SEO 101 for Cannabis Dispensaries

{}Intro: SEO 101 for Cannabis Dispensaries

Guillermo: Hello everyone and welcome to the MediaJel podcast. I'm your host, Guillermo Bravo. Today we'll be discussing SEO 101 for cannabis dispensaries with Sammer Alkis. MediaJel connects brands and retailers with cannabis consumers through our ad network of mainstream publishers, mobile apps, games, and TV. We help cannabis companies advertise on Google, support an SEO, and activate data with display advertising to support e-commerce sales. Sammer is our VP of Search, bringing 10-plus years of SEO experience to today's podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Sammer.

Sammer: Hey Guillermo, happy to be here. Excited to be back.

Guillermo: Yeah, it's great to have you, and hopefully you're all recovered from 4/20 last week.

Sammer: [Laughter] National holiday.

Guillermo: Well, let's dive right in. Let's first kick it off with a little case study, so we're going to pull up a partner of ours in Maryland — a medical cannabis dispensary that's been doing SEO with us for quite some time. Let me pull this up for you here. Give me one second. All right.

Cannabis Dispensary SEO Case Study

Guillermo: So we're going to be talking heavy about SEO today and diving into all the on-page optimization for a cannabis retailer. Let's start with Haven, a partner of ours up in Maryland. They have a medical cannabis store, and they were having some trouble acquiring new customers and growing their revenue. Their main problem was that they really wanted to increase e-commerce sales. So the first thing that we do is an audit. I don't know if you want to dive in a little bit into what you would do off the bat, Sammer, before you even optimize the website.

Sammer: Yeah, one of the big first steps that you want to take with any new SEO partnership is getting your lay of the land. You have to really identify where the gaps are on the website for your partner or for yourself, and then also identify within the overall competitive landscape where you fit in and where the growth potential is. That allows you to really identify where your low-hanging fruit is, but also, when you start building out your SEO roadmap and really strategizing beyond the first month, where you should put your focus. A lot of that comes out of those audits — your website audit, your competitor audits. It gives you a lot of information, so that's really one of the biggest first steps to take to start establishing your initial strategy.

Guillermo: Yeah, and just when doing that audit, I remember working with Haven — the first thing we wanted to do was make sure tracking was set up correctly. They were using a Dutchie menu as an iframe, so the first thing we did was switch that to a subdomain so we could have accurate numbers, which is what you're seeing today. So, if you look at the 2020 to 2021 numbers — this is one quarter in 2021 versus the previous year, let me dive in a little closer — we increased their revenue for this quarter from $100,000 in online sales to $400,000 in online sales, with a 300% increase in transactions. Conversion rate went up from 2.79% to almost 11%, which is massive. Average duration on site went up from three minutes to 3:45, so the quality of the traffic went up as well — conversion rate went up, bounce rate dropped, people were spending more time on the site and visiting more pages, going from 3.19 to 5.26 pages. Users went up 120%, so we went from 13,000 to 30,000 users, and a lot of those were new users. We had 12,930 new users in 2020 but almost 30,000 in 2021. So a lot of the efforts we put into place really had an impact on this medical cannabis store. They were spending about a thousand dollars a month with us, and over the course of one year we generated upwards of $1.2 million in annual sales for that. So this is an ideal case study for us, just kind of showcasing what's really important in driving the campaign. First you want to do your audit, then select your keywords and do your on-page optimization and off-page optimization, which we're going to get into a lot more later in the session. We're going to dive deep into all the first two sections here, and then we're going to launch another webinar, SEO 102 for Cannabis Dispensaries, where we'll dive heavy into link building tactics and how to really optimize your website off-site.

How to Audit Your Current SEO Strategy

Guillermo: All right, Sammer, well, let's dive into some of the starting points. When onboarding a client, what steps are you taking to review their current SEO strategy?

Sammer: Yeah, that's a great question, because one of the big things you'll get, especially if you're working with partners versus working on your own SEO, is that you've probably worked with somebody in the past who has done some level of SEO. So obviously the very first thing to ask that partner is, "Have you done SEO, yes or no?" They'll probably give you the quickest answer in regards to what you would need to do next. But let's say you don't have that ability to ask, or maybe it's another person at the company who doesn't have that background — the very first thing I actually end up doing is a really simple check, because regardless of your SEO level of expertise, there are certain things you'll probably just do naturally from a 101 standpoint. The very first thing I'll check is what the metadata situation looks like — does it look like it's structured by someone who is looking to optimize toward SEO? That'll probably be the first indicator that they've done something. Let's say you don't want to do that and you want to go for the bigger takeaways — what I'll then do is look at the two biggest things that people who do SEO fall into: buying links. So I'll jump into Ahrefs and see if there's been a huge spike in link building, where the domain-to-link ratio is unnaturally high, especially in a short time frame — probably someone's done some SEO there. And then I'll also look at a keyword tool like SEMrush and start looking at their keyword visibility over the last, say, 12 to 16 months, and see if there's been any massive drop-offs in keyword visibility that might indicate an algorithm update tied into something that isn't in line with what Google is looking for. So I'll make those initial cursory checks if I don't have the ability to ask the partner if they've done SEO in the past, and generally that gives me at least some foundational information to see what I'll have to correct at the start. If it is, say, a lot of link buying that's happening, that we want to get rid of, that'll be one of the first things you want to clean up — create a disavow file and submit some of those to remove them from your link portfolio.

