Hitchhiker's Guide to Serverless JavaScript

steven-faulkner-nodejs.png

Although Serverless has become a bit of a buzzword recently, Steven Faulkner, Director of Platform Engineering at Bustle, disagrees that it is just a fad.

The Linux Foundation

Although Serverless has become a bit of a buzzword recently, Steven Faulkner, Director of Platform Engineering at Bustle, disagrees that it is just a fad. In his talk at Node.js Interactive, he points out that much of the faults that people find in Serverless -- that it doesn't scale, that it is not production ready, that it’s too slow and expensive -- are provenly false.

Faulkner has made Serverless the backbone for Bustle's content since it became a thing a couple of years ago. This means he is in charge of all things back-end, but does a lot of front-end work, too. At Bustle, one of the largest women’s media properties online, they use serverless for 99 percent of the requests. This translates to between 10 and 20 million calls per day. Serverless has a latency of less than 200ms average, and it costs less than than their EC2 (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud) base setup.

Serverless 101

Faulkner also addresses some of the misconceptions surrounding Serverless. The first is, admittedly, down to the name of the concept itself. Serverless is a misnomer because, clearly, there are still servers deep down somewhere.

However, Serverless is the result of answering the question "What if we abstracted all the servers away?" -- that is, what happens when you create a service that relieves the developers and admins from having to worry about the underlying server? Serverless implements "anything and everything as a Service," which is not a new concept.

Faulkner says Serverless is really about Functions as a Service (FaaS). The core tenants of FaaS are that code is only run when needed, you only pay when code is run, and you are not bothered with the details, in fact, your app is a function that sits between the request from and the response to the user:

request
yourApp()
response

There are several providers offering Serverless-Function as a Service. For example, Microsoft Azure has Azure Functions and Google has Cloud functions. IBM has an open source service called OpenWhisk. Faulkner, however, Faulkner thinks Amazon Web Services is ahead of everyone else in this arena and described some examples in his talk.

Why Use Serverless

Faulkner says there are several advantages to deploying web apps to a Serverless service. Despite what many think, Serverless does not mean NoOps; it means Less Ops. Serverless also scales, in the sense that fewer things change between when you have 1 request per second, and when you have 1000 requests per second.

Price is another factor. You only pay when somebody is using your code. This means you can maintain legacy services that you are not sure you should turn off quite yet, or you can deploy services you are not sure will be successful at zero cost.

But even when your code is running, it is still cheaper. Faulkner says that an API he uses to trail all the user tracking and event tracking on the Bustle website and then route it where it's meant to go costs $2500 month on EC2. On Lambda/API Gateway only $400 month.

For developers, it is easier to iterate at function-based level rather than on your whole application, and Serverless allows for single function deployments. This means you can do things very quickly by re-writing one single function and you can deploy it without affecting the whole. Amazon's service also makes for quicker deployments because you can deploy 50 functions and alias them all at once.

Why Not Use Serverless

There are, however, also several reasons why you may not want to use a Serverless service like Amazon's. There is, for example, the risk of becoming locked in. Migrating from a Serverless FaaS can be a minefield, but, according to Faulkner, from Amazon it is not that hard. He has a chunk of code 9 lines, an Express server, that calls the Lambda functions if you have to migrate.

Another problem is running cold functions. If you're doing something outside the function, like loading a bunch data before the first time your function runs, this can delay the first run an unacceptably long time. Amazon solves the problem by running all your functions within 3.5 hours of the upload.

Testing is yet another area that can cause problems. Testing individual functions is not too difficult according to Faulkner. But when you want to do integration testing across all of your functions, that is still painful.

Serverless at Bustle

At Bustle, the front-end serves up HTML and JavaScript through the API gateway. The application reads some static assets through S3 and uses Lambda for SSR (Server Side Rendering) to generate the actual pages.

