How Origins Cannabis Achieved a 170% Boost in Local Pack Searches and 229% More Stores at Position One
170%
Increase in local pack searches for individual store locations
229%
More store locations ranking at position one in local pack
15,000+
Organic direction requests generated to physical stores
Industry
Health and Wellness – Vertically Integrated Cannabis Operator
Services
Multi-Location Local SEO, Google Business Profile Optimisation, Location Pages, Citation Building, Content Strategy
Campaign Timeframe
Multi-Location Local SEO Campaign
Introduction
This case study outlines how we helped Origins Cannabis, a vertically integrated multi-location cannabis retailer, increase local pack search visibility by 170%, grow the number of individual store locations ranking at position one by 229%, and generate over 15,000 organic direction requests to physical stores.
Origins operates across the full cannabis supply chain from cultivation through to retail, with a product range designed to address the full spectrum of consumer need states. With multiple physical store locations and a retail model dependent on driving customers through their doors, local search visibility was a critical growth lever. Their online presence was not reflecting the quality and scale of their physical operation, and local pack rankings for individual store locations were inconsistent and underperforming.
Origins engaged Howling Media to build the local search infrastructure that would connect each of their stores with the customers actively searching for cannabis products in the surrounding area.
The Brief
The challenge for Origins was fundamentally a local search problem. In the cannabis retail category, the majority of purchase decisions begin with a local search. The business appearing at the top of local pack results captures a disproportionate share of the foot traffic those searches generate. Origins had multiple locations each competing for local pack visibility in their respective markets, without the coordinated local SEO infrastructure needed to perform consistently across all of them.
Key Challenges Identified
- Inconsistent and generally poor local pack performance across all store locations, losing foot traffic to competitors ranking above them
- Google Business Profile signals not fully optimised for individual store locations, limiting local pack eligibility
- Citation consistency uneven across locations, weakening the trust and verification signals Google's local algorithm uses for ranking
- Website lacked location-specific content and entity signals required for Google to match each store with relevant local searches
- No coordinated local SEO strategy across the network, meaning each location's performance was managed in isolation
- High-intent local searches were consistently sending potential customers to competitors appearing above Origins in local pack results
The Strategy
Multi-Location Google Business Profile Optimisation
Google Business Profile optimisation was the foundation of the campaign. Each Origins store location received an individual GBP audit followed by full optimisation, covering category selection, service listings, attribute configuration, and photo strategy. A posting cadence was established for each profile to signal active business management to Google's local ranking algorithm. Rather than applying a templated approach uniformly across all locations, each profile was treated as an independent local search asset with its own market context and competitive requirements, ensuring the optimisation was specific to the conditions each store was operating in.
Location Page and Content Strategy
Dedicated optimised landing pages were created for each Origins store location, giving each store a web presence that communicated clear geographic entity signals to Google's local algorithm. Content on each location page was written to match the specific local searches happening in that store's area, providing the content signals needed to associate each location with the relevant local queries in its market. A blog post programme was implemented targeting timely cannabis topics in each target market, and an education section was developed to capture consumers at the research and consideration phase, converting their informational intent into store visit decisions through strategic internal linking to location pages.
Citation Building and Local Authority
NAP consistency was audited and corrected across all Origins store locations, ensuring each store's name, address, and phone number was accurate and consistent across the directories and data sources that Google's local algorithm uses as trust and verification signals. Citations were built across cannabis-specific directories, health and wellness sources, and local business directories relevant to each store's geographic market. The cross-location citation strategy was coordinated across the entire Origins network to avoid signal conflicts between individual store locations, providing each store with the independent local authority signals needed to compete for position one in their respective local pack.
The Results
The campaign produced category-leading local search performance improvements across the Origins store network.
Local pack search volume for individual store locations increased by 170% over the campaign period, reflecting the step-change improvement in local pack visibility that the GBP optimisation and location page strategy delivered. More Origins stores were appearing in local pack results for relevant cannabis searches in their areas, and appearing more frequently for a broader range of local queries.
The quality of those rankings improved as dramatically as the volume. The number of individual Origins store locations ranking at position one in their local pack increased by 229%, moving stores from inconsistent mid-pack positions to the dominant first position that captures the largest share of local search click-through and foot traffic.
The commercial impact of this improved local visibility was directly measurable in store direction requests. Organic requests for directions to Origins store locations grew by 47% year on year, generating over 15,000 direction requests from potential in-store customers during the measurement period. Each direction request represents a high-intent consumer who has found an Origins location through organic search and taken the specific action of requesting navigation to that store.
The results demonstrated that a coordinated multi-location local SEO strategy, built around GBP optimisation, location-specific content, and citation consistency, can produce dominant local pack performance for cannabis retailers with multiple physical locations.
These results confirmed that multi-location local search dominance is achievable through coordinated GBP optimisation, location-specific content, and consistent citation management, applied at the individual store level rather than as a uniform network-wide approach.
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