Guillermo: Yeah, those are all great starting points, and I would just add — get access to their Google Analytics and see what the historical performance has been. If there's anything for the last year, two years and beyond, see if there's any major changes in content and organic traffic as a whole. Then, as you said, you have link building — you'd go to Ahrefs or some of these other platforms, and all of your historical data is in there: your domain rating, your referring domains, your backlinks — everything is in there. So we're able to really see the historical data and put together some recommendations on how to proceed.

Sammer: Yeah, and SEO, at the end of the day, leaves a footprint, so you can trace that footprint to its origins and see what was done. It takes a little bit longer because there's no real recording of changes like in paid media, but it's definitely a worthwhile first step to take, because it's really going to set the stage for the next phase of the strategy building.

What Is Keyword Research?

Guillermo: Agreed. And before we even kick it off — what is keyword research?

Sammer: Yeah, so let's say you've done all of your audits — you've checked whether they have or haven't done SEO in the past — and once you've done your audits, both on the competitor side and on your own website, the very next thing you're going to want to do is start establishing your keyword sets. It's really one of those tricky topics, because everyone has their own approach and their own methodology, and depending on who you are from a brand perspective — meaning, do you have a lot of brand visibility, or a little bit, because you're starting your journey for the first time as a company — your tactics are going to be completely different. What I mean is the type of keywords you're going to want to go after versus the type you can go after really is variable depending on who you are and where you're starting from. So what we recommend when starting off is —

The 3 Types of Keywords to Target

Sammer: — really breaking up your keywords into a number of different buckets with intent behind them. So your first bucket is really those broader, high-volume, very competitive terms — your money keywords.

Guillermo: Right, those are "dispensary near me," "buy weed online," those types of things.

Sammer: Yeah, those are the kind of keywords where you know you're going to get a lot of interaction with customers, a lot of visibility, and a lot of volume. Now, the downside is that if you're newer in the space as a company, you're not going to be able to gain any real visibility quickly. So you can try to go after those keywords and start growing that keyword portfolio, but the reality is you have to hedge your bets and not put all your eggs in that one basket, and start looking at other buckets. That next bucket is really about focusing on taking some of those primary keywords — let's say "dispensary in Maryland" as an example, which has a lot of keyword volume and a lot of competition because you're competing with other dispensaries, the big players like Leafly and Weedmaps, also .govs, a lot of competitors in that space. So what you want to do in that second bucket is really go longer-tail — we call them modifiers. That means you take "dispensary in Maryland" and add another keyword or two to make it a little bit longer. What you're doing is trimming down the number of people searching for it, but you're also establishing yourself in a slightly less competitive keyword niche. Because it's associated with that broader, more competitive keyword, if you're able to build up some momentum for this longer keyword, there's going to be an association that Google makes between that keyword, your business, and that broader, more competitive keyword. So you're kind of tackling both at the same time. That second bucket, when you're looking to make some good incremental gains early, is really where you should be focusing — that doesn't mean ignore bucket one, those broader, more competitive terms, but you have to be realistic about what you can achieve in a shorter window. As you start building up that momentum from bucket two keywords, you're going to start seeing natural growth in your bucket one keywords as well. Those are the two primary buckets I'd say we look at from a keyword research standpoint, but there are a few others that are equally important if you're looking to expand brand awareness, because those go more toward share of voice — your brand ownership in the space — and then really bottom-funnel, conversion-focused keywords. Bucket one and bucket two are all about getting visibility, getting conversions, getting sales. But at the end of the day, you don't want every single keyword to be about getting sales, because you're going to be really limited. So you also want bucket three, which is more informational-based keywords — education, information. A lot of times this is where I see brands either lean in really heavily and go after these educational pieces, or completely ignore it and just focus on buckets one and two. But those more educational, topical pieces are where you're going to really start developing brand stickiness. As an example, let's say I'm a first-time customer in Maryland and I search for "dispensary in Maryland," and I see all these different companies show up that I'm not familiar with — what's going to convince me to click on position four versus position two or position one in the search results? That's the tricky part about focusing only on bucket one and bucket two. If you have bucket three — those informational, educational pieces — not only can you show up for different types of searches and keywords, you're also building up your brand association within the space for Google, which will help you rank for other keywords. But more importantly, when somebody makes a search for, let's say, "how do you pack a bowl" — maybe that's the long-tail keyword you create a blog around — the great thing is you're probably not going to get a ton of revenue off that post, but what you do develop is brand equity. Somebody will see that post, click on it, and because they're a little less protective of that click — they're not buying anything, just looking for information — they'll go to the website and make an association with your brand. If they like the information you're presenting, maybe they'll get another engagement some other way, through another search. But when they're ready to make that transactional search in Google for, say, "dispensary in Maryland," and maybe you're in position eight, you already have a brand connection with that consumer because of another post, another long-tail keyword in bucket three. And even if you're in position seven, six, or five, because you have that brand connection, you're developing a little bit of that stickiness — that consumer will feel more comfortable going through you because they have that connection. So that's where bucket three is incredibly important — it's about nurturing and brand stickiness, which really helps with lifetime value of a consumer for your brand.

