So, if you want to get your dispensary to rank at the top of Google, you have to take proximity into account. When you're thinking about local SEO, Google wants to show local results from people that are searching in your neighborhood, right? So, the obvious is if somebody is searching for a dispensary Los Angeles, your dispensary in New York is not going to pop up, right? We all understand that much. But the truth is proximity matters more than you think, even in smaller distances than you might think. And I'm talking 10 or 20 miles. So, in this video, I'm going to do a deep dive just into proximity. It's one of the three primary local SEO ranking factors. You cannot rank without taking proximity into account. So, I have some examples set up for you guys. Um, so you could see what I mean and we could learn the ins and outs of proximity. Starting off, I want to just talk about the statistic, right? So, this is a local pack statistic in 2025.
Google itself is saying to be seen in the local pack, it's crucial to rank in the top three results. 93% of local pack clicks go to these top three positions. So what does that mean? That means if I search something like dispensary Santa Monica, these are the top three results in the local pack, right? If you are not showing up in the top three results, you are pretty much missing out on almost 100% of the clicks, right? 93% of the clicks in this local maps area go to these top three results. So it's important to try to rank in Google but try to rank very high in Google.
So talking about proximity, I want to give an example of what not to do. This is a business I found. This is Canya Silar Los Angeles cannabis weed dispensary. Okay. So by looking at their profile, it looks great at first glance, right? They have over a thousand reviews, a 4.7 star rating, hundreds of photos. You know, they have questions and they're answering the questions, right? Everything looks pretty complete. Well, one thing that they're overlooking is proximity, right? Sure, they are in the county of Los Angeles, but look how far up they are, right? So, they they were right here, and this is the city of Los Angeles, right? So, this is downtown LA. You're seeing the results right here. So, LA Wonderland marijuana dispensary Los Angeles is always going to have a higher chance of ranking for the keyword marijuana dispensary Los Angeles, right? Or ease weed delivery and dispensary Los Angeles. They are always going to have a higher chance of ranking for dispensary Los Angeles, you know, cannabis dispensary Los Angeles, marijuana dispensary Los Angeles.
Google's going to give it to those guys first. Why? Because they have more proximity to downtown LA, to the city center, right? Kenya, on the other hand, was trying to rank for those keywords and they're all the way over here. Let's see if I could even get them to pop up again. Okay, so for the keyword dispensary Los Angeles, you have to go to the second page. And where is Kenya even? Okay, so they're about halfway through on the second page when you try to search for those keywords. Even though they have over a,000 stars, even though they have a 4.7 star rating, even though they have hundreds of photos and a great profile, they just don't have the proximity, right? And it could be tempting. Obviously, uh, dispensary Los Angeles probably gets more search terms or more, uh, search queries than if they were to try to rank for something like, uh, you know, dispensary Silar, which is the actual city that they're in. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because you're going to have an uphill battle. You're kind of battling against those dispensaries that are actually in the city center of Los Angeles. So, what I would do if I were them is just try to rank for uh dispensary in Silar, right?
So, they're in Silar, California. Again, it's a city in Los Angeles, but they're so far away from the city center that, you know, it's going to hurt their search results. So, again, what I would do, they're in Silar. Let's try to rank for Silar. Or just try to find the next nearest city that's a large city. Maybe Silar is too small, but here we see Santa Clarita, right? So maybe they could try to rank for Santa Clarita. There's less competition here and they're closer actually to Santa Clarita than they are to downtown LA. So that's going to do them very well. Now, what we could do to back up my hypothesis here is we're just going to go ahead and run a scan report for them. The way we do that is we go to revenuekit.com and we click on free SEO audit. On this page, we're going to search for their business. So, it's Kenya um what was it? Just search for the actual name of their Google business listing, right? So, Kenya Silmore.
You'll find it, you know, in the in the autofill. Just click on that. And the first two is automatically going to be selected, the first two keywords. So, dispensary near me and dispensary Silar. And you know what? Let's see where they stand when you search dispensary Los Angeles. Okay, we'll click continue. We're going to fill out our information.
And we're going to click start audit. Right? And don't just take my word for it. We're going to do an actual scan for each of these keywords. It's going to look at dispensary near me, dispensary Silar, and dispensary Los Angeles. And this scan is going to tell us exactly where they stand for those keywords. So, let's just give this a minute or two. I'll pause the video and I'll be back when the scans are ready. All right. And the results are in. Okay. So, let's first take a look at dispensary Los Angeles. Right. So, for the dispensary Los Angeles keyword, you'll notice they are ranking if the user is close to them. Right? Again, so we're talking proximity. So, this is about this is where their dispensary is. This this center dot, right? Right. And what this software is doing is it's pretending to be a consumer in each of these locations and it's doing a Google search for this keyword, dispensary Los Angeles, and it's seeing where this business pops up, where they rank for those keywords. So, in this case, yes, of course, if you're right next to them and you search dispensary Los Angeles, you'll pop up.
Or if you're a little further away, they'll pop up. They'll even be first place. But the second you get a little further away, right, 20 plus, 20 plus, 20 plus, they're not visible whatsoever. I think what they're hoping to do with that dispensary Los Angeles keyword is appeal to users that might be in this area, right? So, this is the valley in LA or in this area. If somebody searches dispensary Los Angeles and they're in downtown LA, they're hoping that their dispensary pops up, but the facts show that it just doesn't, right? So, it's basically a waste for them to try to rank for this keyword and try to capture, you know, users in this area of the map or in this area of the map because they just don't have the proximity, right? You'll again, they only pop up when they are close in proximity to that user. And if they're not, they just don't pop up, right? But it's a key keyword that they're trying to rank for. They have it in their name, right? Los Angeles cannabis weed dispensary. They're trying to rank for Los Angeles. They're trying to rank for Los Angeles. But as you can see here, those efforts are pretty feudal. So that's dispensary Los Angeles. Now, let's check out Dispensary Silar, right?
