Rank Higher on Google: Cannabis Link Building 101

Link building is one of the most misunderstood — and most impactful — elements of cannabis SEO. Earning the right backlinks is one of the clearest signals to Google that your dispensary or brand is a trusted and authoritative source, and this webinar breaks down exactly how to build that link profile.The session covers what link building is, why it matters more than most operators realize, and the specific strategies cannabis businesses can use to earn quality backlinks without risking penalties. SEO managers, dispensary marketing teams, and operators who want to rank higher on Google for competitive cannabis search terms will find this a practical and foundational guide.

Watch Now

Key Insights

Brand positioning defines the specific place your dispensary occupies in the customer's mind - the one or two attributes that make you distinctly different from every other option in your market.
Consistency is the most important attribute of a strong brand - every customer touchpoint, from your website to your budtenders to your packaging, should reinforce the same core identity and promise.
Community connection is a powerful and often underinvested brand-building lever for cannabis dispensaries - local partnerships, events, and causes create brand associations that paid advertising cannot replicate.
Customer experience is brand execution - every interaction a customer has with your dispensary is either reinforcing or eroding your brand positioning, making operational consistency a marketing strategy.
Brand investment compounds over time: each positive customer interaction, each consistent message, and each community touchpoint builds equity that makes future customer acquisition cheaper and retention stronger.

Expert Answers

[{Why does brand matter for cannabis dispensaries?}

Brand matters because cannabis retail is becoming increasingly commoditized. As dispensary density increases in most markets, product selection and pricing are converging, making brand - the emotional connection and trust you build with customers - the primary differentiator. Customers who choose your dispensary because of what it represents, not just what it sells, are more loyal, less price-sensitive, and more likely to refer others. Brand is the asset that makes your dispensary defensible even as competition intensifies.

{What is dispensary brand positioning?}

Brand positioning is the specific claim your dispensary makes about the experience and value it delivers - the one or two attributes that define you relative to all other options in the market. Effective cannabis brand positioning is specific enough to be meaningful, relevant to your target customer, and authentic to what you actually deliver. Examples include: the most knowledgeable staff in the market, the best selection for wellness-oriented consumers, the most welcoming environment for new cannabis users, or the best value for regular consumers.

{How do cannabis dispensaries build brand loyalty?}

Brand loyalty is built through consistent delivery of a distinctive experience over time. It requires defining a clear brand promise, delivering on that promise at every customer touchpoint, creating emotional connections through community involvement and cause alignment, and rewarding repeat customers through loyalty programs that reinforce the relationship. The strongest cannabis brands combine a consistent in-store experience with consistent digital communications, creating a brand presence that customers encounter across multiple channels.]

Webinar Highlights

00:00 - Why Most Dispensaries Underinvest in Brand - and What It Costs Them

The session opens by examining why brand investment is often deprioritized in cannabis retail and the long-term competitive cost of competing only on product and price.

12:00 - Defining Your Brand Positioning

This section covers how to identify and articulate the specific market position your dispensary will own and how to evaluate whether your current positioning is distinct and relevant.

24:00 - Brand Consistency Across Channels and Touchpoints

The webinar covers how to maintain brand consistency across your website, social media, in-store experience, staff interactions, and packaging to build a coherent brand identity.

36:00 - Community Connection as a Brand Strategy

The session closes with specific tactics for using local community engagement, partnerships, and cause marketing to build brand equity that paid advertising cannot create.

Frequently Asked Questions

[ {What is a cannabis dispensary brand?}

A cannabis dispensary brand is the sum total of what customers think, feel, and expect when they encounter your business. It includes your visual identity, your name, your messaging, and the reputation you have built - but most importantly, it is the emotional associations and trust that customers develop through repeated positive experiences. A strong dispensary brand makes customers choose you by preference rather than convenience and makes them more loyal and more likely to refer others.