Guillermo: Yeah, and looking at the buckets, buckets one and two are bottom of funnel, right — people are ready to make a purchase, they want to take action, they're ready to buy. Where some of the bucket three content is more like — what's the milligram dosage I should take for edibles, or what's the difference between sativa and indica, or how do I register for a medical cannabis card in Maryland — all these high-level, top-of-funnel questions that people ask are crucial parts of your content strategy, your keyword strategy, and then associating that with your state or city. For Haven, it's brand versus city — the state's going to have a wider reach, but it's not as relevant because it's 100, 200 miles each way, so you probably want to focus on your city first and then expand from there.

Sammer: Yeah, that's also a great point. Even when we get into content a little bit later on, looking for local keyword opportunities that naturally make sense within your content, when you're focusing on some of those bucket three keywords — those awareness and educational pieces — is also a great tactic to get more of that local association with Google. One of the biggest things I've noticed with different partners is that a lot of them go really heavy on bucket one and bucket two keywords, and there's a ceiling you tend to hit. That ceiling is really associated with the type of information your website is generating — when all of your keywords are transactional-focused, the type of information you can create and share with Google, and that Google will share with its users, is really limited. You start creating a lot of the same information over and over again, and Google will just stop rendering a lot of that content. So it's really about uniqueness, and that uniqueness can come from bucket three, which is a lot more toward consumer education.

Guillermo: Yeah, FAQs, blog content, and all these different opportunities — you can create fresh pieces of content and keywords for each target. As far as the keyword research goes, what terms and —

Keyword Research Metrics That Matter

Guillermo: — metrics do I need to really follow and know?

Sammer: So when you're looking at your keywords and thinking about the metrics, the biggest thing you'll see really frequently is search volume — I'll cover that in a second — your average cost per click, which is what a lot of platforms will give you, even though there's a big asterisk next to that, and then, depending on the tool you use, an example of what the search engine results page already looks like for that keyword, so you get a quick lay of the land. You'll also get a difficulty score — meaning how much effort it'll really take to get into striking distance for that keyword on page one. Going back to volume really quick — one massive misconception about volume is that the number you'll see, let's say for "dispensary near me," and let's say it's a thousand searches a month — that's what all the platforms will say, they'll give you a number and say it's per month. Now, it's not really per month. What it really is: they take the total number of searches per year on average — let's say it's 12,000 — and there's no seasonality factored in, they just say 12,000 divided by 12 is a thousand, so that's what that keyword is, a thousand a month. So it's not really seasonal-based, but it's a good indicator — it'll give you an understanding of how competitive that keyword is, and it ties into that competitive score. When you're really thinking about your keywords, you have to be honest with yourself about where you are in the overall makeup of that industry, in your specific city or state. If that difficulty score is, say, a 70 or 80, and you don't have a lot of equity, I would start looking at those bucket two keywords a lot more aggressively, because those scores will be a lot lower — the potential reach and searches will be a lot less, but it'll give you that entry point, that back-door entry into these more competitive keywords, to give you that opportunity. At the end of the day, when you're a business, what you want is an opportunity to reach a customer, and by looking at things a little more tactically, and really being honest about where you currently are and where you can get in a given amount of time, that'll really open you up to actually getting that at-bat — that at-bat being your listing showing up on Google in a spot where you can actually get an interaction.

Guillermo: Okay, those are all great points, and when you're looking at keyword research, you always want to find the best ways to identify hot topics for —

How to Build an SEO Content Strategy

Guillermo: — content. What would be your recommendations on curating a content strategy?

