The Numbers Behind Cannabis Dispensary SEO — And What They Mean for Your Store

Before treating any number on this page as a guarantee, understand where it comes from. Cannabis retail SEO data is harder to aggregate than most verticals for three reasons:

• Platform restrictions limit third-party data. Because cannabis remains federally controlled in the U.S., most mainstream analytics tools, advertising platforms, and keyword databases apply usage restrictions that create gaps in public data sets.
• Market maturity varies enormously. A dispensary in a state that legalized recreational use a decade ago operates in a completely different competitive environment than one in a state that issued its first licenses last year.
• Few operators publish performance data publicly. Unlike e-commerce or SaaS, dispensary owners rarely share conversion or traffic benchmarks, which means most industry figures come from aggregated agency observations rather than large-sample studies.

The benchmarks on this page draw from three sources: publicly available keyword and search volume tools, published cannabis industry market research (cited where available), and patterns observed across SEO campaigns we've managed for dispensary clients. Where we rely on our own campaign observations rather than third-party studies, we label them accordingly.

Benchmarks vary significantly by market, dispensary size, and service mix. Use these numbers as directional context — not as performance targets you should hit by month three.

This page is educational content. It is not legal, financial, or compliance advice. Cannabis regulations differ by state and locality; always verify current advertising and marketing rules with your compliance counsel.

Search remains the dominant discovery channel for cannabis dispensaries, largely because advertising restrictions on Google Ads, Meta, and programmatic networks make paid acquisition difficult or unavailable for most operators. That constraint turns organic visibility from a nice-to-have into a business necessity.

Near-Me and Location Queries

"Dispensary near me" and its variants consistently rank among the highest-volume cannabis-related search queries in states where adult-use sales are legal. Based on keyword research tools we use across campaigns, monthly search volumes for near-me dispensary queries in mid-size metros typically fall in the low-to-mid thousands. In major markets like Los Angeles, Denver, or Chicago, those figures are considerably higher.

Year-over-year growth in near-me cannabis queries has been positive in most legal states, even as market saturation increases — suggesting that consumer adoption continues to outpace the competitive supply of dispensaries in many areas.

Branded vs. Non-Branded Search

A well-established dispensary with strong community awareness will see a meaningful share of its organic traffic come from branded queries (people searching the store name directly). Newer or less-recognized dispensaries depend almost entirely on non-branded queries — which is where local SEO and Google Business Profile optimization do the heaviest lifting.

What This Means Practically

If your dispensary is not ranking for its city-name plus "dispensary" or "cannabis shop" variations, you are almost certainly leaving the majority of local search demand to competitors. The good news: in most mid-size markets, the top Map Pack positions are not locked up by national chains — local operators with well-optimized profiles and consistent review velocity can compete effectively.

Local search performance — specifically ranking in the Google Map Pack — is the single most measurable SEO outcome for a brick-and-mortar dispensary. It directly translates to store visits, phone calls, and direction requests in a way that deeper organic rankings often do not.

Map Pack Click-Through Patterns

Industry benchmarks for local search consistently show that the three Map Pack results capture a disproportionate share of clicks compared to organic listings below them. For dispensaries, this effect is amplified because many users searching for a nearby store want the fastest path to an address, phone number, or menu — all of which surface directly from a Google Business Profile without requiring a website visit.

In our experience working with dispensary clients, stores that move from no Map Pack presence to a consistent top-3 position typically report a noticeable increase in direction requests and calls within 60–90 days of optimization.

Review Volume and Rating Benchmarks

Across the local SEO campaigns we've run for cannabis retailers, review volume correlates more strongly with Map Pack ranking than almost any other single factor. Dispensaries ranking in position one or two for their primary city keywords typically have meaningfully more reviews than those in position four or five — often two to four times as many, though this varies by market.

Average star rating matters too, but the threshold effect is what most operators miss: dropping below 4.2 stars tends to have an outsized negative impact on both ranking and click-through rate. Many dispensaries accumulate negative reviews from wait times or product availability issues that are entirely manageable with a systematic review response strategy.

GBP Category and Attribute Impact

Selecting the correct primary and secondary categories in Google Business Profile, and completing all available attributes (accessibility, parking, payment types, in-store pickup), meaningfully affects how often a profile surfaces for relevant queries. Many dispensaries leave these fields incomplete, which is a straightforward ranking gap to close.

Driving organic traffic to a dispensary website is only half the equation. The conversion behavior — what visitors do once they arrive — varies widely based on site features, user experience, and the intent match between the search query and the landing page.

