I wanted to change things up here on the blog a little (and needed an excuse to get out of the house), so I jumped on the subway and headed down to cannabis store Tokyo Smoke at 333 Yonge Street today.
Formerly a HMV store, this location was one that I’ve been meaning to check out for quite some time because of it’s prime location at Yonge and Dundas.
Knowing the old building and it’s layout, I was expecting a huge store.. It wasn’t…
Approximately 1500 square feet, it was a decent-sized room and not much more than that. I hit the computer to do some research after I got home, and it seems that Tokyo Smoke plans to expand their retail footprint to 6500 square feet at some point in the future.
I’ve been to 3 cannabis stores in Toronto so far – How did Tokyo Smoke rank?
I went to The Hunny Pot Cannabis Store the first day it opened last April and to date it’s been the nicest store I’ve been to so far.
Ameri was my second trip to a cannabis store and was a real disappointment considering it was in Yorkville. I posted about that experience already.
Maybe my expectations were too high, but my Tokyo Smoke excursion today was somewhere between the other two.
Greeted by a security guard at the front door, there were no lineups and I went inside where there were maybe 20 customers or so.. Here’s an older video on what the store looks like.
Tokyo Smoke Opening – 333 Yonge Street
I managed to snap some pictures on my phone after getting permission.
Great staff at Tokyo Smoke – What makes a good budtender?
The budtenders and staff were friendly and helpful. I looked around for the budtender I thought would give me the best suggestions on what type of pot to buy, I was listening to him talk with a couple of other customers and waited until they were finished before I got my opportunity to speak with him.
I selected this particular budtender because he was older, he looked the part and he delivered. He was worth the visit alone and I would even go back because of that experience.
I reviewed my purchase history of what I’ve bought in the past, explained how they made me feel and was ultimately looking for something new to try.
My budtender showed me a bunch of different strains that I might be interested in, we narrowed down my selection to something high in THC and wasn’t going to make me groggy.
Here’s what I’ve bought to date
Aurora MK Ultra – Strong, very chill and zoned me out too much.
San Rafael 71′ Pink Kush – Really good quality, but still too heavy and made me sleepy
Broken Coast Galiano – Despite watching many positive reviews about Broken Coast, Galiano was absolutely average. I was hoping for much more.
I’ll reveal what I ended up buying in a second, but I made my final decision after talking with my budtender for about 20 minutes. He ordered my selection on his iPad and I went to the counter to pay for it.
So what did I end up buying? Jack Haze by 7ACRES
My budtender said he smoked Jack Haze last week and it was pretty darn good with a THC level of 16.0 – 22.0%. Inspired by Jack Herer, Jack Haze is a sativa-dominant strain with positive reviews.
Without his suggestion, I would have never bought Jack Haze or anything from 7ACRES. I’m now in the habit of going to a cannabis store with no plan other than to rely on the budtender to suggest what they think is best to try. That’s what they are there for — and I love it!
I was a little disappointed at the size of the buds, I usually buy 3.5 grams vs. buying 1 gram because there’s a better chance of getting bigger nugs and usually means better quality.. but size doesn’t always tell the entire story.
How much did Jack Haze cost?
Listed at $52.35 on the OCS, I paid $58 + tax for 3.5 grams at Tokyo Smoke. Jack Haze was one of the more expensive strains to buy and that’s ok if the quality is there.
I’m not a huge smoker by any means, usually one joint on the weekend and this will last me for months. But we’re a SEO agency, let’s take a look at Tokyo Smoke.
SEO audit for Tokyo Smoke (ca.tokyosmoke.com)
DR Rank – 52
DR stands for Domain Rank, it’s a score used to determine the authority of your website in search engine rankings. This is also commonly referred to as DA (Domain Authority) depending on the SEO tool you are using.
Referring Domains – 744
This is the total number of domains or websites that link back to ca.tokyosmoke.com
Referring Pages – 2493
This is the total number of pages that link back to ca.tokyosmoke.com
Backlinks – 2973
This is the number of actual links back to ca.tokyosmoke.com
Dofollow Backlinks – 2289
DoFollow links are powerful because these types of links tell Google to pay attention to the site they are linking to and increases the authority score of that website
Nofollow Backlinks – 653
NoFollow backlinks are still important, but tells Google to essentially ignore them and doesn’t pass link juice that increases the authority rank of the website they’re linking to
Search Keywords by Position Rank
Search keywords by position are the search terms people use when searching on Google and link back to Tokyo Smoke. Being #1 on Google is huge, but the value also depends on how often people search for those keywords.
