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Oct 30, 2024 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
GMB, Tips When I started learning SEO back in 2006, the best way to rank a site was to get a bunch of [pretty spammy] links to the site with the exact keyword you wanted to rank for as the anchor text. 10+ years and many algorithm updates later, lots of SEOs advise not to do this. In these tests to see if I could measure what was more important – the actual link or the anchor text.
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Aug 16, 2024 | 
moz.com | Joy Hawkins
By: Joy Hawkins Edited By: Meghan Pahinui Whiteboard Friday | Local SEO | Link Building The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. Originally published in August 2024, this episode of Whiteboard Friday features Joy Hawkins, who discusses the world of link building as it pertains to local SEO, specifically how links impact local pack rankings.
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Apr 22, 2024 | 
moz.com | Joy Hawkins
By: Joy Hawkins Edited By: Emilie Martin The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. It was a sad moment for me last year when one of my first clients canceled. He had been with me since the year I started Sterling Sky (2017) and was one of the best clients to work with.
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Jan 19, 2024 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
When I acquired this site in 2018, a lot of people gave me weird looks and told me this type of site was dying. “Joy, who uses forums anymore?”. Well according to traffic in the last 30 days on the Local Search Forum, the answer to that question is: A lot. To be more specific, thanks to the massive increase in ranking on Google in the last 60 days, we are getting 144% more traffic than we did at this point in 2023.
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Dec 7, 2023 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
Recently, on the Local Search Forum, there was a thread from several business owners who were seeing abnormal map pack ranking fluctuations since the November 2023 core algorithm update. They were seeing drastic differences in rankings based on the time of day:“Rankings significantly dropped overnight. The position dropped from 1 to 10, and further. Then, by the end of the day, it recovered most of the rankings.
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Oct 27, 2023 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
There was a massive change to Local Services ads recently that I’m not seeing many people talk about yet.. This update was so big that we are seeing huge shifts in spending trends in the last 30 days for almost every account we manage. Crystal Horton was the first to talk about this on Aaron Weiche’s podcast. These changes happened in September and fundamentally changed 2 things about how Local Services Ads work.
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Sep 15, 2023 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
Did you know that your business name is the #2 ranking factor according to Whitespark’s 2023 ranking factors study? Many people might assume your business name isn’t something that you can really use to help your SEO efforts, but I think otherwise. Choosing the right business name is important. What many people don’t realize, however, is that it can also have a major impact on your marketing strategy.
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Aug 25, 2023 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
We have been doing a lot of testing around images in the last year at Sterling Sky. You can read about the tests we did on geotagging photos and the cover photo you select in Google My Business. For this test, we wanted to measure how the photos you use on your website impact your organic ranking on Google. TLDR;According to this case study:Larger/better quality photos are better for rankingHaving a photo that matches what Google is looking for can have a positive impact on ranking.
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Jun 16, 2023 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
If you’re aware of Google’s guidelines, you probably know that Google has a guideline for home-based businesses. It states, “Important: If you don’t serve customers at your business address, do not enter an address under the ‘Info’ tab in Business Profile Manager. Leave the ‘business location’ field blank.” This comes into play a lot with service area businesses like a plumber who drives to their customer instead of their customer coming to them.
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May 30, 2023 | 
sterlingsky.ca | Joy Hawkins
Recently I was in a Facebook group where a user posted this question:“One of my clients is giving a donation to the charity they support with every review you leave, good bad or ugly. Is this paying for a review? I would say not. Sounds like genius to me I think I’ll start doing it myself.”I wasn’t actually sure of the answer, so I reached out to Google to find out.