Sammer: Yeah, that's a fantastic question, and I will default to two methods that kind of get baked into one. The very first thing is I take a step back from the keywords — I don't even look at the keywords, because at this point I probably have my bucket three keywords already defined, so I'm not going to do any more keyword research yet. What I'll start doing is going back and doing something called a content gap analysis. What that means, in a fancy way, is I'm going to look at my content and see what keywords my content ranks for — article one is ranking for keyword one, two, and three, as an example. Now, where are those keywords in the rankings? Maybe my first keyword is in position five on page one — who's in position four, three, two, and one? Are they articles? Are they not? What you're trying to establish is where you're currently ranking, who's ranking above you for those keywords, and what they're doing from a content structure standpoint. The reason that's important is it actually helps you define the next step of your content development plan, because you can have all the topics already defined — we'll get into really identifying what those topics are in a second — but you also need to define structure, and what Google is really valuing for certain topics. When you're looking at topics and trying to identify those hot topics, I'll look at the competitor audit, I'll look at our content gap analysis to see if there are maybe any topics related to content we're doing really well for that we haven't created yet, and then I'll look at tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush and start looking at those from a data-set standpoint, because maybe there are certain topics closely tied into my bucket one and bucket two keywords that we just don't have any information or content around, and I'll prioritize those topics. I think topic selection is important, but I think the content format and the keyword association is even more important, because especially in the cannabis space, you're going to see a lot of the same content generated when you're starting out — a lot of posts about sativa versus indica, what's the best percentage of X that can give me Y, or how to bake a brownie or how to roll a joint, whatever it is — you're going to see a lot of that similar content, and you're probably going to want to create those too at some point, because you want to have some visibility, you want to have a dog in that fight. So what you really want to do is look at format, what Google is valuing, and then, when you're doing your topic research, how you associate topics that are a little more niche with those bucket three keywords, to give yourself a little more of that fighting chance for visibility.

Guillermo: Yeah, those are all great points, and you really have to take a step back when you're going through research and really look at your structure, your hierarchy, your priorities — like, what are you really trying to achieve in the first three months of your campaign? Do we want to focus on transactions only, or do we want to consider different topics and keywords that are top of funnel, like "best hikes in Maryland to do while high," or "best entertainment in Maryland" — all these different topics. So it's really just about prioritization — how many content pieces can you create per month, and all these factors come into play when you're doing keyword research.

Sammer: Right, and one of the most misleading statements that I think came out, like, five years ago, four years ago, was "content is king." I think everyone knows content is very important, but it's really the context of your content that is king, because there are so many pieces of content generated — millions a day across the board — so it's not necessarily the volume of your content that's important, it's the context — what's in it, the keywords, the structure, what you're targeting, who you're speaking to. That's where a lot of content within the industry falls flat, and if we're really looking to get a leg up, that's how to approach it — thinking more tactically about what's inside your content, versus just trying to create as much content as you can.

Guillermo: No, that's great. And you already touched on keyword difficulty and really how to prioritize that based on —

How to Track Keyword Performance

Guillermo: — your current authority with Google. How do I track my website's performance for specific keywords?

Sammer: Yeah, so when we're thinking about keywords, they'll come in two big tracking buckets. You have your basic tracking tools like BrightEdge or SEMrush, Ahrefs, if you prefer — whatever it is, there's a lot of ways to track your keywords, and the simplest way of tracking them on those platforms is they won't give you information on engagement, they'll give you information on placement — are you in position five on page four, are you in position one on page two? What you can do using a tool like SEMrush, which is our preferred tool, is track average growth for every keyword and its associated page, which is great — you can see keyword one is ranking for this page in this position, that page being your website page. That's great, but I think that's kind of half the equation, because if you're getting really great visibility, seeing really big keyword growth, but it's not resulting in any action, then you might have a problem — you might have a keyword misalignment. So what I tend to do is look at that information, because again it's very important and gives you information on whether you're doing right by your SEO strategy, but I'll take it another step and look at the keywords I'm targeting in Google Search Console. Google Search Console is probably the most important SEO tool for any SEO, because it is only SEO-related, organic-related, and it gives you information that GA used to give you 12 to 15 years ago. What I mean is they give you information at the action level for keywords and landing pages, so you can actually see impressions — how many times has your keyword served, or how many times has your landing page served for a keyword in Google — but more importantly, they'll give you how many times keywords are engaged with, so you can see clicks, impressions, and average position. All of this information, tied into your tracking tool like SEMrush, will give you a good understanding of, okay, keyword one is now in position two on page one — that's great, we've made huge gains there — we're also seeing a 30% increase in clicks, a 100% increase in impressions. So now you're looking at it from the lens of keywords growing, which is wonderful, and you're also seeing growth on the action level, which is the most important level to look at from a keyword standpoint. By looking at those together, you can really start getting a good feel for where you're trending overall from the keyword positioning landscape.

Guillermo: I'd encourage everyone to get familiar with Search Console — it's one of the best tools for an SEO, and it really helps you get that extra layer when you're deeper into your analysis of keyword performance. So just to recap — in Google Search Console you can look at impressions, clicks, and all the really granular details about how your keywords are showing up in search results for your website domain, and then you can look in Google Analytics to see people actually clicking on those keywords and how they interact with your website — that's where you can track conversions and see if those keywords are actually delivering results. And then SEMrush is a third-party tool where you can track all the keyword rankings — and I remember in SEMrush you can see where your keyword ranks depending on the proximity to your actual location as well, so they do have that, but I don't —

Tracking Local SEO and Google Maps Rankings

Guillermo: — trust it as much when we're thinking about the local pack.

