18 Link Building Strategies to Boost Cannabis Dispensary Local SEO

In the competitive world of cannabis retail, local visibility is everything. With paid ad restrictions and tight local competition, your dispensary’s ability to show up in search results depends heavily on Cannabis SEO link building—especially local backlinks that signal trust and authority to Google.

To help you rise above the noise, here are 17 proven link-building strategies tailored for cannabis dispensaries. From business directory submissions to influencer partnerships, each tactic is designed to strengthen your local SEO and drive more in-store traffic.

Start here to learn more about the basics of Cannabis Link Building. 

1. List on High-Authority Cannabis Directories

Start with platforms like Leafly and Weedmaps. These are recognized by Google and consumers alike. Prioritize quality over quantity—avoid mass-submission networks that generate spammy links.

Establishing visibility to your target audience is always a smart investment. One way to do this is to invest in listing your dispensary on reputable cannabis business directories. Be wary that not all business directories are rated equally. Here are our Top 54 Best Cannabis Business Directories.

2. Build Local Citations

Mention your dispensary or brand on local news, community event sites, city government pages, community nonprofits, and local newspapers, or job boards—even if the mention doesn’t link. Just make sure your NAP Listing (Name, Address, Phone) info is consistent across platforms.

3. Use Newsjacking or Create Buzz

News moves fast. But if you can act quickly, reactive content and press releases can generate powerful backlinks. Offer a local take or expert opinion that media outlets can quote and link to. Always have a blog or landing page ready to link in your pitch.

Using social listening tools or trending keyword alerts, you can create timely content that taps into current conversations:

• Breaking down a major state regulation change
• Responding to a celebrity cannabis brand launch
• Publishing a hot take on new research about THC or CBD
  
  

By being first and relevant, your content has a better shot at earning coverage from journalists, bloggers, and influencers.

4. Apply for Awards and Nominations

Submit your dispensary for “Best Of” lists and business awards—both cannabis-specific and citywide. These often come with backlinks from high-traffic media sites. 

Define your ‘pitch’ and submit your brand for a nomination. These are great opportunities to engage your following to get involved and show their support. Lastly, don’t limit yourself to platforms focused on the cannabis community - Depending on your local city, your dispensary could be eligible for your city’s ‘40 under 40’ or another ‘Business Awards’ type nomination.

5. Sponsor Local Meetup Groups

Support cannabis-friendly or adjacent community groups. Ask to be featured on event pages or group websites with a backlink and your full NAP. The cannabis community tends to be an adamant network of consumers - patients and recreational users alike. What does your ideal customer look like? Search locally on Meetup.com and find a nearby group that you feel fits that avatar.

6. Host or Sponsor Local Events

Events give you both physical foot traffic and digital promotion. Think comedy nights, live music, or industry education events—with backlinks from event calendars and PR mentions.

7. Support Nonprofits and Get Featured

Donate to nonprofits or community groups aligned with your values. If they list sponsors on their website, request a logo and backlink in return.

8. Create a Local Resource Hub

Launch a blog or content section covering local happenings: events, wellness tips, or cannabis guides relevant to your neighborhood. Local press and other businesses may start linking to it.

If you want to become a trusted authority in the cannabis space and earn organic backlinks at scale, focus on publishing original, data-rich, and interactive content that others want to reference and share.

Examples include:

• THC and CBD dosage calculators
• “Find your strain” or product match quizzes
• Cannabis dosage and recipe guides
• Wellness trend reports supported by consumer or market data
• Infographics explaining consumption methods
• Interactive dashboards tracking cannabis market growth or ad performance
  
  

These assets serve as evergreen content, continuing to earn cannabis backlinks long after they go live. When you combine original insights, interactivity, and embedded visuals, your site becomes a go-to hub for journalists, bloggers, and researchers—boosting both SEO and brand authority.

Pro tip: Use your own sales data, surveys, or campaign performance metrics to create downloadable reports and infographics. Add embed codes to encourage sharing with backlink attribution.

9. Get Backlinks from Product Brands

Ask cannabis product manufacturers you stock to list your dispensary as a retail partner—with a backlink on their “Where to Buy” page.

10. Collaborate with Cannabis Influencers

Go beyond social posts—work with influencers on blog content, podcast episodes, or local cannabis guides that include backlinks to your site. Engage and grow your relationship with niche influencers in the cannabis community and collaborate in a way you can provide value to their audience. 