On the back-end, Bustle uses GraphQL to fetch most of the data. The JSON generated by GraphQL is processed through API Gateway and Lambda, which are talking to dynamodb or redis, with some PostgreSQL thrown into the mix.

Tools

Despite all its advantages, if you are deploying more than two functions, it is very painful to deploy your stuff manually. That's where the tooling comes in. Faulkner mentions Serverless Framework, node-lambda, apex, claudia.js as tools to check out. But, he also recommends his own open source tool, shep, which will allow you to build and deploy your serverless applications to Amazon's Lambda with a few simple commands.

For more examples and details, watch the complete presentation below:

If you are interested in speaking or attending Node.js Interactive North America 2017 - happening in Vancouver, Canada next fall - please subscribe to the Node.js community newsletter to keep abreast with dates and time.

Your First Marketing Hire For A Startup

Your First Marketing Hire

http://blog.drift.com/

As many have written (most recently Jason Lemkin on Quora), B2B marketing contains at least four really discrete disciplines: demand generation, product marketing, positioning/strategy, and PR/communications/branding. Increasingly, marketing technologist & operations is being broken out separately, but it otherwise falls into the demand generation role.

When it comes time to hire a company’s first marketing person, most founders think they just need a director or experienced individual contributor to start doing demand generation and bring in leads. They think, “I’ve got to make sales productive with leads.” They invest in SEO, spend thousands on SEM, turn on email marketing, and crank out webinars. That is one approach, but I’ll argue it is the wrong one.

I recommend starting with a director or senior product marketing manager who is willing and ready to roll up her sleeves for three key reasons:

1. In the early stages, all marketing is product marketing.

The most important marketing milestones are to articulate the value proposition in your customer’s’ eyes, position it relative to competition and alternatives and help the company tell its story. If you’re spending money to amplify a bad or wrong story, it’s money down a drain.

2. Making sales productive is sales enablement not lead gen.

Making the company’s new sales people productive *is* critical, but what sales most needs is sales enablement tools rather than leads. Product marketing creates company presentations, case studies, ROI calculators, the website, and materials for a webinar or conference presentation. Product marketers are domain experts who can create content for lead gen and generate thought leadership.

3. Product marketers by definition are generalists with broad skill sets.

Someone who is exclusively really great at Demand Gen is not likely to be good at articulating a great story. They look for short-term clicks vs. playing the long game, which is what positioning is. On the other hand, product marketers tend to be “athletes” who play a productive role and stand up other marketing disciplines. A product marketer can build the website, write and disseminate articles, pick and manage PR agencies, run an analyst tour, optimize website for search, initiate and manage a competent SEM campaign, and pick the first basic marketing tools.

Companies who do not do the positioning work up front do not build the necessary foundation.

The risk of NOT doing the positioning work up front is you get customers, but they’re not the best or right ones. Your single best marketing asset as an early B2B company are early customers who love you.

For example, one major online backup company did all performance-based acquisition in its early days. They took anyone whose money was green. Only when they saturated their early markets did they start working on positioning, but at that point Dropbox already dominated the conversations in their categories. Shifting awareness at that point took millions instead of the thousands it would have taken to own their position in those markets up front.

There are plenty of companies that have experience on one side of this line or the other. But even though it’s contrary to today’s conventional wisdom, at Costanoa we feel leading with product marketing is the way to go.

https://medium.com/costanoa-venture-capital/your-first-marketing-hire-6b40553e97bb?_hsenc=p2ANqtz--jx0BqeeZxM9WD_NF4FEkAO0G1_cH7L_TLNOlEImjChUdzvenQbVN9whjenjpIil3rTuQdO2EXJZ0wWe9QGuLhroJwVQ&_hsmi=36789099#.3nregz1xs

Instagram's Newest Updates Cuts Time Between Clients and Streamlines with Facebook Company Pages

Logging in and out of more than 5 accounts throughout the week on Instagram is very annoying.

But I do it because I have to.

