If you sell THC beverages, local visibility is where search meets the shelf. A shopper wants to know if your 5 mg seltzer is in stock within a few miles. A buyer wants proof that your brand pulls traffic to their menu. The firms that win treat local and dispensary SEO as an operating system, not a one-time project. The work is practical: build location pages that answer real questions, make the store locator effortless, keep retailer data clean, and run a compliant reviews routine you can sustain all year. Do that, and you will see locator clicks, direction requests, and retailer inquiries move in the right direction.
The anatomy of a location page that works
Great location pages carry both ranking and conversion. Start with a short summary at the top that says exactly what a local visitor needs to know: what you sell in this market, typical dosage options, and how to find a store today. Put your primary action near the top. If you have a store locator, anchor a “Find a store” button above the fold and prefilter it to the city or state. If you sell through a handful of hero retailers that allow publication, list them with addresses and hours. Keep the headings simple and familiar. “Where to buy,” “What’s available here,” and “Questions” are better than branded section names.
Add a tight FAQ that answers the questions people actually ask: legal purchasing age, payment norms, typical onset time for popular SKUs, and how to read your dose guidance. Keep answers in plain language and two to four sentences long. This helps search engines and AI assistants lift a clear response, and it helps real people move without guesswork. Mark up the page with LocalBusiness and FAQ schema when appropriate. Include a visible updated date and a way to report bad store info so the page stays trusted.
Make the store locator feel instant
Your locator is the most important local feature on your site. Treat it like a product. The experience should be fast, mobile-first, and obvious. Preload location if a visitor opts in. Let them filter by product line, dose, and distance without reloading the page. Show a short list with real-time distance and an easy route to “call” or “directions.” If a location is out of stock or only carries certain SKUs, make that clear rather than sending people on a dead end. When a shopper wants delivery and your market allows it through compliant partners, route them cleanly. When it does not, keep the path to an in-store visit clear.
Landing pages you use in ads, events, or creator content should connect to the locator in one tap. If you ask someone to scan a QR at a tasting table, take them right to “find a store near me” with the filter set, not to your homepage.
Keep retailer lists clean and useful
Retailer list hygiene sounds dull until a buyer calls out bad data. Keep a single source of truth for store names, addresses, hours, and eligible SKUs. Update it monthly. If you rely on partners to pass updates, build a simple form they can use and publish the update window so expectations stay realistic. Remove closed or repeated locations quickly. If you highlight featured retailers, rotate them by region and performance so you are not sending all foot traffic to the same three stores.
Menus and marketplaces matter too. Where rules permit, make sure your titles, attributes, and images are consistent across listings. A shopper who sees “Citrus 5 mg” on one menu and “Citrus Social Seltzer” on another will hesitate. Consistency reduces friction, and it signals quality to platforms that surface local results.
Reviews and UGC, run the right way
Social proof lifts both ranking and conversion when it is earned and compliant. Build review requests into your normal rhythms. After a strong week at a key retailer, ask the buyer for a short, specific note about product turn, merchandising, or sampling response. Thank them and never script the review. For consumer reviews, follow age-gate and platform rules. Keep requests simple and voluntary. When great feedback appears, respond. For negatives, acknowledge the issue and route the conversation to email so you can resolve it.
User-generated content can help when it teaches. A 20-second pour, a quick flavor description, or context about dose goes further than stylized shots. Always follow disclosure and age rules, whitelist only where it is allowed, and keep claims conservative. You want content that a retailer can show a budtender without raising flags.
What you can influence about “proximity”
Local ranking is a mix of relevance, distance, and prominence. You cannot move your warehouse, so accept that distance sets some limits. Focus on what you can control. Relevance comes from pages and profiles that match the terms people search. If your location pages and retailer listings mention “THC drinks,” “2.5 mg microdose,” and “5 mg seltzer,” you help engines map you to the right queries. Prominence grows with fresh photos, steady posts, clean citations, and recent reviews. Keep these signals healthy and you will perform near your stores and in the neighborhoods where shoppers search most often.
AI assistants add another layer. They quote concise answers and prefer sources that look maintained. That is why the short FAQ, updated date, and clean structure matter. Give them a reliable paragraph to cite, and you will see more mentions that lead to visits.
Track actions that predict revenue
Measure the things a sales rep would care about. In your locator, track searches, clicks to directions, and calls. On location pages, track “find a store” clicks and time on page. If you use coupon codes or event QR, map scans to store visits or list signups with a clear UTM and code structure. For wholesale, watch retailer inquiries and the time from website contact to purchase order. If a market is not moving, your metrics will show you where to focus: the page, the locator, or the retailer mix.
Keep a simple scorecard by state or metro: number of live retailers, locator interactions, directions, calls, and top-performing stores. Review it monthly with your trade team. Pick one test per market, ship it, then review the outcome before you add the next idea.
A plan you can ship this month
Choose your most important market and give it the full treatment. Rewrite the location page so the summary leads, add a tight FAQ, and surface the locator at the top. Clean the retailer list and verify hours. Tune the locator for speed and one-tap actions. Ask two buyers for short, honest reviews and add one consented quote to the page. Track the basics. Then repeat for the next market on your list.
Local and dispensary SEO is not about hacks. It is about making it easy for people to find you, trust you, and get to a nearby store. Do that well and your site will feel more useful, your partners will be happier, and your team will have cleaner data to plan the next push.If you want help mapping a local plan or upgrading your locator and templates, see how we handle search and conversion. We can share a Local/Dispensary SEO Checklist your team can run in a few weeks and keep fresh all year.