{How is cannabis brand different from cannabis advertising?}

Cannabis advertising is a paid, short-term channel for driving awareness and traffic. Cannabis brand is the long-term asset that advertising helps build. Brand investment pays off over years as customer trust and loyalty accumulate, while advertising generates more immediate but shorter-lived results. The most effective cannabis marketing programs use advertising to build the brand consistently over time rather than treating every campaign as a standalone transaction-driving exercise.

{How do you measure brand strength for a cannabis dispensary?}

Brand strength can be measured through customer retention rate (how many customers return), share of wallet (what percentage of their cannabis spending comes to you), Net Promoter Score (how likely customers are to refer others), and branded search volume (how often people search directly for your dispensary name). Surveys can also measure aided and unaided brand awareness in your market. These metrics capture the equity your brand is building over time, which transactional metrics alone do not show.

{What role does customer experience play in dispensary brand building?}

Customer experience is brand execution. Every interaction a customer has with your dispensary - from finding you online to parking, checking in, interacting with staff, making their purchase, and following up with your loyalty program - is either reinforcing or eroding the brand promise you have made. Operationally consistent, high-quality customer experience is not just good service; it is the mechanism by which your brand positioning becomes real for customers.

{How do community partnerships help build a dispensary brand?}

Community partnerships create brand associations that paid advertising cannot replicate. When your dispensary sponsors a local event, partners with a community organization, or champions a cause that matters to your target customers, you build emotional connections and goodwill that translate into loyalty and word-of-mouth. Community involvement also generates earned media coverage, social sharing, and local reputation that have long-term brand value. For cannabis dispensaries specifically, community engagement also signals responsible operation and local commitment. ]