I've been struggling with having to choose which client I need to be logged into during each day. Between a handful of social media clients, it's easy to miss comments, new interactions, and sales opportunities when you're the only one managing accounts like these that need to be very social in order to sell. Then throw in when your client is active on the company Instagram account and checks the notifications in the morning before you wake up but doesn't reply to comments of potential sales?!?!?!

I may not be logged in for a couple of days, and by the time I come back; we have just witnessed a moment in the twilight hour where business opportunities are missed and sales are down. LOL

Now with Instagram's new update, managing every account through what feels like 1 account now, I am cutting approximately 1 hr a week out of my reports that I can use to take a break, or work that extra hour and bill for it accordingly.

But for real, the hour a week that this new update physically saves me, is more than just physical time. It streamlines my work schedule to have less stress, a shorter thinking process, and a more effective use of my time.

Also with Instagram's newer updates, advertising has become streamlined with Facebook advertising. Merging your Facebook Company Page with the brands Instagram is a necessity now and you need to make sure that your Instagram in settings is linked to your other social accounts.

You are also now assured that your Facebook/Twitter/etc. share button during your Instagram post creation, there will now be the text of your other social accounts page names, which is reassuring.

Thank you #Instagram!

#marketing #marketingtips

New Video from Manta Racks

New Video from Manta Racks

MANTA RACKS were designed to solve a long existing problem – to get your boards off the floor of your center console or other fishing boat’s floor and secure them. Our rack systems allow you to organize your boat to keep it clutter free, so that your guests can move freely without tripping over your boards and possibly being injured.

MANTA RACKS simply insert and lock into pre-existing flush mounted rod holders. You will have more fun with your family and friends when you “Take Your Boards.” You can increase your fishing experience when you “Take Your Boards.”

www.mantaracks.com

https://youtu.be/TNfSihUlf44

Edited by Chase Gregory from NSG Consulting.

Google kills Right Hand Side Ads: what does this mean for marketers and users?

As we reported over the weekend, Google has removed all PPC ads from the right-hand side of the search engine results page with immediate global effect. 

There’s been a great deal of speculation on what this means for businesses, advertisers and users alike, with many postulating that the top-of-the-page paid search is going to become even more cutthroat (and expensive), organic listings will be pushed even further off the first SERP (Google will start to show four ads at the top instead of three for “highly commercial” search terms) and that Product Listing Ads will gradually take over the SERP (PLAs are still allowed on the right-hand side).

The change has already happened.

Here’s a search for ‘london hotel’ carried out two days ago…

And here is the same search today…

There are now four paid search results at the top, with nothing on the right. It looks oddly blank now, and worryingly the entire above the fold space is entirely filled with ads.

However there is one slightly positive change. There are more organic results below the fold. In fact there are nine blue links and two news stories, which is an improvement. But this is still probably a case of ‘too little too low-down’.

Google’s decision appears to be entirely commercially driven, it would be naive to think otherwise, but has Google gone too far in sacrificing its own user experience for the searcher?

Or will we eventually get to the point where the entire first SERP is filled with ads and we instinctively click straight to the second page, in the same way we skip past YouTube pre-rolls?

We asked some experts from the search community what they thought of the matter.

Thank you to Julia Logan (SEO consultant at IrishWonder.com), Kevin Gibbons (Managing Director at BlueGlass), Sam Silverwood-Cope (CMO at Pi Datametrics) and Larry Kim (Founder ofWordstream) for answering the following questions…

Why has Google decided to drop ads on the right hand side of search results? Is this a way to extract more revenue from top ads?

[Julia Logan] I would suppose so, given the eye tracking studies, and with reports of typical non-technical users hardly distinguishing between ads and organic results, this step tends to blur the line for such users even more – after all, sidebar ads stood out clearly as ads.

However, I was trying to look into the history of sidebar ads and found this article proving this is not their first attempt to ditch sidebar ads, although the previous one did not involve increasing the number of ads above the organic results.

