Building an SEO Dashboard for a Cannabis Business

Almost every cannabis SEO dashboard I build lives in Looker Studio, because it connects natively to the Google tools you're already using and it costs nothing. The point isn't the software though. It's ending the situation where checking performance means opening Search Console, then GA4, then a rank tracker, and holding three tabs in your head.

Wire up the two connectors that matter

Add the Search Console connector and point it at your property, choosing the "Site Impression" table for totals and "URL Impression" when you want page-level detail. Add the GA4 connector for the same date range. Those two sources cover the arc from search to site behavior: Search Console tells you how you show up in results, GA4 tells you what happens after the click. You can blend them on landing-page URL later, but even side by side on one page they answer most questions.

Lay out search-side and behavior-side sections

Give the top of the page to Search Console: clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position as scorecards, with a time-series of clicks and impressions below. Give the next section to GA4: organic sessions, engagement rate, and key-event conversions. Keeping the two sources in clearly labeled zones stops people from misreading a GA4 session count as a Search Console click count, which happens constantly when the numbers sit next to each other unlabeled.

Add a date control and a query table

Drop in a date-range control so anyone can shift the whole page without editing it. Add one table of top queries from Search Console, sorted by clicks, with impressions, CTR, and position as columns. That single table is the most-used thing on most dashboards I build, because it's where "what are we actually ranking for" gets answered in ten seconds.

Surface the few things that should stand out

Resist filling every inch. Use a scorecard's comparison-to-previous-period feature so the numbers that moved show a green or red delta, and put the three or four metrics you care about most across the top at a larger size. A dashboard where everything is the same weight buries the signal you built it to catch.

A worked example

For a CBD brand I built a single Looker Studio page: a top row of four Search Console scorecards with period-over-period deltas, a clicks-and-impressions time series, a GA4 row for organic sessions and checkout conversions, a date control, and one top-queries table. It replaced a monthly ritual of screenshotting three tools into a slide deck. When organic clicks dipped one week, the query table showed a single high-traffic page had lost position, and we found it in under a minute instead of the usual afternoon of digging.

Keep it maintained

Connectors break when a property gets renamed or access changes, and a dashboard silently showing stale data is worse than none. Check that both sources are still refreshing every so often, and prune metrics you stopped using so the page keeps earning the glance it asks for.

Frequently asked questions

What tool should I use to build an SEO dashboard?

Looker Studio is the practical choice for a cannabis business, because it connects natively to Search Console and GA4, refreshes automatically, and costs nothing. Those two connectors cover both the search side and the on-site behavior side in a single page.

How do I combine Search Console and GA4 in one dashboard?

Add both as data sources in Looker Studio and lay them out in clearly labeled sections, Search Console for clicks, impressions, CTR, and position, GA4 for sessions, engagement, and conversions. You can blend them on landing-page URL, but even side by side they answer most questions without confusion.

What's the single most useful element on the dashboard?

A top-queries table from Search Console sorted by clicks, with impressions, CTR, and position as columns. It answers what you actually rank for in seconds and is the element people return to most, so it earns a prominent spot on the page.