Has it really been thirteen years already? Wow, time flies. For those who don’t know, every year I write a year in review post, just to reflect on what I’ve learned, accomplished, or how things are changing in SEO. Sorry I haven’t written a lot this year for this blog, I have been incredibly busy […]
Author: John Locke
John Locke is a SEO consultant from Sacramento, CA. He helps manufacturing businesses rank higher through his web agency, Lockedown SEO.
Here are articles that this author has written for LockedownSEO.com.
Can Buying Fake Google Reviews Hurt Your SEO?
If you’re trying to improve your SEO, you might be tempted to try different tactics to boost your ranking. Some agencies might tell you they are going to get you more reviews on Google Maps / Google Business Profile, telling you this will improve your ranking in the map. While reviews definitely play a role […]
Can’t Access WP-Admin Dashboard in WordPress After Migration
John Locke
Updated November 18th, 2025
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Have you ever migrated a WordPress website from one host to another, and then you cannot access the Dashboard, even if you have Administrator privileges in the original site? Now, have you tried every other thing that all the troubleshooting sites said to do, and it still doesn’t work? If the new hosting has a […]
Don’t Use Hashtags in Your Title Tags
Quick tip: don’t use hashtags in your title tags, because they won’t show up in the search results. This applies if you use something like “#1 Local Experts” in the title tag. In search results, it will be “1 Local Experts”. I suspect Google systems automatically strip out the “pound” symbol to prevent people from […]
2024 Year in Review
This year was one of big change for many agencies, and I’m thankful to still be here for the twelfth year. Many of my clients are doing bigger and better things than ever before. The success of our clients is what I like to measure. One of my earliest clients had a record year. Another […]
Don’t Use Dynamic Ad Groups in Google Ads
If you’re using Google Ads and you’re a contractor, there is one very important setting you need to pay attention to, or you will get a lot of false positives. I didn’t think this was a repetitive pattern but I saw it on a few clients, and it is something you NEED to avoid. DO […]
Get Landing Pages by Source / Medium in GA4
Google Analytics moved from the old Universal Analytics to GA4 (Google Analytics 4) in summer of 2023. Many online marketing specialists found it valuable to find the top Landing Pages by Source / Medium and filter to find Google traffic. In other words, which pages were people coming in on directly from Google Search? Unfortunately, […]
2023 Year in Review
2023 was a year of change for many agencies within the digital marketing space, and we are very fortunate to have had another good year. I thank all of our regular clients for entrusting us with their business. Most of our business this year was from recurring accounts, with a few one-time projects along the […]
Why YouTube and Google Personalize Search Results
John Locke
Updated November 24th, 2023
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Many people believe that search results in Google and YouTube are the same for everyone, and though they might be similar, they are rarely 100 percent the same. Why does this phenomenon occur? Google and YouTube both have personalization for search results based on factors like your location, search history, and some experimentation to determine […]
Reviews Play an Important Role in Local SEO
Getting reviews from clients will help your local SEO, but don’t focus only on Google reviews. You’ll need reviews from a variety of sites that the ranking algorithm expects to see in your review portfolio. Many of you are focused on Google reviews, since most businesses want to rank high in Google Maps. This is […]