Sammer: What we tend to use, because the issue with the local pack and keywords is that it will go off of where the provider — let's say in this case SEMrush — is sending their searches from, so it's never going to be really accurate for a local pack. So what we use is a tool like BrightLocal, which has a search grid functionality for your local pack, so you can actually get a much more accurate representation of your keyword visibility in the Google Maps results across different sectors. We also use that for a lot of our partners. I think there are a ton of tools out there — the big thing is really defining what your needs are, and then how those tools can support your needs. One of the things I tend to notice with a lot of our newer partners is that they've signed up for SEMrush, Ahrefs, Majestic SEO, and all these other tools, but they're not really used — and they're all great tools, but they all have some strengths and some areas they're not as strong on. So it's really about figuring out what you need, keeping your toolkit a little bit leaner so you're maximizing the features of the tools you're really looking to leverage, and then also using those free tools like Search Console, because that's information none of those other tools will be able to get as cleanly.

How to Evaluate Keyword Difficulty

Guillermo: What tool would you use to identify keyword difficulty, and what percentage would you consider going after — is it like 65 and below? What are your recommendations there?

Sammer: I think for the cannabis space in general, SEMrush is probably a good tool — they have a Keyword Magic tool on there that you can utilize. If you're not in the cannabis space, Keyword Planner in Google Ads is great, but not really helpful in the cannabis space — they filter out a lot of that information when it comes to the difficulty percentage. It goes back to where we started — it's really about where you are as a brand. If you're a very established brand, you've been around for a while, you have great brand strength behind you, a loyal customer base, and keyword equity already, if a keyword you're looking to target has some foundational elements — like if you're looking at keywords in the 70s, 80s, and 90s from a competition-level standpoint — I think that's doable over time. But if you're really just starting out, I would keep it more conservative — look, not necessarily at the difficulty percentage, but a step deeper, at who is showing up on page one and page two for your target keywords, where you're currently trending, and I think that'll give you a better estimation of whether you should go after that keyword in the short term. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go after difficult keywords, you just have to approach it with a slightly different lens than if you're a bit more established, because you can tackle that keyword more head-on if you have some backing behind you from a brand equity standpoint.

Guillermo: Yeah, there are so many opportunities there, and we've talked about the high-level keyword research tactics — is there any advanced strategy you would recommend someone consider?

Advanced Keyword Strategies

Sammer: Yeah, well, let's say you're done with all of your basic keyword —

Guillermo: Ready for everything, rank for everything.

Sammer: I think at that point — and we'll get into this a little bit later — it's starting to look at what you want to rank for across different search types, because a lot of times, when people are thinking about keywords and ranking for keywords, they think about the map, which is very important for a lot of the cannabis space, and then after that, just a regular text-based search result. That's great, but Google, for the last seven or eight years, has evolved beyond just your basic search result — you have quick answers and all these other different variations of searches. So once you're in a position where you're ranking really well for a number of your core keywords, whatever that bucket looks like, I would start looking at different search result types. If you have a lot of brand equity for those broader, really competitive keywords, but you're kind of struggling on the knowledge base aspect of it, I'll start looking at how we start ranking for keywords in a quick answer, because a lot of times a quick answer will be right at the front of everything — even sometimes above ads, depending on the layout. So I would start looking at diversification of search results, that's going to be super important, and the same foundational strategies you use when doing your keyword research still apply — you're just looking at a slightly different format, with different rules. I don't think you can ever get to the point where you're ranking for too many keywords, in my opinion — I think it gets to the point of what type of user you're looking to attract, and how you expand your keyword profile for that type of user.

Guillermo: Yeah, one thing I forgot to ask —

How Many Keywords Should You Target Per Page?

Guillermo: — how many keywords should you target for one page?

Sammer: Yeah, it's really dependent on the intent of that page, because you'll always have a page where there's going to be a primary keyword associated with it, according to Google. So you could target as many keywords as you want, with the exception of trying to keyword-stuff, because what you want is for the content — whether it's a category page, a product page, a blog post, a homepage, a store page — to read like it's meant for a human being. A lot of times when people are trying to rank for 20 or 25 keywords on a page, it's just awful to read. So you want that balancing act. For our partners, we try to strive for anywhere between two to five keywords on one page, and five is really on the upper end. I like to keep it a little tighter — I like to make sure the information is made for a user first and foremost, and the second purpose of that content is for Google. So try to keep the keywords a little bit tighter — our practice is two to five, and that also depends on the type of keywords they are and the type of page it is. A product listing page is probably going to be on the smaller side; if it's a blog post, maybe a little closer to five. So be cognizant of the read quality, and also what you're trying to achieve with that page, because at the end of the day your website is a store for Google, and Google is the mall. Google's going to give you better placement at the entrance of the mall if you have more valuable information meant for a user, and if you're trying to keyword-stuff and trick the system, Google will just put you in the back, away from the food court, and you'll never get any foot traffic whatsoever. So that's how I envision it — Google is one big mall, and you're a store within their mall.

Guillermo: That's a great way to put it, and thank you for all those insights. In regards to keyword research, it's really just endless opportunities — I would consult with your SEO strategist, or if you have someone in-house, get feedback on that and get creative with it. There's tons of opportunities, tons of questions to answer — we didn't even dive into product categories, product-specific keywords, but it's endless.

