Informational keywords bring in readers, not buyers — and that is fine. The ones worth writing sit one step from a product, like a terpene guide that links straight to the flower it describes. Pick those, build the internal links, and judge the pages on assisted sales.
What informational traffic is actually for
Someone searching what is myrcene or how to store flower is not placing an order tonight. They are learning the category. Whoever teaches them earns the bookmark, the branded search two weeks later, and eventually the cart itself. Cannabis depends on this more than most industries because the paid channels are mostly shut (Google Ads will not take THC product money), so educational search is one of the few open doors for meeting new customers at scale.
Pick topics one step from a product
Score every informational idea by how many steps it sits from your menu. What is live resin is one step from your cart category. Best gummies for beginners is one step from edibles. The history of 420 is five steps from anything, and the traffic it draws never touches a product page. Write the one-step topics first, the two-step topics when those run out, and leave the trivia to publishers who sell ads instead of flower. A quick test before greenlighting any topic: name the exact product page the finished article will link to. If you cannot, the topic fails, no matter what its search volume looks like.
A worked example: the terpene guide
Say you publish a plain-language myrcene guide: what it is, what it smells like, where it shows up. Midway through, right where readers wonder which strains carry it, you add a short section — strains high in myrcene on our menu — linking to Blue Dream and GG4 product pages. Describe aroma and reported character; do not promise sedation or medical outcomes, because unsupported effect claims invite regulatory trouble. That one guide now feeds two product pages every day it ranks, and each product page links back to the guide for shoppers who want the background.
Judge it on assisted sales, not last clicks
By last-click numbers, the myrcene guide looks like a failure. Check first-touch and assisted-conversion paths in your analytics instead, and watch how often a session that starts on an educational page ends on the menu within the month. Return-visitor rate on guide pages tells a similar story with less setup, and so does growth in searches for your shop's name. That combined scoreboard is what decides whether the education work keeps getting budget next quarter. Give it a full quarter before judging; readers move slower than buyers, and the guides written this month pay out over the next two.
Key takeaways
- Informational keywords matter more in cannabis because paid acquisition channels are largely closed.
- Rank topics by steps-to-product and write the one-step topics first.
- Place product links at the moment of curiosity, and keep effect language factual.
- Measure assisted and first-touch conversions, not last clicks.
Frequently asked questions
Which informational keywords are worth a dispensary's time?
The ones one step from your menu. Terpene explainers, strain comparisons, storage basics, and first-timer buying guides all lead naturally to product and category pages. A topic that cannot plausibly link to something you sell belongs on someone else's blog.
How do informational pages actually pass traffic to product pages?
Internal links placed where the reader's next question is a product question. A live resin guide should link to your live resin category at the exact point it explains why freshness matters, not in a footer nobody scrolls to.
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