Five years ago, a Winnipeg vape store hired First Rank for SEO. In November of 2025, after just five years of selling products online, the company reached 1 million dollars in YTD online sales. Here’s how we did it:
Our Client
The vape store owners who hired us had six locations across the city. They wanted to increase traffic to their online store, as well as in-store traffic. Each store had its own Google Business Profile. The company had been in business for a number of years before hiring us; they had a lot of success through word-of-mouth and a good reputation in the city, but were underperforming online.
Our Strategy
This client has been with us for five years; one of the biggest advantages of SEO is that it can be scaled as your business grows. As our clients’ business needs changed, our strategy did as well. Here is a brief overview of how our goals changed:
- We began by focusing on improving rankings for the individual locations and optimizing their Google Business Profiles (GBPs).
- Once those locations were performing well, we began to focus on branded e-juice terms, as well as delivery terms within Winnipeg.
- Having secured excellent rankings in Winnipeg’s market, we began to focus on broader online e-commerce terms.
- We then focused on broader vape product-related terms, securing Featured Snippets at the top of the search results for many products, driving more traffic to the site.
- As we continued to grow the site’s traffic, clicks, and impressions, we began to focus on Canada-wide search terms.
We used a number of tactics to achieve our goals, including:
- We began by focusing on improving rankings for the individual locations and optimizing their Google Business Profiles (GBPs).
- Once those locations were performing well, we began to focus on branded e-juice terms, as well as delivery terms within Winnipeg.
- Having secured excellent rankings in Winnipeg’s market, we began to focus on broader online e-commerce terms.
- We then focused on broader vape product-related terms, securing Featured Snippets at the top of the search results for many products, driving more traffic to the site.
- As we continued to grow the site’s traffic, clicks, and impressions, we began to focus on Canada-wide search terms.
Since starting with us, our client has opened two new stores and hit $1 million dollars in online sales in 2025. We love seeing our clients succeed. From the SEO side, here’s what these results look like:
We’ve held the number #1 position for “vape shop Winnipeg” consistently since 2020:
We’ve maintained excellent rankings for branded searches like this one for the Oxbar M20K:
We’ve ranked #1 for several relevant local searches, including holding a #1 ranking for an entire year:
We’ve seen and maintained growth in clicks, sessions, and impressions since 2020:
June 2020
June 2021
June 2022
June 2023
June 2024
June 2025
This is why we do what we do. Our strategies lead to website traffic and leads; that means more sales, and sales mean business growth. See consistent results and grow your business with First Rank!