11. Leverage Strategic Partnerships

Form cross-promotional partnerships with complementary businesses (CBD massage clinics, cannabis-friendly cafes, etc.) and link to each other’s sites as trusted local resources.

12. Use the Skyscraper Technique

Find top-performing cannabis content and make a better version—longer, more visual, or with updated data. Then promote it to earn backlinks from media, influencers, and blogs.

13. Track and Update Business Mentions

Use tools like BrandMentions or Google Alerts to find unlinked mentions of your dispensary or brand. Reach out and request they add a proper link.

14. Write Guest Posts for Cannabis Sites

Contribute thought leadership content to reputable cannabis blogs or local news sites. Prioritize quality sites and aim to appear multiple times for credibility.

15. Publish a Business-Focused Resource Page

Create a B2B section with packaging laws, medical research, or compliance tips. Other cannabis professionals may link to you as a trusted source.

16. Invest in Premium, Shareable Content

This strategy is an extension of building out a resource page by taking it one step further and creating quality branded content. Develop infographics, eBooks, white papers, and branded guides. These types of assets earn backlinks passively over time when promoted correctly.

While this does require additional resources like design and copywriting, creating premium content is incredibly rewarding. Modern-day audiences love this type of content, and other influencers, publications, and competitors alike will want to provide more value to their readers. Therefore, if you create relevant content, you could generate a vast network of links from an array of industry resources for doing the work that the other dispensaries will not do.

17. Use Advanced Search Queries to Find Opportunities

Use Google search operators to uncover guest post openings, nonprofit donor pages, award submissions, and more. Examples:

• “submit a guest post” + cannabis
  
• inurl:.org “city name” + supporters
  
• “best dispensary” + nominate + keyword
  
  

18. AI-Driven Link Building

Manual link building is time-consuming and often inefficient. But with the help of AI, cannabis businesses can identify high-quality backlink opportunities, personalize outreach at scale, and track what’s working in real time.

Whether you're a dispensary looking to boost local SEO or a cannabis brand aiming to build long-term authority, these advanced, AI-assisted strategies will help you earn backlinks that matter, faster and more effectively.

Use AI to Scale Cannabis Backlink Outreach with Precision

Traditional backlink outreach is slow and manual, but AI tools can transform the process into a strategic, data-driven engine for cannabis SEO link building.

With AI, you can:

• Discover high-authority cannabis websites and blogs
• Analyze which pages are most likely to accept backlinks
• Automatically personalize outreach emails based on site content
• Refine messaging using performance insights and engagement data

This targeted, AI-powered approach increases response rates and reduces wasted effort. By showing editors that your pitch is relevant and researched, you increase the chances of securing valuable cannabis backlinks—without sounding like spam.

AI Outreach Workflow for Cannabis Backlink Building

Step 1: Identify Relevant Sites
Use tools like ChatGPT, or Ahrefs, to generate a list of cannabis blogs, news sites, dispensary directories, and niche lifestyle publishers.

Prompt example:

“List 20 high-authority cannabis blogs or wellness publications that accept guest posts or external backlinks.”

Step 2: Analyze High-Intent Pages
Use SEO tools (like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Surfer) to find top-performing pages related to cannabis SEO, wellness, recipes, or dispensary guides.

Prompt example:

“Analyze this blog [insert URL] and tell me which content types or topics are most likely to accept external links or guest contributions.”

Step 3: Personalize Outreach Emails
Feed in article topics or URLs and ask AI to draft relevant, non-generic emails that show value.

Prompt example:

“Write a personalized backlink outreach email to the editor of [insert blog name] referencing their article on [topic] and offering a resource titled ‘[Your Resource Title].’ Make it conversational, 100 words or less, and clearly explain the value of linking to our piece.”

Step 4: Optimize Messaging Based on Replies
Feed reply patterns into ChatGPT to refine your outreach.

Prompt example:

“Based on these 10 backlink outreach email replies, identify what’s working and suggest how we can improve open and response rates.”

Final Tip: Don’t rush link building. It’s about relevance, quality, and consistency—not volume. A few strong, local cannabis backlinks can go much further than dozens of low-quality ones. Start small, stay consistent, and watch your rankings grow.

Need help building high-quality backlinks?

At MediaJel, our cannabis SEO experts specialize in link-building strategies that drive local traffic and boost search rankings.

Reach out today and let’s grow your dispensary’s online visibility—faster and smarter.