Recently I have seen more and more discussions around coworking spaces and how Google My Business deals with them. We actually use co-working spaces here at Sterling Sky for meet-ups regularly and love the flexibility they provide. But are you…
In the local search space, rebranding is something that happens quite often. This is a checklist of all the places a local business needs to update online when they are changing their business name. Update website first. The logo needs to reflect…
We have a big study on Google My Business posts that I'm presenting at LocalU on April 7th but you can catch all the recordings of LocalU here. While doing that study, there were several things we learned about Google…
There are several reputable companies that offer services with an annual fee that are designed to keep your online local directory listings up-to-date. One way of doing this is to focus specifically on the major local data aggregators that push…
Google has a long way to go to solve the problem with fake reviews but every now and then we see a business that loses a huge chunk of reviews because they did something to violate Google's policies. In this case,…
It's pretty common to see threads at the Local Search Forum like this one where a business owner is wondering how they can rank higher on Google. The challenge I see most often is that a lot of business owners…
Updated February 12, 2021 What Is A CID Number On Google? It's important to understand that every Google Business Profile has a unique CID number that helps Google identify its listing quickly. Which might leave you wondering - what is…
I have been tracking changes to the list of Google My Business categories since 2017, and we just recently launched the list of category changes on our website. In the last year, we have noticed that Google adds new categories,…
Keyword research in Local Search can be hard. When you're working with small businesses you are often working with small sites with very limited data. Many of the popular keyword research tools show zero data or won't allow you to…
September 24, 2020 Update The following was just added as well under the address section of the main guidelines: They added back in the fact that separate office locations must be staffed by your business staff. This came up on the…
On October 3, 2020, our team will be participating in our third Ride for Refuge. The organization we are supporting is called I Live Again Uganda. Not only has Uganda been dealing with the aftermath of a horrific war, they…
When I came up with the first template for our monthly SEO reports for Sterling Sky, I made a very firm decision that I didn't want to have rank tracking as a part of them. We use 4 different rank…