a dispensary. As a dispensary owner, you can get your events listed like this which can help drive some additional traffic into your store. These events also get listed on your Google Business Profile which can further help potential customers choose your dispensary over a competitor and also helps Google build more location relevance for your profile. Furthermore, this can be a powerful workaround to get deals and promos listed on your GBP(<- knowledge bomb).

Here is what it looks like when you can get these featured directly on your profile. 

To get these events listed in Google search, create and promote local events through platforms like Eventbrite, Facebook, and your GBP profile, as well as other local directories. Google scrapes these sources for its event listings. There is also some secret sauce to get them to pull them from your own website as well. 

Never stop tracking results and adjusting course...

Sadly, local SEO isn’t a one-time set-it-and-forget-it process, and it’s getting harder every day.

It requires consistent monitoring and adjustments to stay ahead of the competition.

Cannabis markets have never been more saturated, and operators are getting more sophisticated every day as talent from other industries flows into ours. 

Here are some things to keep an eye on:

Rankings:

Rankings don’t always tell the whole story but use tools like Google Search Console and Local Falcon to monitor your rankings for high-value local keywords across your area.

Tracking progress using keyword “heatmaps” or “geogrids” is a great way to get a feel for your search visibility for your targeted keywords.

With these scans, your dispensary’s coordinates are tied to the center dot. The number inside each dot represents where someone would find your business in Google/Apple Maps if they were to pull out their phone and search from that dot’s exact location. 

Anything greater than a three means you’re virtually invisible. Check out this example from an extremely high performing dispensary:

Local Heatmap Scan

Analyze Traffic and Conversions Like A Mad Scientist With GA4

Tracking and data has come a long way in the cannabis space in the last few years. The ability to track website users activity throughout online menus like Dutchie & Jane now gives us visibility into the entire purchase journey.

It can be a bit tricky, but we highly recommend dialing in your Google Analytics 4 tracking with your menu provider.

From there, you can get incredibly insightful data on where your users are coming from and what they are purchasing.

Here is an example of the revenue coming from GBP profiles from one of our partners in the midwest. 

Master Sales Deck Q3

Keep in mind that revenue numbers will never be an exact match to what you see in the back end of your menu provider due to returns, users masking their IPs, etc., but they should be within a consistent margin of error. If you are seeing large inconsistencies, you may have an issue with your GA4 and menu integration.

Take Action

If you’ve made it this far, you’re already ahead of most dispensary operators when it comes to understanding the power of Local SEO and taking action. The strategies outlined above are proven to help dispensaries capture more local traffic, rank higher in Google & Apple Maps, and ultimately drive more sales. But the truth is, they are useless without takin action. executing them effectively takes time, expertise, and continuous optimization.

If you run into any snags while implementing these strategies, don’t hesitate to reach out. While we can only take on a limited number of new dispensary partners each quarter, we love helping dispensary operators and are always happy to have a conversation to see if we can point you in the right direction.

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Ready to take your dispensary local SEO to the next level? Here's what to do next.

Dispensary Marketing Content Library

Learn more proven dispensary marketing tactics. 100% free.

We’ve compiled all our best information on digital marketing for dispensaries and put it in one easy-to-navigate page. Check it out at the link below and bookmark the page for future reference.

Get digital off your plate.

See if your dispensary is a fit to partner with Terrayn

We’ve launched more local SEO campaigns than any other provider & would love to help your dispensary. Unfortunately, we can only with a select number of new partners every quarter. Click below to learn more about our fractional dispensary marketing offering and get the application process started.

66 S Logan St. 

Denver, CO 80209

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