Conversion Rate Ranges

For dispensaries with online menus and order-ahead functionality, organic traffic [conversion rates](/resources/attorney/attorney-seo-statistics) (measured as menu views, online orders placed, or location page visits leading to a direction request) typically fall somewhere in the 2–6% range based on patterns we observe across campaigns. Dispensaries without online ordering or with slow, poorly structured websites tend to sit toward the lower end of that range or below it.

It is worth noting that "conversion" for a dispensary is not always a completed purchase — a direction request, a phone call, or a menu view can all represent meaningful intent that leads to an in-store visit. Attribution across these micro-conversions is an area where most dispensary analytics setups are underdeveloped.

Organic vs. Paid Traffic Mix

Because most major ad platforms restrict cannabis advertising in some form, dispensaries that invest in SEO end up with a higher organic share of traffic than comparable retail categories. Many dispensary websites we audit receive 60–80% of their web traffic from organic search — a stark contrast to general retail, where paid channels often dominate.

This makes organic performance both more critical and more durable for cannabis retailers. A strong organic ranking is not subject to ad policy changes or rising cost-per-click, both of which are unpredictable risks in this vertical.

Page-Level Performance Patterns

Location pages, menu pages, and "about" or "strains" pages tend to be the highest-traffic entry points for dispensary websites. Home pages rank for branded queries; location and menu pages rank for non-branded discovery queries. Dispensaries that neglect to build out individual location pages for each storefront leave significant ranking potential unused, particularly for multi-location operators.

One of the most common questions dispensary owners ask before investing in SEO is how long it takes to see results. The honest answer is: it depends on your market, your starting point, and what "results" you are measuring.

Typical Timelines We Observe

For a dispensary with an existing website, a claimed Google Business Profile, and some review history, meaningful improvements in local Map Pack rankings typically begin appearing within 60–120 days of consistent optimization work. Full stabilization at target positions — particularly for competitive city-level keywords — usually takes 4–8 months in mid-competition markets.

In high-competition markets (major metro areas with 20+ established dispensaries ranking for primary keywords), reaching and holding top-3 Map Pack positions can take 9–12 months or more, particularly for stores without a review velocity advantage.

New Dispensaries vs. Established Stores

A newly licensed dispensary starting from zero faces a longer path. Google Business Profiles need time to accumulate review signals. Domain authority for new websites builds slowly. Industry benchmarks suggest new businesses in competitive local categories typically need 6–12 months before organic traffic becomes a reliable acquisition channel. Cannabis is no exception.

Established dispensaries with existing traffic and reviews can often accelerate timelines significantly by closing technical and content gaps that have accumulated over time — things like duplicate location data, missing schema markup, or thin menu pages that provide no SEO value.

Seasonal and Regulatory Factors

Cannabis search demand has seasonal patterns in most markets, with higher query volumes often observed around holidays, 4/20, and in the months following new state legalizations when consumer curiosity spikes. Regulatory changes — new license approvals, changes to delivery rules, or shifts in advertising restrictions — can also shift competitive dynamics quickly. A dispensary that builds strong organic rankings before a wave of new entrants has a meaningful head start that compounds over time.

Statistics without context lead to bad decisions. Here is how to apply the benchmarks on this page without overfitting them to your specific situation.

Use Ranges, Not Single Numbers

Every metric on this page is a range, not a target. A conversion rate benchmark of 2–6% does not mean your dispensary should expect 4% — it means that if you are seeing under 1%, something structural is likely wrong, and if you are seeing over 7%, you are outperforming typical patterns. Use the ranges as diagnostic boundaries, not performance goals.

Establish Your Own Baseline First

Before comparing your metrics to any industry benchmark, establish 60–90 days of your own baseline data. Google Business Profile Insights, Google Search Console, and your website analytics together give you the raw inputs. Know your own numbers before benchmarking against anyone else's.

Weight Local Data More Heavily Than National Aggregates

Cannabis is a hyper-local market. A benchmark derived from dispensaries across all legal states tells you less than observing the top three ranking dispensaries in your own city. Use tools like Google Maps to audit what competitors in your market are doing — their review counts, posting frequency, and website structure are visible signals you can learn from directly.

Link Statistics to Investment Decisions

The primary value of benchmarks like these is justifying or stress-testing investment decisions. If local Map Pack positions drive a meaningful share of dispensary discovery, and Map Pack ranking correlates with review volume and GBP completeness, then investment in review generation and profile optimization has a traceable logic behind it. That is the standard we hold all SEO recommendations to: a clear line from tactic to metric to business outcome.

For dispensaries evaluating where to start, the SEO strategies built for cannabis dispensaries outlined on our industry page connect these benchmarks to a concrete prioritization framework.