[Kevin Gibbons] The obvious answer is revenue and I’m sure that is a big factor of course. But I think it’s likely to be a balance between this, and a more modern, perhaps centered, search experience which reflects mobile vs. desktop and tablet results. Ultimately changes like this have to be beneficial to the search experience, otherwise Google ends up chasing short-term revenue instead of long-term market share.

[Sam Silverwood-Cope] My Dad asked me the other day, “How come Google is free?” Well Dad, this is how it makes money. If some people don’t realise the top advert spots are actually advertising (like my dad), I think most are aware that the right-hand side are paid positions. Most people do not click on PPC ads for general searches.

So not content with the existing two or three adverts, plus the Google shopping results, plus any other self-promoting comparison widget they put up, Google in its wisdom, has decided to expand the real estate of PPC in the main bulk of the SERPs at the cost of an organic spot.

What does this do for organic search? What should site owners and SEOs do in response?

[Julia Logan] We could of course panic and bemoan the death of above-the-fold organic SERPs but this may not necessarily be the case. With the rise of adblockers, whatever anybody is doing with their ads can potentially become irrelevant.

Assuming the worst case scenario, site owners and SEOs should do what they have always been doing – compete against paid ads. If you rank for a commercially meaningful keyword, make sure you do everything in your power to make your organic listing stand out – metatag optimisation (yes I do realise this is 2016 now), Schema and other options suitable for your particular site. Ads will evolve, becoming more interactive and visually attractive – this means you should not be left behind.

[Kevin Gibbons] My advice is to aim high. We’ve definitely see a significant shift in first page clickthrough rates over the last couple of years especially in organic search. Ranking on page one is often not good enough anymore, every term is different – but I’d recommend that you really should be aiming top three now, otherwise there’s likely to a big drop-off in clickthrough rates.

Also, become the brand that people think of before they even get to typing a query into Google. Whether it’s paid listings, competitors, vertical search or anything else that may get in the way of potential customers visiting your site, try to make sure they get to you first and then remember who you are, so that they come straight back the next time.

[Sam Silverwood-Cope] Despite my moaning, and hankering for the good old times, I think it makes things quite interesting for SEO. The additional PPC spot is supposed to be for premium terms (for now). These terms are highly expensive per click, so it’s up to the vendor to decide whether the top spot is worth it, or whether it would be an interesting bidding war to lose and then to vie for the organic spot above the fold.

A good strategy would be to push organic and take a lower PPC position. With the right tracking tool, alerts can be used on organic positions to react accordingly for the bidding. This blended search approach will be won by the most competent, well equipped digital teams.

Does this improve or harm the user experience?

[Julia Logan] If the user’s goal is to find whatever they are looking for, the answer will largely depend on whether the AdWords algorithm is better than the organic algorithm, and also whether businesses spend money on ads thoughtlessly and run ads with poor targeting.

[Kevin Gibbons] The jury’s out on this one; the negative could be that searchers want to see the natural listings rather than too many ads at the top, and the positive could be a cleaner layout and improved experience. I have to try and look at this from a non-SEO perspective, and as much as I’d like to see the organic results as high as possible, if I’m honest I think the new layout might improve the experience.

I would add that this isn’t an overnight change and I don’t expect this to be the last experiment we see either.

[Sam Silverwood-Cope] Like a young rock band committed to making quality music and “never selling out” then chasing the mainstream buck with the third album, Google doesn’t seem to prioritise its legacy of organic quality any more.

“In Google we Trust” meant we used this superb search engine above the basic or advertised-burden competition. Too many adverts, and especially poor adverts, will eventually turn the user off. But this will only happen when there is a competent viable competitor.

And finally let’s hear from Larry Kim, who offers the following optimistic advice to Paid Search marketers…

I had a good chuckle reading some of the doomsday predictions this morning.