Sammer: Yeah, if you think you're ranking for everything, I guarantee you there's a huge opportunity somewhere that you're potentially not growing into as heavily as you can. So if you're an SEO person, that's great, because that means endless opportunity for you —

Guillermo: — but if you're also a business owner, that means endless growth potential depending on where you are. Well, let's transition to the competitor audits.

How to Conduct a Competitor SEO Audit

Guillermo: Completing a competitive analysis report allows you to review the overall market, competitors in the space, and reveals the current search landscape for important keywords. A competitor analysis can help you benchmark your current SEO performance, as you said, identify different areas of improvement for your strategy, reveal any competitor gaps or weaknesses or keyword gaps, and discover your competitors' winning strategies. So, Sammer, why is it important to do a competitor audit?

Sammer: I personally feel that the competitor audit is one of the top three most important things to do in your first two weeks of SEO work, for yourself or for a partner, and the main reason is that it really does give you an understanding of where you sit. It also gives you a huge understanding — if you're looking at five competitors, and a couple of them are doing really well, you can really see what Google is valuing in your space, in your geo, in your industry. Again, it's not really about taking ideas and trying to replicate them, because you're probably not going to outrank them that way, but what you're trying to do is cut the learning curve for yourself as much as possible, so you don't want to start from square zero if you can start from square five — those are horrible analogies, but anyway, you want to cut that learning curve as quickly as possible. That competitor audit — looking at your competition, the landscape, what's working and what's not working for them — will give you an understanding of how to break up your strategy from a tactical standpoint, and grow a little quicker than you would if you were just focusing on your own website from an audit standpoint. So it's super important to do that at the start, as early as possible. And when you're looking at your competitor landscape, what I encourage everyone to do is treat it like those websites are your website — audit them on the technical side, the keyword side, the content side, the link building side. Really look at it — it's time-consuming, 100%, it is, but all that time you're investing there will save you tons of time in the future, and treating those competitors like they're your website will also give you something to strive for. So if you do have a couple of gorillas in the room, you can say, all right, this is my North Star that I'm trying to grow toward, and then you can start benchmarking yourself against them over the next six to twelve months to see if your actual rate of growth is passing their rate of growth. And if they're seeing drop-offs, you can say, oh, this is what I should be avoiding, because Google is obviously hitting them on the wrist here, let's not go in that direction. So it's kind of like a cheat sheet for you, if you look at it correctly.

Guillermo: Yeah, it's really that benchmark — seeing where you rank versus your competitors, the quality of their content compared to yours, what type of content they're producing — is it long, like 3,000-word posts, really extensive, in-depth pages, or are they doing 500-word blog posts — and also seeing if their websites are responsive, if the page speed of their website is different than yours, because these are all factors that come into play when you're trying to rank on Google. So, in addition to that, are there any top three things you should be taking notes on for the competitive analysis report? You mentioned a few of them — is there anything we missed?

Sammer: I would say the three things to focus on, from a takeaway standpoint — not exclusively what to look for, but the takeaways — I would say: content footprint, on-site and off-site, that's huge, but it's not only the volume of content, as we hit on a few seconds ago, it's the quality and positioning of that content. Do they have a hundred blog posts that are really thin, or do they have, say, 50 blog posts that are really informational, long-form, ranking for different keyword varieties and different types of search results? That's super important, you need to understand the lay of the land, because if you find a competitor doing a fantastic job on the content side, and you're not going to be doing content at the same velocity and structure, then you're going to really struggle to overtake them over time. The other portion of this, which we haven't touched on that heavily but you just hit on a second ago, is the internal functionality of the website — page speed is the first thing that comes to mind, Core Web Vitals is part of the algorithm too, also tied into page speed, and this is more on the UX side of things — it's really about how that user experience will be enhanced for an inbound user, and Google takes that really seriously. And the very last thing, when you're looking at your competitors, is their keyword footprint — are they doing a fantastic job ranking for just their brand, is that all they're ranking for, brand variations? Then, as a competitor, you're in a great spot, because they've obviously neglected their non-brand keyword growth. But it also gives you an understanding, and kind of a peek behind the curtain, on their strategy — what they're focusing on, where their priorities lie. If they're really growing and have a great content network and an amazing set of long-tail keywords they're ranking for, they probably value that type of work on the SEO side, so it gives you a peek, but it also gives you an understanding of where the opportunities lie on the content side. So those would be the three big ones I'd take out of the audit to look at first, as the priority pass-through.

How Small Dispensaries Can Compete With MSOs

Guillermo: And what about if I'm in Maryland, or let's say I'm in Illinois, and I'm a one-store, family-owned business, and all of my competitors are huge players with big budgets — how do you compete on that level?

