Recent content by Brian Barwig

I've been noticing something similar for the past few months. Several of my clients have had out of state traffic explode for no reason I can tell. Several have had traffic increases from NY and WA state without being anywhere near those areas. I dug around GA/GSC/GMB but didnt find much as to why.

As Colan said, on page factors are more important for ranking than Page Speed. Speed is relative as well. If you're site is fast and the competitors are slow, you may have an advantage, and vice versa. Page speed with small to medium sized businesses is a bit overrated in my opinion.

Seems to me like the Vicinity update is rolling back a bit. Some of my clients which were negatively impacted are coming back into the Pack in a big way. Noticed a change in the last week or so. I've been doing some onsite optimizations but nothing that should've drastically changed the SERP as...

Youre probably going to have to try and overtake them as reporting them won't work. Try adjusting your Title, Meta and Headers on the home page to something along the lines of "sell your business" and see if it pushes the client site up.

Make sure the practitioner category and main category are different. Also be sure to have different phone numbers. Having a different website URL is advised as well. I wouldn't try to merge the listings as it won't do much, if anything.

I only mention news sources because they are prominent, have a huge following, and get lots of interaction. There are thousands of websites which are similar, you'd just have to find them. That looks like a solid guideline on how to go about getting links from news sources. Most of the time it...

This is going to be one of those "it depends" situations for SEO. For one, there is a lot of misinformation and unknown when building links. Second, it depends upon what you are building the links for. Many of the best links I have built have been free, so paying for links doesn't have to be...

New Google My Business Messaging Options by Brian Barwig, LocalU.org Dec 4, 2020 As first noticed yesterday, Google is launching several new messaging options for businesses in Local Search. GMB Messaging There are several new ways for customers to contact businesses with GMB messaging now, and...

New Google My Business Messaging Options by Brian Barwig, Local University Dec 4, 2020 As first noticed yesterday, Google is launching several new messaging options for businesses in Local Search. GMB Messaging There are several new ways for customers to contact businesses with GMB messaging...

Building Links? Check Out These Unconventional Approaches... by Brian Barwig, Sterling Sky Inc Nov 17, 2020 If you work with small to medium-sized businesses in Local SEO, you understand how valuable attaining local links can be for your clients. Local link building is a different animal than...

Why You Should Embed a Google Map on Your Website by Brian Barwig, Sterling Sky Inc Nov 3, 2020 You can include a Google map of your business, location, and reviews on your website. The map will show a Google pin with a view of your business location, address, reviews, review stars, and...

How to Win at Local Search with Service Area Businesses By Brian Barwig, Sterling Sky Inc. Oct 27, 2020 Those of us who work with local businesses know that strategies often always center around the business’ location. Our goal as marketers is to drive more customers into their stores, and...

Awesome. will be checking this out shortly

Like @Eric Rohrback said, it could be Yext if you are using that or any other 3rd party listing management service. Google may be editing the UTM code, but that is unlikely. The other most common reasons UTM parameters are removed are Google is finding links without UTM parameters on other...

I wouldn't change the name of the domain to match the business. It won't help ranking much, if at all. It is more important to fill out the GMB dashboard to the fullest, post photos, videos, description, etc, get reviews and get local links. The domain won't have much to do with ranking.