I am sitting in my basement office right now, surrounded by my five monitors and Diet Pepsi AND Dunkin’ iced coffee, looking at data that would probably give a normal person a headache.
The air is a little stale, the lighting is strictly “incandescent nerd,” and my back is against the wall while I stare down the future of how people find your dispensary.
For years, I have sent you reports filled with keyword rankings, backlink counts, and organic traffic growth.
I am still doing that.
The fundamentals of SEO are not going anywhere. If your technical foundation is trash, no amount of futuristic tech will save you. You still need to understand how to get your cannabis business to the top of Google using the classic methods that actually work.
But there is a new reality hitting the search world, and if I don’t start measuring it for you, I am not doing my job.
I am talking about GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization.
This is why your next report is going to look a little different.
The Old School Still Matters
Before we get into the “AI this” and “LLM that” talk, let’s be clear about one thing.
I am still tracking your traditional rankings.
If you drop from position one to position five for “best dispensaries in Denver,” I am going to see it, and I am going to fix it. We still need to worry about things like dispensary word bans and SEO because Google’s old school crawler is still the gatekeeper for most of your traffic.
However, the way people search is shifting.
People are not just clicking the blue links anymore.
They are asking questions to AI engines. They are looking at Google AI Overviews. They are using Perplexity to find out which shop has the best deals on live resin.
If I am only reporting on your position in the “ten blue links,” I am missing a massive chunk of your actual visibility.
What Exactly Is GEO?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization.
In simple terms, it is the process of making sure your dispensary is the one the AI chooses to talk about.
When a user asks Google or Perplexity a question, the AI scans the web, finds the most trustworthy sources, and “cites” them in a summarized answer.
If your shop is cited, you win.
If it isn’t, you are invisible to everyone using these new tools.
GEO data is the metric that tells us how often your brand is being mentioned as a primary source in these AI answers.
It is about moving from being a “search result” to being a “cited authority.”
The 35 Percent Factor
Here is why I am getting so nerdy about this.
Early data shows that being cited in an AI overview can lead to a 35 percent boost in click-through rates (CTR).
Think about that for a second.
The AI isn’t just stealing your traffic. It is acting as a filter.
When an AI tells a user, “You should go to this specific dispensary because they have the highest rated flower in the city,” and provides a link to your site as proof, the person clicking that link is already sold.
That 35 percent boost isn’t just “browsing” traffic. It is high intent, “I am ready to buy” traffic.
If I am not tracking how many times we are getting these citations, I am leaving money on the table for you.
My reports will now include how often your brand shows up in these generative answers, because that is where the most valuable customers are hanging out.
Moving Beyond Keyword Stuffing
The days of stuffing “cannabis dispensary near me” into a blog post fifteen times are over.
Actually, they have been over for a while, but GEO officially killed them and buried the body.
AI engines do not care about how many times you used a specific phrase.
They care about “entity dense content.”
An “entity” is a person, place, or thing that the AI understands as a distinct concept.
For your dispensary, entities include your location, the specific brands you carry, the terpenes in your products, and your staff’s expertise.
When I write for you, I am focusing on building topical authority for cannabis visibility.
I am making sure the AI sees your website as a web of connected, high value facts.
The more “dense” your content is with these entities, the more the LLM (Large Language Model) trusts you as an expert.
Trust equals citations. Citations equal revenue.
Intent Over Everything
Here’s my brutally honest take.
Most dispensary content is boring as hell.
It’s the same “5 strains for summer” listicles over and over again.
AI search engines are getting better at identifying intent. They know if a user wants to learn, shop, or just find a phone number.
I am adjusting your strategy to move away from simple keyword matching.
Instead of trying to “match” the words a user types, I am trying to “solve” the problem the user has.
This requires esoteric SEO for cannabis organic growth.
It means we have to be smarter than the algorithm.
We have to create content that provides actual, cited answers that an AI can’t help but reference.
No Lazy AI Content Around Here
I know what you are thinking.
“Randi, if the AI is doing the searching, can’t we just use AI to write the content?”
No.
Consumers can tell when content is lazy AI garbage.
More importantly, the AI engines themselves can tell.
If your site is just a collection of generic, bot-generated paragraphs, why would an AI overview cite you? You aren’t adding anything new to the conversation.
I use tools like Galaxy AI to help with data and research, but the final product is always human led.
We do it right because the goal is trust.
You cannot build trust with a machine by being a machine.
You build trust by being the most authoritative human voice in the room (or the basement).
What Your New Report Will Look Like
When you open your next report, don’t panic.
You will still see the stuff you are used to seeing.
But there will be a new section dedicated to GEO.
I am going to show you your “Citation Share.”
This is a metric that tracks how often your dispensary is cited in AI responses compared to your local competitors.
We will look at which pages are being used as “source material” for Google’s AI Overviews.
We will also look at “Answer Engine Visibility.”
This tells us if you are showing up in those conversational search results on platforms like Perplexity.
This is how we stay ahead.
While everyone else is still fighting over the 10th spot on page one, we are going to be the answer that the AI gives before the user even scrolls.
The Basement Nerd Promise
I am going to keep digging into the data.
I am going to keep testing how these LLMs interpret cannabis data, especially since the industry is so heavily regulated.
I know that my clients’ revenue has tripled and some still don’t think SEO works, but the numbers don’t lie.
The shift to GEO is the biggest change in search since mobile phones.
I am not going to let your dispensary get left behind just because the technology got a little more complicated.
I’ll stay down here in the basement, drinking my coffee and staring at charts, so you can keep selling flower.
We are moving from keywords to answers.
Get ready for the update.
