My New Company – Opening April 2017

For those of you that haven’t heard, I recently decided to take the entrepreneur leap and open my own company. Sterling Sky Inc will be officially opening as of April 2017 with me (Joy Hawkins) as the sole owner.

What will I be doing?

• Consulting.  This has really been my passion over the last couple years – I love solving challenging ranking issues that are driving other people insane.  I have worked with tons of business owners and agencies who want a particular issue solved or want advice on something regarding Local SEO.
• Local SEO Training.  I’m currently working on writing a big manual (over 100 pages so far) that will be for people to get an advanced look at Local SEO. This is not for beginners and assumes that you have some type of SEO knowledge but are looking for more information on the items that impact Local Business.  The training will be for sale over at LocalU and you can subscribe there to be updated on when it’s available.  Here are just a few things that will be included in the training:
  • How do you find duplicates now that MapMaker is going away and Google just killed off the classic version of Google Plus?
  • How to deal with competitors that are spamming on Google Maps and getting away with it.
  • How do you deal with suspensions and verification issues with Google My Business?
  • What steps you need to take when a business relocates
  • What you need to know about attributes and where to find them (it’s not just in the Google My Business dashboard)
  • How does the Local Filter work now that Possum has rolled out?  If my business has been filtered, how do I get unfiltered?
• Pay-Per-Click.  Ads are everywhere and will probably roll out in the 3-pack this year.  Participating is becoming non-optional.
• Local SEO.  Of course, I’ll be taking on a few clients (not many) that I will be doing SEO work for on a monthly basis.

If you have any questions for me or want me to get in contact with you, please fill out the contact form on my homepage!  I will have more contact information (like a phone number for one) on my website before I launch in a month.

Joy Hawkins

Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky, a Local SEO agency in Canada & the USA. She has been working in the industry since 2006, writes 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 on the Google My Business Forum.