Sammer: That's the hardest part of this entire SEO workflow, that we tend to run into quite a bit, and one of the things I will always be upfront with our partners about is expectation setting. I know that's not the question, but it's really about being true to and being truthful with yourself about what to expect — whether you're doing SEO on your own, working with a partner or agency, or have internal team members doing it — if you're a single-store operator just starting the journey, and you don't have a lot of influence yet, and there are a lot of bigger players in the market near you, you have to be realistic about your timeframe for growth, that's step number one. But what I would say is, when we're looking at these smaller single-store operators, there's huge opportunity, and the opportunity is geo-specific to your store's surroundings. So what I'll always look at is, okay, let's say there's a bigger competitor two blocks down — that's two blocks of separation, so how can you maximize your visibility and reach on the keyword side within those two blocks? Because what you want to own is that immediate space around you, and that's the space they're going to have a really hard time owning, because they're not that close to you. So you want to own that immediate surrounding area from a keyword landscape perspective — some of those content pieces, you want to really make sure you're expanding around your immediate store location. And then after that, that's where the competitor audit starts kicking in — where do you want to grow as a business? Let's say you're really into CBD, that's your focus, that's what you want to expand on — all right, do your competitors have that same focus, and if they do, what's their visibility and footprint look like, and then work your way backward into a strategy that can pierce into the gaps they have. Because realistically, we've worked with some pretty big partners on our side, on the dispensary side, who are multi-store operators, and they do have a lot of great footholds in big areas, but there are always gaps in their keyword portfolio, their content portfolio, their link building portfolio, or whatever it is — and you'll be surprised how often these bigger MSOs have a lot of technical issues on their website that they just gloss over. So, looking at that too, and saying, all right, if I can keep my site really technically clean — my metadata is set up correctly, I have schema, page speed is firing great, all these other things that Google values — I can promise you, nine times out of ten, these big operators don't have the resources, or don't put the effort into those things, and you'll be able to make up ground in that area and start compounding that growth really quickly. By being a little more strategic, you don't have to have a big bucket of dollars — I mean, it helps, it definitely helps, but if you're smart about your dollar allocation and how you use your investment, you can really grow, you just have to be realistic about the timeline, because there's going to be a slightly bigger window when you have a little less investment.

Guillermo: Yeah, and there are a couple of free tactics you can do that can really establish you as a business — if you have great customer service, a really expansive product catalog, competitive pricing — really push your customers to give you feedback and give you Google reviews, and that's one way you can compete hand-in-hand with all the MSOs. If you're in the local pack and you get, say, 100 reviews, then get to 300, 500, then a thousand, that will give you a real chance to compete against the big partners.

Sammer: Right, I think those are great points.

Where to Place Keywords on Your Website

Guillermo: Then, after you've done the keyword research, where do you implement the top keywords?

Sammer: Yeah, that's another part of this, because a lot of people just take those keywords and start spraying them everywhere. I've seen people put keywords in the footer, embed them in hidden text on blogs — the more the better — you don't want to do that. You want your keywords to really be associated with the landing page of focus. So what you want to do, when taking your keywords, is identify the main areas for placement — your title tags, that's going to be very important, your H1s, your headers — H1s, H2s — how do you incorporate keywords into those elements — and then your on-site anchor text. You don't want to have exact-match anchor text, which we'll get into a little later, but you want some of those keywords naturally inserted in a readable format within your content, across your blogs and other landing pages. And then, if you're doing any kind of link building — working with a third-party website to get a link from them, whether you're providing them content or not — giving them that keyword with an associated landing page would also be beneficial. But if you're just focusing on your own website, I would say your title tags, your meta description, will be helpful — H1s, H2s, H3s if you have them — those would be really important to embed. And then it doesn't hurt, but it has to be natural, within your URL structure as well, that's also important. But again, I've seen people go a little overboard with that — it's helpful, but it's not going to make or break you in any way. It'll give the search engines and the users an understanding, at the URL level, of what your page is about, but that last part I think you should do delicately.

Guillermo: Yeah, so this is an example of a location here — we have Ann Arbor. So, can you see this, Sammer? Does it show up okay? Absolutely, so that's the title tag there, and then the meta description — let me show you this on the front end. There you go, so there's your title tag, and here's your meta description. So this is how it's going to show in the actual search results, and you can see that Google has updated its platform, they do allow pictures — I see a picture here and a picture here associated with the actual location — and then this is the top header tag, this is going to be your H1, really establishing what your page is about, and then you can have H2 or H3, which are subcategories of that header tag. And then, let's go down a little bit — this is a little trick here, having written-out directions from different landmarks nearby the store, that's a great way to associate the location with different attractions, landmarks, and popular areas. And then here's another H2, so they also have the keyword in the content — you can see I did a search here for "cannabis," so it looks like we have it in there twice, so you don't want to overdo it, you want to put it a few times within the content naturally, so it reads for a human, not for search engines. And yeah, that's where it is, strategically placed on this page, so just being really specific on how you're targeting each page — if it's a blog post, only talk about one topic — and then the title tag, in the same place, is the URL structure. You can see on the previous URL it actually had /dispensary/michigan/ann-arbor, so you can see that URL hierarchy there — you have "Ann Arbor dispensary" and then their domain name. So you have all those keywords within the actual URL, and none of that was done with very little thought — it's all about, when you're thinking about how to approach your keywords and your on-site content, mindfulness. Be mindful about what you're doing, because somebody's going to associate that with your brand, and you want to have a really good brand reputation at the end of the day, because that's going to help with sustainability and really get those new users in the door.

