Joy Hawkins
Owner/Founder
Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky. She has been working in the industry since 2006, has written for publications such as Search Engine Land, and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as Mozcon, LocalU, Pubcon, SearchLove, and State of Search. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert in the Google business profile community. Joy is a mother of 3 beautiful children and a devout Christian. When she’s not working, she spends most of her time playing board games, pickleball, and beating Dave at Mario Kart.
Joy’s daily responsibilities at Sterling Sky, a leading local SEO agency, include troubleshooting ranking issues on Google for the most complicated and difficult accounts, consulting on how to use Google products and SEO-related tools and tactics, selling and managing local SEO services, social media and Google Ads accounts for small business owners, and keeping up with new trends and processes in the local SEO and search engine marketing (SEM) world. You can follow her on X (1).
Professional Accomplishments:
- Search Engine Land (2)Â Columnist
- Google MapMaker Regional Lead (USA)
- Google Business Profile Product Expert (3) on the Google Business Profile Forum
- Joy has looked at and worked on thousands of Google local listings for SMBs in the US and Canada
- Joy self-taught all about SEO and have been working in the Local SEO industry since 2006.
- Moderator on the Local University Forum & LocalU faculty member
- Speaker at Search Marketing Expo (SMX)
- Speaker at Local University (4)
- Owner of the Local Search Forum (5)
Education:
- Bachelor of Science in Communications (Specializing in Advertising) – Liberty University
- Honors Graduate, Summa Cum Laude
Local SEO Speaker
Joy is perhaps one of the most widely known Local Search speakers. She has spoken at nearly every Local SEO Conference (several times over), most notably Local U, MozCon, MozCon Local, and Pubcon. If you are in Local SEO, you probably have heard Joy give one of her Local search presentations. Joy enjoys speaking about Local SEO, and has brought together some of the best Local Search pros in the industry to provide the best Local SEO knowledge on the web. If you go to Local Search conferences, you will hear Joy speak on all topics of Local SEO.
Joy has been fortunate to speak at dozens of Local SEO conferences over the years. She plans to continue to be a guiding force in Local SEO by spreading her knowledge and expertise to other upcoming Local Search conferences.
Speaking Accomplishments
- SEO Rockstars
- brightonSEO
- Local SEO for Good
- LocalU In New York City
- Mozcon
- SEOMeetup
- SEO IRL
- Pubcon
- DudaCON
- LocalSEO for Ukraine
- LocalU Advanced
- Whitespark Local Search Summit
Resources: 1. X 2. Search Engine Land 3. Google Business Profile Product Expert 4. Local University 5. Local Search Forum
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