On a dispensary site the funnel is three pages: a blog post answers a question, links to one strain or category page, and that page hands the reader to the live menu. Wire a GA4 event at each hop and you can see which posts feed the register and which just collect traffic.
Three pages, two clicks
Most cannabis blogs do not fail at writing. They fail at plumbing. A post ranks, four thousand people read it, and it ends with no link anywhere, or with ten links competing for the same click. The fix is structural. Every post gets one primary next step, matched to its topic: a piece on solventless concentrates points at the concentrates category page, not the homepage, not the About page. The category page then carries the reader to the menu. Blog to category to menu. Two clicks, and every post on the site follows the same wiring.
Pick topics that have a next step
Some topics cannot funnel no matter how well you write them. A history-of-420 post has no natural product behind it. "How to pick your first vape cartridge" walks straight into the vape category. Before a post gets briefed, name the page it will feed. If no category, strain, or service page fits as the next step, the topic is a brand piece, not a funnel piece, and it should be a deliberate exception rather than the default. Topic selection is funnel design, done before a word is written.
The middle page does the selling
The blog warms the reader up; the category or strain page closes. That page needs more than a bare product grid. Price, availability, effect and terpene notes, and a couple of sentences of buying guidance at the top give the arriving reader a reason to keep moving instead of bouncing back to search. If your funnel leaks, it usually leaks here — a strong post pouring readers onto a page that gives them nothing to hold.
Measure the hops in GA4
Set up two events: a blog-to-category click and a category-to-menu click. If your checkout runs on your own domain, add purchase as the third. If the menu is an embedded third-party iframe, the menu click is your conversion proxy and it is good enough to compare posts fairly. Then review monthly, ranking posts by the menu clicks they produced rather than pageviews. The ranking will surprise you. Quiet posts often out-earn the traffic heroes.
A worked example: the edibles dosing post
Take "how many mg should a beginner take." The post answers the question plainly, and mid-article, where dosing options come up, links to the low-dose edibles category — browse 2.5 mg and 5 mg options. The same link repeats as the closing CTA. The category page opens with two sentences on starting low, then lists products with prices, each linking to its menu entry. Both hops fire GA4 events. A month later, the question "did that post sell anything" has an event count for an answer instead of a shrug.
Key takeaways
- Structure the funnel as blog post, then category or strain page, then menu — one primary link per hop.
- Brief no post without naming the product page it feeds.
- The category page closes the sale; give it prices, availability, and a few lines of buying guidance.
- Track blog-to-category and category-to-menu clicks as GA4 events, and rank posts by menu clicks.
- Embedded menus hide purchases, so treat the menu click as the conversion proxy.
Frequently asked questions
What if my menu is an embedded iframe?
Track the click into the menu as your conversion event. Embedded menus from providers like Dutchie or Jane hide the purchase itself from your analytics, so the menu click becomes the proxy. It is not perfect, but it lets you compare posts against each other on the same yardstick.
How many calls to action should one post carry?
One primary next step, linked once mid-article where it is relevant and once at the end. Ten links means no decision. A single obvious path outperforms a menu of choices at every stage.
Do pure education posts belong in the funnel?
Yes, but they link to a middle page, not the cart. A beginner explainer hands the reader to a buying guide or category page, and that page carries them to the menu. Skipping a stage usually just loses the reader.
How do I tell which posts actually sell?
Rank posts by the category clicks and menu clicks they generate in GA4, not by pageviews. A post with modest traffic and a high click-through to product pages is worth more than a viral post that leads nowhere.
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