Matt Casady
Matt began his digital career in 2012, selling SEO products at a web hosting company. He then specialized in local SEO at an agency, working with small businesses. Over the years, Matt has gained experience in-house, expanding his skills in technical SEO and Google Ads. Since joining Sterling Sky in 2020, his diverse background has made him a key team member. Matt is passionate about Local Service Ads (LSAs) and leads the Southern California SEO Meetup group, where he connects with other local SEO professionals.
Sukhjit Matharu
Sukhjit has been a part of the Sterling Sky dream team since 2022, bringing his expertise as a seasoned Local SEO Strategist and Account Manager. With a graduate certificate from York University under his belt, he joined us from another notable agency where he dove deep into analyzing Google’s quality updates. Today, he focuses his skills primarily on Onsite SEO, Google Business Profile management, and SEO strategy, working with clients across a variety of verticals like home services, medical, legal, and more.
Justin Mosebach
If you asked his mother-in-law what Justin does, she would say he sells the internet. While that may or may not be true, Justin has been an internet marketer since 2010 and a local SEO since 2012. He caught the internet marketing bug during a summer website building camp in the 1990s. Having worked at two digital marketing agencies as an SEO, strategist, and account manager, he gained experience with all aspects of SEO (on-page, technical, off-site, local SEO) across various industries.
He’s always looking for ways to help small businesses get more qualified leads from a highly-ranking website.
Greg Gifford
Greg Gifford is the Vice President of Search at SearchLab, a boutique Local SEO agency company that provides digital marketing services to SMBs all over the country. He’s got over 17 years of online marketing experience and is an international conference speaker, teaching thousands of small business owners and marketers how to get their sites to show up higher in local search rankings.
Brad Wetherall
Brad is a seasoned technology leader with over 15 years of experience at Fortune 100 companies, specializing in the Google Business Profile product. As a former Director of Operations at Google, he led teams that improved major global products like Google Business Profile, Google Merchant Center, and Google Wallet. With extensive experience supporting over 100 million businesses, Brad has helped optimize online presence and growth. His strategic expertise includes product development and automation, streamlining operations and creating solutions like the Small Business Advisors service. A skilled communicator, Brad has earned a 4.8-star rating from over 1,000 Google employees for his training sessions.
Ben Fisher
Ben Fisher is a Google Business Profile Diamond Product Expert, and an experienced veteran in SEO since 1994. He is also a contributor to the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, faculty member at LocalU, and owner of the Local Marketing Institute. He’s the co-founder of Steady Demand, which works with agencies and businesses to maximize outsourced Local SEO can tackle the hardest of GBP issues. He can be reached on Twitter at @TheSocialDude.
Holly Starks
Holly Starks is an SEO strategist, publisher, and digital marketing professional with more than two decades of experience helping businesses grow through search, content, and authority building. She has worked across highly competitive industries, developing SEO strategies that focus on long-term visibility rather than short-term tactics.
Her work combines technical SEO, content strategy, digital PR, and AI-driven publishing to help organizations expand their reach and build lasting authority online.
Joy Hawkins
Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky in Canada. She has been working in the industry since 2006. She has a monthly column on Search Engine Land and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as SMX, LocalU, Pubcon, and Mozcon. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google My Business Forum.
Elizabeth Rule
Elizabeth has been in the digital marketing industry since 2016, working in both agency and in-house capacities. She grew up in southern Connecticut and after a few years living out of state, came back to live full time in New Haven. She received her Bachelors in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College in Boston. After college, she began her SEO career working with various healthcare organizations across the country, doing everything from on-page optimization to PR outreach. From there, she moved into an agency role where she continued to do SEO and also began running LSA, PPC, and social media ads for local businesses. This sparked her passion for local SEM and she hasn’t looked back since!
Offline, Elizabeth enjoys listening to hip hop, instrumental, and metal music, as well as curating her vinyl collection. She is also passionate about animal rescue and welfare. She has a thoroughbred horse named Ever So Grand (aka Ever), and two dog nephews she loves like they were her own named Dexter (Italian greyhound) and Bogie (super mutt).
Brandon Schmidt
Brandon's online journey began in 1997 with AOL dial-up, creating personal blogs and websites for churches and non-profits. After five years as an ordained minister, he transitioned to digital marketing in 2015, starting as a content writer before becoming a marketing strategist at a local SEO agency. He joined Sterling Sky in 2023.
Brandon frequently contributes to industry publications and has spoken at events like the NAHB International Builders’ Show, Pool | Spa | Patio Expo, Shed Builder Expo, LocalU, and Pubcon.
Webmaster & Community Manager
Carrie Hill
Carrie is a Local SEO Analyst at Sterling Sky, Inc. and the Community & Event Manager for LocalU. She started her journey in SEO in 2006 with a boutique agency dedicated to lodging websites. Over the next 9 years she’d work her way up to Director of Marketing and managing an 11-person team of experts. Looking for a new challenge in a variety of niches, Carrie reached out to her mentor Mary Bowling, and they operated Ignitor Digital – an agency specializing in Local Search Audits until she joined Sterling Sky in 2020.
Carrie’s expertise in Technical SEO and aptitude for puzzle solving and organization help keep client work and LocalU events and features on track. Find a website issue here or at the Forum? Reach out to her at online@localu.org.
