The Secrets to a Local SEO Strategy that Drives Traffic to Your Website & Store

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good morning or good afternoon if you're joining us from the east coast thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us for yet another webinar in our series of webinars here foot traffic we're really excited to be speaking with you we're gonna allow another minute or so for our attendees to join in on the webinar so we'll be right back with you thank you once again for joining us for today's webinar on seo today we're going to be talking about the secrets to a local seo strategy that drives traffic to your website and store and how to rank higher and get seen by your customers really excited about this webinar here today in our series of seo uh tips and tricks of the trade so let's get underway in our agenda for today why local seo is so important for connecting with customers the crucial seo factors you need to focus on how to start implementing your new strategy once again my name is eduardo silva i will be your host for today's webinar really excited for this opportunity to speak to you today carry with myself 18 years of digital and traditional marketing experience along with sales so really excited to be sharing some of those lessons learned along the way foot traffic is a digital advertising agency solely focused in the canada space for over five years now we're really excited to be supporting this community and continuing continuously growing with the community as well and our partners who are our customers throughout all of north america let's get ready for today's webinar some very basic steps here to just get ourselves situated for uh all of the information that we're gonna be covering uh i always like the uh the cell phones as a distraction mechanism so let's go ahead and put those facing down on our desk to avoid any distractions throughout all of this content i also ask that you take a moment to just familiarize yourself with the zoom interface we do have a q a function uh q a function does get directly to our panelists who will be supporting you here throughout the webinar so since we are going to be moving fairly quickly any questions you have about any of the content uh pertinent here just feel free to ask away and we'll get you an answer right away and or uh be uh on the lookout as well towards the end of the webinar we will be sharing a special offer with those attending today so once again thank you for your time let's dump let's jump right in so seo or search engine optimization is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results this is unpaid traffic that comes from google and when customers want to find a dispensary near them they turn to google and if you want to show up in those search results then it's crucial that you have a robust seo strategy and a team to implement it for you otherwise searches will go right to your competition why because they will be easier to find seo is all about findability it shows that your website is relevant to particular keywords for us that may be boston dispensary detroit provisioning center or sacramento marijuana delivery optimizing your site around these keywords make it more likely that people who are looking for your services will find you and shop with you when you have a good seo strategy two things will happen one you will show up higher in the search results and two you will get more organic traffic organic traffic is one of the most dependable sources of web traffic and revenue for many businesses out there and it's not just any web traffic thanks to your optimization it will be relevant high quality traffic these are people who are already interested in what you're selling and want to buy from you not every click leads to a sale but many of them will if you want to capture those potential customers then you need to create a local seo strategy that helps you own your market in the world of search engine options local refers to searches having to do with a specific geographical area if a user conducts a search for a dispensary near boston google will display several pages of results for businesses that match those criterias and will even highlight a select few in a mini directory at the top of the page that mini directory is called the local pack and it's exactly where you want your dispenser to show up because it is prominently positioned local search engine optimization is similar to seo in general however the focus is geographically centered around the area of your dispensary in the market you serve if your dispensaries inaudible you do not need to show up for someone searching for a dispensary near them in san diego it's vital that you show up however when someone is in la and is trying to find a place to shop so how does this work so how is this different from regular seo strategy well the ranking factors for local seo are a bit different while all of the regular seo factors like keyword optimization backlinks page speed and mobile responsiveness still matter there are other signals that google looks for when deciding how to rank sites at its core the google algorithm aims to connect searchers with the results that are most relevant to their search they try to match the intent of the search with the site that provide authoritative and trustworthy content that relates to the keywords being used for near me searchers google relies heavily on their own suite of business tools like google my business and google reviews which we'll be covering shortly google doesn't disclose how their algorithm works but instead we have a we have to rely on testing sites and sharing best practices to see what impacts rankings sites like moz or bright local can also help us understand local seo ranking factors though i want to mention that while those sites offer a variety of services they don't really work with dispensaries and aren't aware of the various challenges that cannabis companies face since foot traffic has only worked in the cannabis space since we started offering seo services over five years ago we found ways to overcome the challenges to help our clients get noticed and rank higher before detailing the important factors your local seo strategy needs i really want you to hammer down how crucial it is this client of ours is an mso of medical recreational dispensaries in pennsylvania maryland and massachusetts we've been working with them to create a local seo strategy for their dispensaries because they are each in very unique areas and in q4 2020 they invested six thousand dollars in seo their investment led to 47 000 orders and six million dollars in revenue this was powered by 125 000 new visitors that we were able to get to their website with a robust seo strategy they were able to make 938 dollars for every dollar they spent on seo let's talk strategy now as part of your local seo strategy you will want to make sure you are claiming your google my business profile you will need to do this for each and every one of your locations this is the most crucial factor for getting found and driving traffic to your store or website now this makes sense correct if someone is running a google search and most people are then of course google is going to look at the information they themselves collect on businesses and rely on that first when creating your gmp profile make sure to use the actual name of your dispensary and then follow it by the word dispensary for example rise would be rise dispensary do not add in the name of your city or try to stuff your name with keywords make sure that your name address