Webinar Full Transcript

[ {Full Transcript}

good morning everyone good afternoon if you're joining us from the East Coast we'll wait for another minute or so to allow Our Guest to join in and we'll be right back with you wonderful we'll get underway here with our webinar for today really exciting topic and most often misunderstood we're going to be talking about backlinking and how to rank higher on Google there are so many different ways that you can tackle SEO link building being one of the key areas that will contribute to your overall uh rank Factor when it comes to Google or any other search engine So today we're going to be covering how you're going to improve that search Authority and get more sales really exciting topic once again so let's get underway so for our agenda we're going to be covering what link building is why you need to implement it techniques for getting these links and how to get started creating linkable content really important once again for your overall SEO strategy oftentimes the more challenging portion of SEO we're going to demystify that today a little bit about myself my name is Ed Wardle Silva I will be your host here today I am the Vice President of Sales here at foot traffic and really really excited to be part of this industry I joined the industry approximately four years ago when I attended oaksterdam University here in Oakland California and I was really really excited about all of the uh exciting news that was coming out of our industry and as of December of this last year uh there was a you know a really pivotal moment of interviewing a lot of Industry leaders as well as general managers of dispensaries which really convinced me to take a full leap into the industry there is a massive need for reaching out to these customers and finding them as well as building reputation and brand and that's exactly what we are covering here uh with our webinar series at foot traffic a little bit about foot traffic we've been in business for over five years now fully dedicated to this industry our breath of coverage is across all of North America and for each one of our customers we may be uh specializing on one two or maybe even four different service key areas which are all specializing in that digital advertising sector let's take a quick moment to just familiarize ourselves if you are joining us on the zoom interface today with the Q&A button there are live panelists uh that can answer any of your questions while we're going through the content also take a moment to silence your phones or put them face down on your desk we are going to cover quite a lot of content so we want to make sure that you have an opportunity to really absorb the material and be sure to stick around we do have a special offer for those attending the webinar today so feel free to reach out to us after to webinar we can set you up with a custom um 101 conference call where we can discuss your specific business needs and get you set up so let's Jump Right In link building is an integral part of search engine optimization if you've joined some of our previous webinars if you know that search engine optimization or SEO as is commonly called is all about optimizing your website around particular keywords improving the user experience and incorporating strategies to help you with Google ranking factors link building is one of those strategies and it plays right into what Google cares about according to search engine land links are one of the top two factors that Google considers for their rankings want you rank higher on Google or need to secure your position so competitors don't take that top spot that you that you earned well link building as part of a broader SEO strategy can do just that when you run a search on Google they want to give you the most relevant results they try to match your search intent so that if you are doing a search for so you can learn more about something you get educational results if you're doing a search to buy something you get shopping results do make sense right this has made Google extremely popular there are over 3.5 billion Google searches each and every day and I know this because I did ask Google so how can you convince Google's algorithm that your site is the answer to particular queries how can you show that your dispensary is the best one to show Searchers in your area that's precisely the areas that we will be covering today to rank which sites and Pages it will point to Google looks at a lot of factors these are all part of their secretive algorithm and these ranking factors are all revolving around eat or eat for sure this stands for expertise authoritativeness and trustworthiness if your website is able to Showcase these three factors then you're going to show up higher in relevant searches so how can you do this in addition to creating great content creating a link building strategies as part of your larger SEO strategy will help showcase the eat of your website when people link to your site they're essentially endorsing you as an expert those links help you bu build side Authority they tell Google that people like your content and that it is relevant and once Google has that information when someone does a relevant search they will be able to highlight your dispensary as a qualified search result makes sense right and that's the why of Link building so let's jump into the what the act of getting sites to link to you is l link building link building typically prioritizes two types of links internal links that are your own website and points to your own pages and backlinks which are called inbound links coming from other websites let's say you have a blog post talking about sativas and at the end you link to your menu or a location page that's an internal link if you're mentioned in an article about dispensaries and they link to your website that's a backlink the quality of the link also matters of course while you want many links they should be from relevant sites or individuals because their domain Authority helps increase the value of the link the text that they use to link to you known as the anchor text also matters it should be Rel to the content that's being linked to when creating a link building strategy you want to consider a couple of things to ensure that you are maximizing your time and actually boosting your SEO first and very very important set a goal what types of links do you want to score how many do you envision getting and what time frame do you want to achieve this in next before getting started in creating content make sure to audit your site and an offsite profiles or directory listings for missing opportunities do they all have the appropriate links if not get the right links added now let's dive into internal links internal links don't provide quite the same value as backlinks they're still considered to be a valuable part of SEO internal links are useful for establishing site architecture and spreading link acurity around your site having a crawlable internal link structure will help it make it easier for search engines to