We did some actual analysis here and what I can tell you is that Side Ad and Bottom ads account for 14.6% of total click volume (this is looking across thousands of accounts). Keep in mind that ‘Bottom of Page Ads’ aren’t going away. So, for starters, we’re talking less than 14.6% of clicks impacted by the change.

Now, those “lost” impressions and clicks can more than be made up by A) the addition of the new fourth ad spot B) 78% of SERPS have fewer than 4 ads above the organic results – there’s plenty of room for that to go down and C) the addition of up to four ads below the organic search results. It’s like we just re-organized the naming of ad positions.

As a result, I see no impact on AdWords auction dynamics (clicks, impressions, CPCs, etc.). The only ‘loser’ is organic search which is completely gone from above the fold space on desktop for any commercial query.

There are also incremental benefits to paid search from the change, for example, now all ads can use call-out extensions, sitelink extensions, location extensions, etc., which were previously only a benefit of top-of-page ads. And the ads appear ‘more native’ which may have additional benefits.

In quantifying the impact of this, I should also add that the change is for desktop only, which accounts for less than half of searches. So we’re talking 14.6%/2 = 7.3% of queries impacted.

Basically, keep calm. This is a net positive for paid desktop search.

https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/02/23/google-kills-right-hand-side-ads-what-does-this-mean-for-sem/?utm_source=Search+Engine+Watch&utm_campaign=8f05d9ddd5-23_02_2016_NL&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e118661359-8f05d9ddd5-17106041

What to blog about?

So on Facebook and LinkedIn today I did a post that we would be doing 15 blog post this month.

Why?

Because we know blogs are great for SEO and they give you lots more space to write than Twitter, LinkedIn. More space means more you can go deeper into what your company is all about.

Plus, we have been lagging behind because we get wrapped up with day to day stuff.

Yet, as someone who has been helping companies with social media for over 4 years, I know how tough this is going be.


So, how do you come up with 15 blog post a month?

Here are a few suggestions on some blog topics....

There is always news about the company--- for example you will be closed or open on Labor Day. You can reintroduce people to older products in new and fresh ways, share industry news, find funny or inspiration cartoons or photos (these often get lots of attention), coverage of upcoming trade show-(fall trade show season is about to start), create longer tech/informational pieces (these get lots of attention yet take more time to develop), ask questions about the state of the industry( these are tough-- the right questions to as most are pretty shy online), share employee/customer photos (always a good one), new hires, etc.

Well, this is 1 out of 15....14 to go.

Need help with blogging, we might be able to help. Contact us at 407-432-7706

Google's Local Snack Pack Shake-Up: What You Need to Know

Local SEO has seen the biggest shake-up since Google launched their first local algorithm, Pigeon, just over a year ago. On Thursday, August 6th, people began to notice that the usual 7-packs that frequently showed up in the search results for local businesses were suddenly replaced with 3-packs in the desktop search results. It initially wasn't too alarming, but as the hours passed it was obvious Google had changed the face of local search in their search results.

By the end of that day, 3-packs had completely replaced all the 7-packs across all verticals and across all countries. This was an unusual move for Google, since they commonly tested out local changes that only rolled out to specific countries. But this change was for everyone everywhere.

By the next morning, less than 24 hours after the first changes were noticed, Mozcast confirmed what everyone suspected: 7-packs were history and 3-packs were all the rage.

Mobile-centric

As mobile usage continues to grow higher and higher, Google has changed their desktop search results to appear more similar to the mobile-specific search results; the 3-packs fit perfectly on the screen for mobile users.

Regardless of what you search is for, it is those top three spaces that make up the screen real estate for a mobile user, along with the Google map that appears for some local queries. Google's removal of all 7-packs brings desktop the same user experience as mobile users have been getting for some time.

Here is how the local pack appears on mobile.

And the same search on desktop now.

The look and feel is pretty close now for both desktop and mobile searches.

