Competing With Weedmaps and Leafly in Search Results
Where cannabis marketplaces beat dispensary websites in Google, and where a dispensary can win.
Key Takeaways
- Marketplaces rank well because they're large, well-linked sites with a page for almost every dispensary, product and city.
- You can usually win your own branded searches, many local searches and searches about your own products and deals.
- Broad city-wide searches such as "dispensaries in [city]" are hard to take from marketplaces, and they matter less than they look.
- Keep marketplace profiles accurate, since they also send shoppers to search for you by name.
On This Page
Weedmaps, Leafly and similar marketplaces outrank many dispensary websites because they're huge, heavily linked sites with a page for nearly every store, product and city. You'll rarely beat them for broad city-wide searches. You can usually win your own branded searches, though, along with many "near me" searches through the map pack and searches about your own deals, brands and categories. Focus there, and treat your marketplace profiles as a second route to the same shoppers.
Why Marketplaces Rank
Marketplaces have years of links from news sites and the industry, millions of pages and strong click data from shoppers. Google treats them as the authority for broad cannabis searches. Their page for your dispensary can even outrank your own site when that site is thin, slow or blocked by an age gate.
Winning Branded Searches
Someone searching your store's name should find your website first. Make sure your home and location pages use the store name clearly, your Business Profile links to your site, Google can crawl past the age gate and the site loads quickly. If a marketplace page outranks you for your own name, your site usually has an indexing or quality problem, and that's the thing to fix first.
Local Pack Against Marketplace Listings
The map pack lists individual businesses, so a strong Business Profile puts you above the marketplace links for many local searches. The levers are an accurate category, steady reviews and a strong location page. Our guide to Google Business Profile for dispensaries walks through the setup.
Content Marketplaces Cannot Match
Marketplaces describe thousands of stores in the same template. You can publish what only you know: staff picks, local events, deals at your store, the brands you carry and why, plus what first-time visitors should expect. Category and brand pages built this way can rank for searches like "[brand] near [neighborhood]" that marketplaces only cover generically.
Using Marketplace Profiles Well
Keep your name, address, hours and menu on marketplace profiles consistent with your website and Business Profile. Reply to reviews there too. Plenty of shoppers check a marketplace first and then search for your store by name, and that shows up as branded search. Marketplaces are one of several organic channels, which our guide to dispensary marketing compares by the job each one does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can my dispensary outrank Weedmaps?
For your own name, many local searches and specific products or deals, often yes. For broad city-wide searches, it's hard.
Should I stop using marketplaces?
That's a business decision, and it goes beyond SEO. For search purposes, accurate marketplace profiles help shoppers find and trust your store.
Why does Weedmaps rank for my store name?
Usually because your own site is sending weak signals, such as thin pages, slow loading or an age gate that blocks Google.
Sources
- Google Search Console search.google.com
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