Sammer: Yeah, it's really about not overdoing everything, being wise about when to lean into something and when to maybe not lean into it as heavily as you'd like.

Guillermo: Yeah, and as far as the URL structure, I should show that to you —

SEO-Friendly URL Structure

Guillermo: — do you have any top tips for setting up a standard URL structure?

Sammer: Yeah, I would say think about it from a pathway perspective — what I see a lot of is xyz.com/[blog name], and that's fine at the end of the day, but what you want to create is a hierarchy so a user can understand where they came from, all the way through, kind of like breadcrumbs in many ways. So what I always recommend is, whatever page you're building, is it associated with a page at a higher level? If we go back to that example, we have that store page, but it's associated with dispensaries in the state of Michigan, so we have a state dispensaries page, and that state dispensaries page is one layer below their overall business location dispensaries page — so we have "dispensaries" as another part of the URL slug. So what you want to do is not create a site hierarchy for the sake of creating one, you want to make sure there's a tangible reason it's there. I'd say being able to establish a URL structure that a user can look at and say, "okay, I came from this page and this page, and that's how I got here" — you want to make it super easy for the end user, and also super easy for the bots to scroll through the URL structure, which helps them when it comes to parsing that data.

Guillermo: That's awesome. And then as far as the title tags — I did show you how it appears in Google search results —

Title Tags and Meta Description Best Practices

Guillermo: — so that's going to be the first main header, and then the main description is right under that.

Sammer: Yeah, and on the title tags, you may have a slightly different opinion than me — I don't know if your opinion has changed, but I'm of the opinion of keyword, then brand name, after the pipe bar — I forget what it's called, that up-and-down bar — but I believe you prefer brand first, then the keyword after the brand name, so we have a slightly different basic format, just flipping the positions. I think, for whoever is doing the title tags, the most important thing is your primary keyword should be in your title tag, and I think, character count allowing, your brand name should be in your title tag as well — I think those are both important to have, because they do impact your rankings. On the meta description side, I think it's more of a sales pitch — it doesn't impact your rankings directly, but it does impact your click-through rate, and that, at the end of the day, has influence on your rankings. So it doesn't make sense to keyword-stuff your meta description — it's more about, if you had an elevator pitch for 10 seconds, what would that be, how do you get someone to enter your store from Google, that's your one opportunity. There are times where Google will look at your meta description and say it's not worth it for them, they don't like it, and they'll pull something from your website directly, so you'll have some of that once in a while, but I think looking at your metadata through the lens of your brand and your target keyword for your title tags, and then your sales pitch in your meta description, would be a really great approach for those two elements.

Guillermo: Agreed. And I think if you have the keyword at the beginning of the title tag, it's going to help you rank faster — it's just going to give you a little bit of a nudge. But then once you establish first-page, number-one rankings, and you've built trust and authority with Google, you could probably move it to the beginning, because you want your brand to be associated with that keyword as well, so there may be some opportunities there. And keep in mind the limit is between 50 and 60 characters for a title tag, so you really want to keep it under 60 characters — most of the time, 90% of your titles will display properly in search results, so keep that in mind when putting together that content.

SEO 101 Recap and What's Next

Guillermo: And I think we're coming up on time here, so we'll have to save some of the next content pieces for our next SEO webinar. So, to recap today's webinar, SEO 101 for Cannabis Dispensaries — we covered how to do competitor analysis research, we really dove deep into keyword research and how to implement keywords into your site and your SEO strategy, plus we started to look at on-page optimization — implementing your keywords into your URLs, your title tags, your header tags, and meta descriptions within the content. So we really covered a lot today, and don't forget, we're going to cover the next phase of our SEO webinar series — we're going to be covering schema, featured snippets, and we'll also be diving into off-page optimization, looking at listings and link building strategies for single-store and multi-store cannabis retail chains. I want to thank you again, Sammer, for joining us today and really taking the time to dive in deep, and I'm excited to have you on the next session to share more of our expertise with our audience.

Sammer: Thanks for having me, it's always fun to chat with you, and yeah, I'm excited for 102.

Guillermo: This sounds good, and just to recap — MediaJel is here to connect cannabis brands and retailers with cannabis consumers through our network of mainstream publishers, mobile apps, games, and TV. We help cannabis companies advertise on Google, so you can do paid search, and we support SEO, which is what we're covering today. So there's a lot of ways we can activate marketing campaigns on your behalf, and activate data with display advertising campaigns to support e-commerce sales as well — really covering every step of the customer journey. We're here to serve you, so you can schedule a meeting with us at mediajel.com. We'll be happy to help. See you later.

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