Google has always been very focused on user experience regardless of the product or platform, so it isn't at all surprising to see local as yet another area where Google is changing desktop to match the mobile user experience.

How much traffic was in the bottom of the 7-Pack?

Google doesn't make changes to the way they present search results without a lot of testing—tests that are often noticed by SEOs. Ever since we first saw the 3-packs make their first appearance, many SEO experts were concerned that Google could make a change to show more 3-packs than 7-packs. This is now a reality, and it has huge implications for any local business with more than two other competitors.

Just how much traffic were those sites listed in positions 4-7 getting? For Google to make this change, it is very likely those results weren't clicked on nearly as much the top three. But again, this likely comes down to positioning and screen real estate. In mobile, even if they were showing 7-packs, it is the top three that fill the mobile screen, making those 4-7 spots invisible until someone scrolls down.

This is something that Andrew Shotland from Local SEO Guide agrees with. "I would imagine that Google was seeing far fewer clicks and calls from the listings after the first three," says Shotland. "So they probably figured , 'what's the point of presenting them?' "

But even if businesses weren't getting much traffic from the 4th to 7th spots, it was still a branding opportunity. These websites were getting exposure, particularly on desktop, and they are now missing out on that important branding.

Other changes

Along with the new 3-packs everywhere, Google also made some changes to the 3-packs, and not everyone is happy about these changes.

Addresses

Google removing specific addresses and only showing the street names in a 3-pack does promote people actually clicking through, which can be a good thing for those who aren't in the top three.

Here is how it appears in the pack for both desktop and mobile. Note the street address but no street number.

Even initially clicking through to the additional results or on a listing still shows no address on the left side. It is only once you bring up the panel result on the right that you finally see a full address.

However for those who are looking on mobile, even when they do click through to the "more" option, you still don't see full addresses, and it is still those top three results from the 3-pack that will be displayed at the top of the screen. If a mobile user clicks on an individual listing in a pack, they go to the store's card listing page which looks almost identical to the card on the right of the desktop search.

So yes, there's the potential to get traffic even if you aren't in the top three from those clicking through to get an address, but it will likely be more for desktop searches as opposed to mobile.

Ratings

If you are in a restaurant-related business, your ratings are going to become even more crucial. Google has added an option for searchers to select only businesses that are above a certain rating, currently choosing from two stars and higher, three stars and higher, or four stars and higher.

With searchers faced with the option, it doesn't take much to realize that of course users are going to be selecting the ones with four stars or higher. So while having good ratings has always played an important part in local SEO, for restaurants this should be at the top of the marketing priority list.

Some smaller towns may not see the ratings selector if there are not enough restaurants with ratings available. In an area with plenty of restaurants, though, the ratings drop down (and likely the additional drop downs for cuisine, price, hours and Zagat) will appear.

We also know that Google likes to test small before unleashing it everywhere. So businesses should anticipate that this star rating selection drop-down is going to appear for other local related searches in the 3-pack, even if just on a testing basis.

If your business is in a highly populated area or there are many competing businesses in the market, you should start thinking about those stars now so you're prepared if and when Google expands this rating selection. It would be very unlikely Google would give any advance warning about this kind of change, in order to prevent the possibility of businesses spamming reviews, so working on getting reviews will become a necessity unless you are already fortunate enough to have plenty of 4-star or higher reviews.

Diminishing role of Google+

For now, it will still be important for local businesses to claim their profile pages. We are still seeing links to the Google+ profile page when those businesses come up in the regular organic search results, even if they have been removed from the local 3-pack.

Even in the local 3-pack we are now seeing photos for local businesses shown through the Google Maps display, and not through Google+ as they were in the past. This is a very significant change for Google; while we knew they were moving the photos product from Google+, some thought business photos would migrate to the new Google Photos product rather than Maps.

