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Ask Me Anything with
Joy Hawkins

Sterling Sky

Joy Hawkins: Ask Joy Anything SEO Community Chat

10 Apr 2025 9:00 AM MST

Joy Hawkins 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 X or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google business profile community.

Ryan Mendenhall
Ryan Mendenhall Apr 10, 2025, 9:00 AM
Today we have the fabulous @joy joining us here in chat for our 2x a month Ask Me Anything.
 
Joy Hawkins 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 volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google Business Profile community.
 
I asked Joy what she likes to do in her off time and she said, "When I'm not working, I generally spend the majority of my time playing board games and pickleball. I'm also heavily involved with a charity over in Uganda that does counselling for war victims and refugees so I go over there once a year."
 
Today, while you can literally _Ask Her Anything_, she's particularly prepared to answer your Qs around the following topics:
 
• Local SEO
• Anything related to SEO
• Google Business Profiles
• Running an agency
Y'all sent me some good questions that I'll throw out if I don't see you asking them yourselves. I also had ChatGPT whip up based specifically on Joy's experience. And I'm curious guy, so I have some of my own that I'll toss in the ring as we go along.
 
But for now....
 
GAME ON!
 
 
Joy Hawkins
Joy Hawkins Apr 10, 2025, 9:00 AM
Hi guys! ????
Ryan Mendenhall
Ryan Mendenhall Apr 10, 2025, 9:00 AM
Thank you so much for spending your time with us today Joy!
 
I wanted to start off with some fun stuff so we can get to know you a little. What are you go to board games?
4 replies
Joy Hawkins
Joy Hawkins Apr 10, 2025, 9:03 AM
I mostly play ones that I am assuming most people have never heard of. Marvel Champions (amazing if you're a Marvel fan), Scythe, Voidfall, Nemesis...and about 100 more
Ryan Mendenhall
Ryan Mendenhall Apr 10, 2025, 9:04 AM
100 more?! Will be looking out for your blog post where you put them in a table and rank them by enjoyability! ????
Joy Hawkins
Joy Hawkins Apr 10, 2025, 9:06 AM
you mean....like this? <https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/Sunkist219> lol
 
Sunkist219 | User Collection | BoardGameGeek
Sunkist219 | User Collection | BoardGameGeek
Ryan Mendenhall
Ryan Mendenhall Apr 10, 2025, 9:07 AM
WHOA! Are you serious?! I should have known!!
Ryan Mendenhall
Ryan Mendenhall Apr 10, 2025, 9:03 AM
And our first "businessy" question comes from @2stephenvernon, What would you do differently if you were starting your local SEO agency over right now?
1 reply
Joy Hawkins
Joy Hawkins Apr 10, 2025, 9:04 AM
Operations-wise - never offer an unlimited vacation policy.
Marketing-wise - Start making videos much sooner.
Strategy-wise - Pick more specific niches to work in sooner.
Noah
Noah Apr 10, 2025, 9:04 AM
Hi Joy, one of the coolest parts of Sterling Sky is how we grew to be a way different company than what you set out to build. Can you share about your decision to “go Big” and how that’s tied to “Giving Back?”
3 replies
Joy Hawkins
Joy Hawkins Apr 10, 2025, 9:05 AM
Yeah, i originally thought it would be a super small team of SEO nerds and we could just sit back and be super selective of who we work with and live a cozy life. But then I met this organization in Uganda (I Live Again Uganda) and went over to visit. And I realized fast that I have the rare opportunity to change a lot of lives - so I decided I did want to grow the agency so that we could give more to them.
Ryan Mendenhall
Ryan Mendenhall Apr 10, 2025, 9:09 AM
What kind of impact are you making through this program? Is it easy to see?
Joy Hawkins
Joy Hawkins Apr 10, 2025, 9:13 AM
Yeah, so we donate a % of our profit to them and I visit once a year. It's probably the most meaningful, thought-provoking time I have every year. It's hard to describe, but I think it's essential to constantly see how the huge majority of the world lives - it's not like us. They focus on trauma counselling for people who survived their 20-yr civil war.
Ryan Mendenhall
Ryan Mendenhall Apr 10, 2025, 9:06 AM
And from the very non-human word predicter, ChatGPT: "What are the most common mistakes you encounter when optimizing a Google Business Profile, and how can they be avoided?"
1 reply
Joy Hawkins
Joy Hawkins Apr 10, 2025, 9:08 AM
1. Picking the wrong categories. Use <https://www.jepto.com/gbp/discovery> to help with this.
2. Having a location that is outside city borders or is at the same location as a competing listing (both are ranking killers). Avoiding this is researching and planning out new locations better.
3. Linking to your strongest-ranking organic page - see <https://www.sterlingsky.ca/googles-new-diversity-update/> for more on that
 
Jepto — Google Business Profile Category and Services Discovery
Use AI to recommend categories and services for your Profiles, or find all of the applicable categories, services, and attributes that you can use on your profiles.
Jepto — Google Business Profile Category and Services Discovery
Google’s New "Diversity Update”: How to Fix Your Ruined Rankings
There has been a change to Google’s algorithm that is substantially changing traffic for tons of businesses we’ve been analyzing. I’ve spent the last 3 months analyzing tons of our clients and doing tests to see if I can figure out what changed and why. It took me so long because I actually didn’t believe what I was seeing. The good news is that I have figured out some patterns which I’m going to share with you today, and it is going to completely change advice that myself and other respected SEOs have given in the past. In fact - some of my advice on how to set up a Google Business Profile is going to be completely opposite of what I was advising before. I’m going to dive in and show you what we’re seeing, but more importantly, what you can do about it. While we have seen dramatic decreases as a result of this change, we also found a way to get around it, which we’ll be sharing in this article.
Written by
Joy Hawkins
Time to read
5 minutes
Sterling Sky Inc: Google’s New I haven't had it affect my community too much. Hobbies are mainly board games and pickleball. My favorite place to make new connections is in-person at conferences.


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