and phone number is correct and that they are the same as they appear on your website you should also create a description of your location that includes relevant keywords the types of products you carry and anything that helps set your dispensary apart enter accurate business hours and keep them updated this is especially crucial right now with cobit you want people to know when you're open and how they can get your products if you're only offering curbside pickup right now mention that in your description so that potential customers know to order ahead don't forget about holidays and special events put a reminder in your calendar and update your business hours on your profile accordingly if your hours ever change even temporarily make sure to update your listing not only is this best practices for google but it's also an important business practice in general google also allows you to post pictures to your gmb listing customers enjoy being able to check out your dispensary before visiting so make sure to upload some photos that help show off your location here at foot traffic we even offer our clients 3d virtual tours which is very very popular with customers your reputation matters and google takes it into account for local searchers ultimately google wants to send people to websites that best match their search intent part of this is ensuring they have a positive experience there to do this they rely on what others have said to rate well on google you will want to get at least one review a day and score an average of 4.7 stars fewer stars will result in fewer sales customers take reviews into account on making a purchase so this isn't just about seo it helps you on two fronts because we're talking about seo google reviews are the most valuable while other reviews are helpful when customers are shopping around when it comes to seo google is king to get reviews you will want to make sure your butt tenders are asking your customers for them after positive experience you can also create flyers with a qr code to place on bags or re-engage customers with sms to ask for a google review in terms of reputation management you should check your reviews regularly and respond to both positive as well as negative reviews if you don't have a reputation management system in place it's time to implement one this includes regularly checking your reviews and responding to both positive as well as negative and yes we can help with that just schedule a call with us at foot traffic dot com excuse me foot traffic dot me first call we're gonna put that in the chat right now for you and this is crucial for your local seo reviews are the second most important local ranking factor and you cannot overlook them to maximize your search and your reach you will want to research which keywords you can rank for and create a strategy for ranking for the most relevant and desirable local keywords this can be harder for more crowded markets like la or san francisco but to create a keyword strategy you wanted a tool like arafs or sem rush to look at what you are currently ranking for what keywords your competition is ranking for and how much traffic potential different keywords have you should also take a look at your google analytics data to determine which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site right now and which have the highest conversion rate once you have your list of keywords that you want to rank for you will need to optimize your site around those keywords and create new content around them let's talk more about using these keywords when it comes to local seo many marketers mistakenly overlook developing a content strategy that's a huge miss opportunity developing a content marketing strategy that targets your local keywords can be surprisingly beneficial unique high quality local content will attract inbound links boosting your rankings in the process and it will differentiate your dispensary from your competition keywords should appear in both headings and content and your content should be relevant to the keywords you're using for cannabis you can create content around your products the plant your local area and more and remain relevant for crucial search terms this helps improve your site authority and shows google that you know what you're talking about for example if you go to our website you will see pages for each of our services and then you will also find that many of our blog posts relate to our services or to clients interests there are a few different types of content you can create of course you have your web pages like your location page that clearly shows where your dispensary is and show and should be optimized for your city or neighborhood you can also create pillar pages and blog posts about particular brands how to use different products and qualifying conditions for medical cannabis to help increase your authority and strengthen the likelihood that your site will rank for those keywords all content on your website should have title tags alt tags and meta descriptions this tells google that your page is relevant to a specific topic content should also contain internal links to other relevant content and external links to useful content as you add pages to your site you should have a site map in mind your urls should be structured so they follow a hierarchy including category and title and easy to understand areas another important local seo factor that you need to incorporate into your strategy is backlinking creating a link building strategy will help showcase the relevance and authority of your website according to whitespark a local seo tool provider link signal accounts for about 31 of organic ranking factors in 15 of google local pack ranking factors so you can't ignore this when people link to your site they're essentially endorsing you those links help to build site authority they also tell google that people like your content and that it's relevant the best way to get backlinks is to create a good content strategy that people want to share via social or on their own blog posts by showcasing your knowledge of the industry and of cannabis in general you can create content that people want to link to you can also guest posts or relevant sites to help build your link as well another way to get links to your site is by ensuring you're listed in directories like yelp weed maps and leafly as well as by speaking or presenting in cannabis events and conferences the quality of the link matters of course while you want many links they should be from relevant sites or individuals as their domain authority helps increase the value of your link plus the text that they use to link to you known as the anchor text should be relevant to the content that's being linked to on your site since google's inception link signal has been the foundation of google's algorithm creating and executing a link building strategy should play a key role in your seo strategy overall if a person does a search for a dispensary near them on their phone do you think your website will show up if it's not optimized for mobile now that was a rhetorical question it may but it probably won't be at the top of the result that's because google takes into account the device on which they are searching from but also it provides the results in a concise manner for the device that it's actually coming from and with more than half of searches happening on mobile devices if your website doesn't look good on a mobile phone you're going to miss a lot of sales this is a lot to implement though you may have some of these factors in place already