Here is an example of a local business's photos on Google Maps:

Of course, we also know the Google is changing how baked-in Google+ is with the rest of their services. But for now, businesses should consider it business as usual in terms of claiming their Google+ page and directing reviews to it, as for now, this is where Google is still getting their reviews. "Continue focusing on Google+ reviews as well since those are the only reviews Google is showing in the Local Pack," says Brian Barwig with Integrated Digital Marketing.

New businesses & reviews

Unfortunately, with this new change it has become very difficult for someone to leave a review for a business that currently does not have any reviews listed. In fact, it is next to impossible.

Right now, if someone wants to leave a review, they can just find the local listing, click the reviews link and then choose to leave their own. But for a business that has no reviews, you can't actually get to the page that has the option to leave a review:

There is a workaround if you can manage to find the Google+ page for the business, but in a world where businesses need to make it as easy as possible to leave a review, many won't jump through the hoops required to leave a Google review and will head to leave one on Yelp instead, if they leave one at all.

In fact, for this location of the Walking Company, we couldn't find a Google+ page to leave a review but we did discover the Yelp page for this location on the first page of the search results.

With ratings and reviews playing a role in local SEO, Google's oversight in this area is surprising and it is hopefully being corrected. Any new businesses and those businesses who do not have any current Google reviews will be at a severe disadvantage if this isn't fixed in the very near future.

Coupled this with the fact we see ratings being given a greater emphasis in the local results with the ratings selector, it definitely puts new businesses or those without any reviews at a disadvantage.

New sponsored marketing model

Implications of home service ads

Google is testing the new home service ads, which look very similar to the local packs, but are sponsored results. It is currently testing only in San Francisco and only in two professions: for those looking for plumbers or locksmiths.

Here is the sponsored 3-pack as it appears in the search results:

And you click through to see this page:

However, many local SEOs are worried this program will expand to other cities and professions, making the local pack turn into a "pay for play" situation.

"This is my fear as well," says Barwig. "This new Local Pack looks similar to those ads and it could be Google's intention to simply replace the Local Pack with ads or integrate ads directly into the Pack."

It would be very easy change for Google to make, and for many searchers, a very seamless experience where they likely wouldn't even realize it was a sponsored result, since they do look so familiar to the 3-packs many expect to see for local searches.

"If there are only 3 precious spots," says Linda Buquet, from the Local Search Forum. "It's easier to command a premium."

Google's lead generation

With these home service ads currently handled as per lead basis, it also opens up a new revenue model for Google. But on the opposite side of that, it is yet another way businesses would have to spend in order to get the traffic and business from Google.

I can see a scenario where these ads are the 3-pack," says Shotland. "If that's the case, then Google will have successfully transitioned to the old yellow pages pay-to-play business model, and we Local SEO types will need to spend a bit more time of lead optimization."

What about those penalized by Panda and Penguin?

The sites that will be hit particularly hard with this new change are those that were previously penalized by Google, either with Panda or Penguin. Right now, penalized local sites still show up in the local pack, even if they are impossible to find in the regular organic search. This is because Google will still show local listings for any website in the local pack, even those that are penalized with Panda or Penguin.

But now these sites are looking at a situation where only the top three sites are going to be on the first page of results. Sites that are looking to replace that pack listing with a regular organic listing will not be able to do so if they are penalized. Previously, even if they didn't make the top three, but were somewhere in that top seven, they were assured that their business was still visible on that all-important first page of Google search results. But this new 3-pack change can really hurt a penalized local business if they aren't appearing in that pack.

Google began a Panda refresh in July, and it is expected to last several months. This is good news for local businesses caught up in that filter, if they have made the changes necessary to be clear of Panda. If they start making changes now, they need to wait until the next Panda update to begin ranking again.

But for those who have been impacted by Penguin, it is been almost a year since we've seen the last update to that algorithm, and we still don't have timeline for when the next one will be. Penguin-impacted local sites should make it a priority to get those bad back links removed from their sites before we do see the next update or refresh to Penguin.

What about the new user experience?