find and index all of the pages on your website which means that Google can then reference those pages for the appropriate Search terms now in their rush to produce content many websites make the mistake of hiding or burying Pages they make they may not make them part of their menu or link to them however in order for search engines to like like Google to rank your pages in a user search results he has to be able to find them it just makes sense a solid internal link structure will make your pages more accessible and easier to find for both Google and potential customers as well and not to mention that this will actually increase the time consumers browse through your website which is yet another great um sales capability I mentioned that internal links also work to distribute link Equity amongst your pages link Equity can be thought of as passing value and Authority from one page to another internal linking should be a consideration when creating your website adding pages and posting blog content your website should feature an easy to navigate hierarchy that makes sense to your users for example let's say you're having multiple locations from your homepage you would want to link to your locations page and then link to each of the different locations if you work in multiple States then the locations page should feature theate Pages which would then link to the individual dispensaries this is pretty logical and intuitive once you think about it in that perspective when adding new pages or blog posts you want to link to them properly and maintain the site hierarchy and make them crawlable once and one way to do this is to create pillar content which is important content that you're reference time and time again on our website we have a knowledge base with pages that share information about digital marketing each of the pillar pages is full of important information that helps educate potential clients when wew write blog post we link to those pages when appropriate and then help which helps Google add the value to those pillar Pages as well feel free to browse to frit traffic. to become familiar with it speaking of blog posts in addition to linking to your pillar pages and menu you will also want to make sure that you link to your other blog post when appropriate let's talk backlinks now very very important backlinks are the gold standard for l link building when a credible High Authority website links to yours it's almost as if it were transferring some of its own authority to your site when a search engine attempts to rank your website it doesn't just look at the content on your site it also looks at the external link pointing to the content having a network of valuable backlinks will automatically give your dispensary a website boost in search engine rankings because of this not all links are the same inbound links coming from trusted high traffic and high Authority websites are more valuable than links coming from less known sites with less traffic when a credible website with a high ranking link to your content you can expect your rankings to go up over time but when a backlink originates from a low value like a low Authority website it can actually have the opposite effect low value backlinks can hurt your search ranking pulling your site down in the rankings instead of pushing it up these types of backlinks are generally the result of black hat SEO strategy that can get you in trouble with Google we don't participate in those types ofat stres to protect our clients by implementing a robust backlinking building strategy we can score high quality backlinks that improve our clients ranking and here at foot traffic we have a network of partner sites that are high ranking Authority sites within the Cannabis industry and that's why our practice is shot there are a variety of ways to score backlinks to your site so let's talk about those for a moment the best way to get backlinks is to create good content that people want to share via social or on their own blog post by showcasing your knowledge of the industry and of cannabis in general you can create content that people want to link to for a dispensary this could be educational content about the Entourage effect tarpine or CBD among other things you can also feature Brands some Brands may even be willing to link to your content about them or share via their social media now this isn't just have to be text yes a great blog post about these topics is a great idea but if you have the resources in time you can take it a step further in addition to blog post you can create videos to provide formation in an accessible format you can also create infographics or fun gifts that are relevant in sites that will'll want to share back to it we do offer content services for our clients we have a Blog service that includes ideation creation and publication so that you get the benefits without having to do the actual hard work this is the fastest way to get started with the content content creation think about it how many blog posts can you write in one week we have an entire staff dedicated to writing content that is key to your brand if you want to tackle this by yourself as we mentioned start with keyword search or consumer research to dial into what potential customers want to know and read one simple way to do this is to check with your butt tenders to see what questions get asked most mostly from there you will need to create a post edit it find a Creative Image and then publish it regularly another way to get links to your site is by ensuring you're listed in directories like Yelp weed maps and Leafly of course the first listing you will need to create is your Google my business profile from there you will want to focus on directories that are relevant to industry and right now weed maps gets the most traffic than Leafly so you definitely want to create a listings there as well the fastest way to get on all of the right listing directory is by using our listing services we'll create your profile for you and get your Dispensary on all of the right directories you can also score backlinks by speaking or presenting a Cannabis Conference events there are plenty of educational conferences and events happening across the country thanks to the popular popularity of legalization of course these are all virtual right now but they still present a great opportunity for getting high quality backlinks depending on the size of your company you may be able to lend speaking gigs at popular conferences like MJ biscon or if you have expertise in a particular part of the industry you may be able to secure a spot as a panelist at conferences that cover a variety of topics for example if you've centered your dispensary around wellness and have a history with alternative medicine you may be able to speak about your role of the dispensary as alternative me medicine providers or as a partner to Integrative Medicine practices local events can help you build links as well if you have a partnership with let's say a yoga studio you can each mention your joint events on your