to know where you stand you need to run an seo audit while conducting an audit of your local seo strategy should be an ongoing task there are a few steps you can take right away research your keywords use a tool like sam rush type in your site's url to see a list of the top keywords that you are driving traffic from are they what you expected are there any other important keywords that are missing research also your competition now do the same exact thing for your local competitors is there a qualitative difference in their organic search traffic take notes of any competitive advantage they may have when it comes to keywords check your content once you have an idea of which terms are bringing people to your site and which terms are lacking you may want to develop a content strategy to improve your local seo profile for example if organic products are part of your business model and you'd like to rank higher for the term organic dispensary in your area considering hiring an seo writer to create some articles that incorporate those keywords and mention your location check your mated metadata this may sound obvious but it's important to make sure your site includes the basics that allow search engines to identify your business name location telephone number and up and even store operating hours are essential when it comes to ranking for local search results and showing up on google's local pack look at reviews although they can be unpredictable online reviews can actually improve your search rankings they can serve as a measure of your digital reputation and the more reviews you have the better even negative feedback can help boost your credibility as it decreases the chances that you are artificially inflating your dispensary with fake positive reviews just make sure you're responding to them this is just a simple audit when it comes to more comprehensive audit for you to help highlight your opportunities please reach out to us via the link that we've had here on the chat all right so for all the diys out there so now that you have an idea of some of the most important parts of local seo strategy are you ready to implement these yourself and i'll be honest seo is a lot of work and it's not set it and forget it if you want to continuously rank well you will need to stay top on top of all of the google algorithms changes including the ones they don't announce to create and maintain a robust local seo strategy you will need to have someone who can do the keyword research a copywriter familiar with seo and a web guru that can make the updates on your website and any other kind of back-end on your website that's needed to drive this specific strategy someone should keep your profiles up to date and manage your reviews and obviously time you're going to need some time for this the last one is the real kicker creating and implementing a robust strategies and is an investment if you don't have the time to do it don't cobble something together and hope it's going to work for you go to the experts so for over five years with help dispensaries raise their search profiles and rank higher to increase their sales and everyone wants to get to the top of google it's valuable real estate but not many people want to do the hard work to get there those top three results get 75 of the clicks by creating a robust seo strategy you can start moving your website up the ranks and get more customers to your site we understand the challenges that dispensaries face when trying to advertise and we aim to remove as many of those obstacles as possible to help dispensaries grow and make more sales here at foot traffic seo is in our dna it's the first service we offered and it's the one that continuously drives sales for our customers in fact our seo provides our customers with the greatest return on their investment in comparison to all other digital marketing strategies of course we all want to know when we can start seeing the returns on our investment and let's be clear seo is an investment and just like any other investment it takes some time to actually mature during the first 45 days of an seo strategy with foot traffic it's all about initial optimization and building a site we want to build a robust and trusted authority with google so that your site is viewed as a reliable source of information and points to searchers between three to six months you can start seeing improvements your ranking and we offer reporting to our clients and are constantly measuring our efforts so that we can make adjustments as necessary and continue to improve or maintain your rankings once you've hit that six month mark you can more easily start seeing the results of your seo effort we will continue to focus on the actual growth as well as capturing more of the market to increase your overall sales while working to capture more relevant keywords as well again seo is not a set it and forget it practice when you stop investing in seo you will still get organic traffic but it will lessen over time plus you will be more susceptible to page rank drops when there are algorithms changes with google don't let algorithm changes mess up your revenue make sure you have a robust seo strategy in place to monitor ranking changes and protect your website i do want to mention that if you want fast results you want to combine google ads with your seo strategy that way while you are actually building your authority and increasing your rankings you're also driving traffic to your website but securing that top spot on google so too many dispensaries don't realize that seo is crucial for getting found with potential customers to help you get started capturing new market share we're offering a special deal until the rest of the month so what you need to do is schedule a call with us now foot traffic dot me for slash chat to get 200 off your first month of seo 20 off excuse me 20 off your first month of seo not only will you actually we will actually help make your website easier to find but our seo strategies also make your website more user-friendly it's truly a win-win and if you have a specific corner case for seo as well we have ample experience working within those guiding principles as well so if you have an internal team that is dedicated for a specific area of seo already let's say review responses and or web development we're very much comfortable partnering with you on making sure we're strengthening the areas of opportunity so let's turn over to questions uh we have some time here for some questions if you have any questions please do use the q a function here let's get those rolling great first question thank you very much for this one do i need to do a separate seo and a local seo strategy this kind of goes back to what i just mentioned about working with areas of opportunity this will ultimately depend on the scale of your business and if you are a one-story dispensary you just probably need more of a local seo strategy in order to reach people who are actually local and ready to buy from you if you are a multi-store operator or a national company you will want to focus on each of your individual locations as well as your national brand as a whole so you want to tie everything back together great question well i want to thank you once again for joining us today and also for sticking around with us you qualify for a free yeti tumbler so please do reach out to us schedule a call let's get that um shipping address and get you going once again thank you for your time we really appreciate it uh reach out to us if you have any questions and we'll be in touch with you soon ]