Cannabis Ecommerce SEO: How Dispensaries Can Drive Organic Traffic
with Jeremy Johnson of Dispense
If your third party cannabis eCommerce menu outranks your cannabis business website on Google search, your brand’s digital presence is in jeopardy.
Reap the rewards of organic Google traffic, own your first-party data, rank higher than your competitors, gain revenue attribution insights, and make SEO your #1 investment for building a strong, long-term digital presence.
This Thursday, we are digging into the benefits and drawbacks of cannabis eCommerce menu platforms. We’ll analyze the differences between self-hosted eCommerce menus versus iframe and subdomains and how each option impacts the indexability of your website. Plus, the 10 KPIs to measure cannabis eCommerce SEO performance and how to calculate sales conversions for your entire website, not just your menu.
Don’t surrender your long-term success to sites like Weedmaps, Leafly, and Dutchie. Instead, leverage these platforms in your marketing mix while building your brand alongside them. We will show you how!
Join our webinar with Jeremy Johnson, Business Development Manager of Dispense, to learn more about owning your data and the SEO tactics you must employ to rank your cannabis eCommerce business on Google and Bing.
During our 60-minute webinar, we’ll cover:
- How to outrank Weedmaps, Leafly, and other cannabis eCommerce marketplaces using SEO
- Setting up your eCommerce technology stack to allow ownership and activation of your cannabis consumer data
- A deep dive into Google Analytics eCommerce setup
- How to track the 10 SEO KPIs that drive revenue and growth
If you don’t know the percentage of cannabis consumers that discover a dispensary by Googling branded vs. dispensary search terms, you can’t afford to miss this webinar. Save your spot now!
Webinar Highlights
Google Search Terms Cannabis Consumers Use to Find Dispensaries
00:01:59 – 00:04:56: Guillermo Bravo and Jeremy Johnson, Business Development Manager of Dispense, discuss how cannabis consumers discover dispensaries through Google searches. Google is the go-to place when searching for specific products and services. Jeremy highlights that most clicks come from either “dispensary near me” or branded dispensary terms. He explains that when consumers are looking for a specific retailer, they type in the retailer’s name and the word dispensary or “cannabis near me.” There is also a growing number of searches for brand, product, and strain-related searches.
Guillermo mentions that in one of MediaJel’s retailers, approximately 60% of searches were branded terms, 30% were “dispensary near me” searches, and the remaining 10% consisted of strain-related and brand-product searches. Jeremy agrees, citing data from Leafly’s 2021 report that 40% of the traffic to Leafly.com is from brand, product, and strain-related searches. Guillermo then differentiates Leafly from Weedmaps, explaining that Leafly is focused on product information and reviews, making them rank number one from other marketplace platforms and above Weedmaps.
Exploring Benefits of Native Platforms vs Third-Party Platforms with iframe
00:05:14 – 00:08:19: Jeremy Johnson provides a clear distinction between third-party and native platforms. He notes that most cannabis retailers currently use third-party platforms, which are hybrid solutions that assist dispensaries in creating menus. Some examples of these cannabis marketplaces include Weedmaps, Leafly, Dutchie, and Jane. By utilizing an iframe, third-party platforms allow retailers to list and sell products on their e-commerce websites.
However, iframes do not live on the e-commerce site’s domain, which is a significant drawback, as Google does not attribute the product content to the dispensary’s URL. Suppose a cannabis retailer lists content on a Dutchie or Weedmaps iframe. In that case, Google credits all the content to the third party. So, instead of supporting the dispensary’s domain authority, all the credit from keywords and clicks goes to Dutchie or Weedmaps.
Jeremy goes on to mention that there are dedicated platforms for creating native menus, such as Dispense, Ola, and Timber. The main difference is that listing content on one of these platforms is attributed to the retailer’s website. Additionally, these platforms provide complete insight into analytics and the customer journey, helping retailers understand what their customers are doing on their websites.
How Valuable is the Cannabis First-Party Data Gathered From a Self-Hosted Menu?
00:09:49- 00:15:39: Guillermo and Jeremy revisit the significance of cannabis first-party data, particularly concerning self-hosted menus. There is a critical distinction between self-hosted menus and third-party platforms like Weedmaps or Leafly. Third-party platforms can limit cannabis retailers’ access to data while third-party providers gain valuable insights into customer spending habits and brand preferences. Jeremy emphasizes the industry-wide value of first-party data, highlighting its role in helping retailers understand customer behaviors and choices. Ownership and analysis of this data offer countless opportunities for improvement, so retailers benefit from having control over their first-party data and harnessing its full potential.