websites you can also submit that event to other sites like your local newspaper or Library some dispensaries even partner with libraries themselves to help educate patients about cannabis there are a a lot of cannabis friendly podcasts out there and why not reach out to one of them and propose doing an episode together many podcasts will have information about being a contributor or guest on their website alternatively you can start your own podcast and feature guests who will link to your podcast on your site or and as well as their site webinars can also be a useful tool to score links right now most events have on Virtual and zoom is a daily thing we've been doing webinars for almost a year now and it's a great way to both create content and share valuable information with interested parties for dispensaries you can do educational webinars about canono tpin and more you can also transition your events into webinars rather than having a vendor day you can have a vendor webinar day that can be viewed time and time again if you Ed to host marijuana medication and meditation classes go virtual and create a series these can liveen up your website so that you have quality content and they can be easily linked to and as well as shared another way to build links is to post on other websites blogs for example if you create a good article that gets accepted by Green entrepreneur your bile will have a link to your website in it some sites only offer no follow links so be sure to check before investing too much time into creating content that won't give you a big boost this means that the site owner has added an attribute to the link to tell Google not to pass off some of the page rank to the site being linked this is often the case on sites like medium or in other blog post comments now that doesn't mean that you shouldn't bother with no follow links it can still be a worthwhile Venture because while you may not necessarily get an SEO boost you may still get people clicking through to your website if your article is great essentially weigh the benefits versus the cost of your time to determine what whether you should go down that that route alog together to track your link building strategy you will likely want to use a couple of different software platforms to check them regularly we always recommend that our clients install Google analytics the Google analytics platform lets you see where your traffic is coming from we use it as a part of our Revenue attribution when you set this up properly you can see how many sales resulted from your different links you can also see whether sales from organic traffic increase over time which is a larger goal of a quality SEO strategy you can also track the effectiveness of your link building with a site like ARS ARS helps measure how many backlinks your site has it's a robust tool that can help support and measure your SEO goals you can even use it to provide insight into your competitor's website when you work with a cannabis digital marketing agency such as foot traffic this is all done for you you don't have to worry about making sure your Google analytics is set up right or signing up for your SEO tool that you will need to learn more to use we'll install Google analytics for you and provide reporting on your website performance we'll score for you more links and monitor them link building doesn't stop there to get the most out of this strategy you need to continue to invest in it Google's consistently updating this algorithm plus some of your older links will break or disappear altogether just like SEO link building is a process success happens over time and to see results you will want to keep getting quality link the first few months that you engage an SEO it's all about getting things set up and tracking you can expect to see the results of your hard labor in about six months this all depends on your Market though so be sure to give us a call and learn more about what this would mean for your particular dispensary if you are ready to implement a strategy that is guaranteed to you work and provide your Revenue attribution let's get talking I want you to get you set up with our special SEO deal that includes link building if you sign up for a three-month SEO strategy before December 15 we will give you 20% off your first month we can truly cater this service to your business so if you have questions or particular concerns about your website performance schedule a call with us we're going to be putting the link here in the chat window so you can get in touch with us and we can go over this once you know the issues you're facing you can we can help you create a plan to address and then overcome them let's take a moment to address any questions from the audience now if you have any questions please do feel free to enter them here in the Q&A window great first question here how much does link building impact SEO great great question we can't know the exact impact because Google doesn't share that information since it's proprietary to their algorithm but research by SEO Specialists suggest that it is one of the most important factors to determine page ranking we estimate this should be greater than 30% of the overall SEO strategy some Specialists may say that this is actually closer to 40% so anywhere in between there let's cut it in the middle let's call it 35% impact how many links do you need to improve your SEO ranking great question all right so there are no hard or fast number for this and ultimately it's more important to focus on the quality of the links as I mentioned before than quantity right because if you do l some of those poor quality sites it will drag you down you can have tons of links but if you don't come up with quality or relevant sites then they aren't going to help you great questions all right just one more question from the audience and then we'll be uh concluding our call here for today okay so how long does it take to see keyword Rank and improvement from link building another question we get very very often and uh for the uninitiated in SEO it always seems a little bit of a of a mystical answer but in reality within the first 60 to 90 days you're going to be starting to see some true impact of the link building efforts Google must first crawl the internet to index all of the new links between websites then you will credit this back um to your website so it takes a little bit of time it's kind of like do the work and wait for for the crawl to come through and then rate for the for the ranking to to be applied right towards your website wonderful I want to thank everybody for joining us today don't forget to take advantage of today's SEO offer uh it's for today's attendees only and I really want to get you hooked up with a service also for sticking around you've qualified for a free Yeti so let's get shipping that information to you just get in touch with us once again you have the contact link here in the chat window let's get you set up let's get your shipping information in thank you so much have a wonderful rest of your week ]