There were a ton of direct matches for Tokyo Smoke, so I took most of them out and tried to come up with different search terms to make this a little more interesting.
| Keyword | Position | Volume | URL |
|---|---|---|---|
| tokyo smoke | 1 | 11,000 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| tokyo smoke toronto | 1 | 500 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/about-ts |
| tokyo smoke hours | 1 | 80 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/all |
| tokyo smoke winnipeg | 1 | 1,400 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/intents |
| tokyo smoke yonge and dundas | 1 | 80 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/capsule |
| tokyo smoke retail | 1 | 40 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/now-in-stock |
| tokyo smoke calgary | 1 | 200 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/store-locator |
| tokyo smoke toronto | 1 | 500 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/all |
| tokyo smoke brandon | 1 | 200 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| tokyo smoke retail | 1 | 40 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| tokyo smoke oshawa | 1 | 300 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/store-locator |
| tokyo smoke ease | 1 | 150 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/ease |
| weed accessories toronto | 2 | 30 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/all-accessories |
| tokyo smoke stock price | 2 | 30 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/now-in-stock |
| kush smoke clouds | 2 | 10 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/vertical-kent-county-kush-flower |
| vaporizer winnipeg | 2 | 70 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/vaporizers |
| van der pop | 2 | 400 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/van-der-pop |
| cannabis spray | 3 | 200 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/spray |
| 333 yonge street | 3 | 150 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/store-locator |
| smoke shops near me | 4 | 400 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/tokyo-smoke-cannabis-accessories-tutorials |
| ceramic pipe | 4 | 50 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/pipes/ceramic |
| thc smoke shop | 4 | 10 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/tokyo-smoke-accessories |
| pineapple express winnipeg | 4 | 70 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/shipping |
| winnipeg head shops | 5 | 150 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| pre rolls | 5 | 80 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/pre-roll |
| head shops winnipeg | 5 | 250 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/store-locator |
| smoke store | 5 | 100 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/tokyo-smoke-accessories |
| head shops winnipeg | 5 | 250 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/now-in-stock |
| toronto smoke shop | 5 | 150 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/go |
| head shops winnipeg | 5 | 250 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| head shop winnipeg | 5 | 20 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/all |
| genius pipe canada | 5 | 150 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/mini-genius-pipe |
| palm tree cbd | 6 | 450 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/lbs-palm-tree-cbd-flower |
| broken coast ruxton | 6 | 200 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/ruxton-flower |
| closest head shop | 7 | 30 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| pax toronto | 7 | 80 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/pax-3-device-only-vaporizer |
| galiano strain | 8 | 200 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/galiano-flower |
| palm tree cbd | 8 | 450 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/palm-tree-cbd-flower |
| edison city lights | 10 | 150 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/edison-city-lights-flower |
| cbd winnipeg | 10 | 60 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/store-locator |
Search Keywords By Volume
Search keywords by volume is the actual number of searches for a specific keyword or term on Google. You don’t need to be ranked #1 for a keyword with big search volumes for huge SEO wins and can often be more valuable than ranking #1 if more people are coming to your website with that search volume.
| Keyword | Volume | Position | URL |
|---|---|---|---|
| tweed | 42,000 | 13 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/tweed |
| capsule | 26,000 | 9 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/capsule |
| grinder | 15,000 | 14 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/grinders |
| bong | 11,000 | 15 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/bongs |
| tokyo smoke | 11,000 | 1 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| vaporizer | 8,000 | 13 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/vaporizers |
| capsule toronto | 5,900 | 14 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/capsule |
| smoke shop | 3,400 | 10 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| smoke shop near me | 2,400 | 13 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| thc toronto | 2,400 | 19 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| doja stock | 2,400 | 18 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/doja |
| pipes | 2,000 | 2 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/pipes |
| liiv cbd oil | 1,600 | 6 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/cbd-capsule |
| cbd oil toronto | 1,500 | 18 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| spray | 1,500 | 9 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/spray |
| genius pipe | 1,400 | 7 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/mini-genius-pipe |
| tokyo smoke winnipeg | 1,400 | 1 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/store-locator |
| rolling tray | 450 | 17 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/lantern-rolling-tray |
| palm tree cbd | 450 | 6 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/lbs-palm-tree-cbd-flower |
| cold creek kush | 450 | 17 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/vertical-cannabis-cold-creek-kush-preroll |
| cannabis stores winnipeg | 400 | 8 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| smoke shops near me | 400 | 4 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/tokyo-smoke-cannabis-accessories-tutorials |
| weed dispensary winnipeg | 400 | 12 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/ |
| tokyo smoke oshawa | 300 | 3 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/pages/store-locator |
| solei balance | 300 | 18 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/solei-balance-spray |
| tweed bakerstreet | 300 | 20 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/products/tweed-bakerstreet-capsule |
| solei free oil | 250 | 15 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/solei |
| solei cannabis | 250 | 188 | https://ca.tokyosmoke.com/collections/solei |
Finally we get down to sites linking back to Tokyo Smoke and how it impacts their SEO