So this report is for Dispensary Silar. And they're doing much better, much better. Not just locally, but even further away. Somebody searching dispensary Silar, they are ranking for that keyword. Why? Because they're actually in Silar, right? Their location, their address is actually in Silar and they didn't leave Silar completely out of the equation. If you notice, they put Silar right here. So, they are still trying to target for that keyword. They have it in their title.
Um, you know, they're located in Silar Plaza. Their address is in Silar, California. So, of course, if somebody's searching dispensary Silar, Google takes that into account and they're going to show up, right? The other thing we want to do is we want to take a look at dispensary Santa Clarita, right? So Santa Clarita was the next closest city to them. And we see here they're also ranking fairly well for that. Also they although they drop off in the rankings uh the further the user gets from their location.
But what I would consider if I were them is why try to rank for dispensary Los Angeles at all. Right? You could see here if the user isn't right next to the dispensary, they're not going to pop up, right? So, if you're trying to capture users from here or here, right, or here, you know, you're you're wasting those efforts, you're wasting those keywords and that, you know, very limited space that you have. Why not instead try to improve your dispensary silar rankings?
You're number one in a lot of places, uh, but not everywhere, right? This user here that's searching dispensary silar that's actually really close to your business you're not showing up for them you're number eight right so what about trying to capture these users or these users or these users right still people that are close in proximity to your business and if you could get to the top three in those areas you can actually convert those people and then same with uh dispensary Santa Clarita again if you're right next to the business it's showing up but again what about these users or these or these is if you're actually in Santa Clar, right? So, this is, you know, it says Santa Clarita right behind these uh these little bubbles. And if you search for dispensary Santa Clarita, they're not showing up in the map pack, right?
They're showing up fourth place, fifth place, sixth place, they're not showing up in those top three, right? So, what kind of value could they add if they try to focus on that keyword and maybe try to rank for dispensary Santa Clarita? That way customers that are right here, which is actually pretty close to their business, when they search, they show up in those top three, right? I think that would make a world of a difference instead of trying to battle uphill and rank for a location that you are actually not that close to. Okay? So, so that's my case. That's my point about proximity. One other thing I want to talk about is um delivery services, right? So, we're in California. We have these type 9 deliveryonly licenses which means they have a warehouse and they deliver out of that warehouse, right?
They're not open to the public. People can't walk into that warehouse and place a purchase. They are literally driving to the customer and delivering the order and that's their only business model. That's the only way they could sell cannabis. The problem is you have the option in Google to hide your address, right? Google gives you that option and you could be what they call a service area business. Uh, and it's tempting, right? Especially if you're a delivery service, you might want to hide your address and uh, you know, you don't want people to walk into that location. So, it kind of makes sense, but it will damage your local SEO as well. So, that's another warning I want to give. In this case, I'm searching cannabis delivery Los Angeles, right? So, I'm not even searching for a dispensary, but hey, this is a dispensary. They have an address, right? They're popping up first. This is a dispensary. They have an address. This is a dispensary. They have an address. This is a dispensary.
They have an address. This is a dispensary. They have an address. Then finally, we get a delivery. Um, you know, without an address, right? So, if we click on them, you see they're a service area business. They cater to a specific location. Um, let me try to [clears throat] get back to that result. So, they cater to a specific location, uh, which is what they do. But at the end of the day, if they don't have an address, you see how many dispensaries are ranking above them. And I'm not even searching for a dispensary keyword, right? I'm searching for cannabis uh, delivery. Then we have another dispensary with an address. Another dispensary with an address. All of these are dispensaries with addresses. You can see their addresses listed right here.
And then finally, we have another delivery service that doesn't have an address, right? They're again, they're a service area business. So, you know, of course, there's other things to take into account. They also don't have a ton of reviews, right? Uh they don't have a ton of photos uploaded. They don't have any questions that they're answering, stuff like that. Their profile isn't complete. Of course, that matters as well. But a big part of the problem is they don't have an address. So, they don't have proximity. Google doesn't know if a user searches, you know, in Burbank or in Glendale, should they actually show this business or not because they have no idea where that business is located, right? They just have this general map that they drew as a service area business on Google. And uh again, it's going to be an uphill battle. It's going to work against you.
So, even if you're a delivery service, I would recommend showing your address on Google, maybe putting a disclaimer, you know, don't walk into this address. Um, and again, you're going to have a much higher chance of ranking even if you deliver to a city 20 miles away. The keywords you're going to have a much higher chance of ranking for are for the city that you're actually closest to. Um, or even the next largest city, you know, that you might be still pretty close to, but not, you know, it's not 10 or 20 miles away. So, that's the delivery thing.
One thing that you can do if you want to kind of get an idea of uh Google where they want you to be, right? So, if you turn on a VPN, you go into incognito like I am right now and if you just search, you know, dispensary Santa Monica, right? Or if we search um dispensary, where was this? Santa Clarita, right? So, let's do that. They're showing you right right here. They're showing you the square that they want you to be in. When somebody searches dispensary Santa Clarita, this is the square that they look at. When somebody searches dispensary Santa Monica, this is the square that they look at, right? This is their default area that they're looking at. So, if you are in that box, then you have a much higher chance of ranking for that keyword. If you're not in that box, the further away you get from it, you have an uphill battle. So, I believe that's all I wanted to talk about today.
Yeah, that's proximity. That's how it affects your uh you know your Google search results. If you want to check out you know running a scan to see how you rank for those keywords, just check out revenuekit.com. It's a completely free tool that I used in this video to run those scan reports. And that's pretty much it for now. I'll see you guys next time. Peace.