Everyone has an opinion now that all the 7-packs have been removed. While some think it is great for user experience, many marketers have huge concerns about how users will interact with them, especially since most things would require a click through to the secondary listing page.

"It's possible users think this new design is such a poor user experience they click on the Map in order to get the full 20 Pack of listings," says Barwig. "Factors such as Click Through Rate, Bounce Rate, Time on Site and Content may be even more important now. If a website is poorly designed and doesn't have much information, a user has 19 other businesses they can compare against. Again, time and analysis will show if those 3 spots are as coveted as we think."

And since these 3-packs were driven by user experience, we will see if this change does indeed become permanent, although many agree it is here to stay unless Google changes up something dramatically for local on mobile first.

Top 3: When you're in & when you're not

Sitting pretty in the top 3?

There are those who have retained a spot in the new 3-pack. But even those who have a coveted spot in the 3-pack still have reason to be concerned. Local SEO is just to get more aggressive now that people are fighting for the top three links instead of just the top seven. Over half of those appearing in the 7-packs are suddenly gone, and everyone will want a shot in the new 3-pack.

There is real danger in being too complacent when it comes to rankings in Google. Just because you have a spot there now does not mean you can stop optimization efforts for local SEO, especially since your competitors will be ramping it up.

Many businesses that were previously happy just to appear somewhere in the top seven and have never done any local SEO up to this point will certainly begin marketing themselves better online. Sometimes those are the ones who suddenly sneak up out of nowhere, once they actually start their local SEO efforts, since they usually have nowhere to go but up.

Linda Buquet also made a great point for those local SEOs who are able to consistently get their clients into those top three spots: "If you are really good and usually get your clients in the top 3, then this update just knocked out 42% of your competition!"

Consolation for those outside the 3

Not all local SEOs are convinced that being outside of the top 3 is as bad as it initially sounds. First of all, we are still gauging the changes in traffic with the new 3-packs, especially for those who were accustomed used to seeing their businesses in the 7-packs.

"Google pushed out a major update and we are evaluating the new landscape to determine next steps," says Barwig. "It's too early to begin losing our minds. Analyze the pack, test ideas and track the results."

We have also seen Google roll back changes before, so while this change seems very permanent, it might not be. But SEOs have also learned never to underestimate how Google might change things suddenly – Google could decide next month that 2-packs or 4-packs are the new normal.

"Google has a history of pushing out updates and either slowly rolling them back or continuing to tweak the update until results finally settle," says Barwig. "There is a good possibility Google will make some additional changes/updates to this Stack Pack and things will shake out again."

Optimizing in a 3-Pack world

Getting into the top 3: Focus on organic

While local SEO has plenty of nuances that are very specific to local, there are also a lot of aspects of regular organic SEO that play a role in local rankings in Google. And it is going to be even more important for local businesses to work on regular SEO too.

With the old blended 7-pack algo, organic ranking pretty much controlled the ranking order," says Buquet. "But now using all the right ‘Local Hooks' is even more important than ever."

"Focus more on good solid organic SEO, both onsite and offsite. That will help boost your rank plus even if you can't make the top three, it will help your organic ranking. Many consultants I work with say top organic beats top local ranking anyway."

Of course, SEO should all be "white hat" Google-approved SEO techniques. While you may see some businesses dominating in your space using "black hat" or spam techniques, for the most part they tend to see short-lived success, and you can always file a spam report for websites spamming Google. But do make sure your own SEO is squeaky clean, since Google could take a look at other competitive sites in the same market or even specific keyword results.

Getting into the top 3: Focus on links

While links have been a significant part of local SEO, some businesses didn't even have to bother much with getting them, simply because their market wasn't competitive enough.But this is certainly changing.

"Good solid backlinks are probably more important as well," says Buquet. "In the past I didn't even need backlinks to rank clients and could do it just based on Places optimization and onsite. But now I'd say certainly in competitive markets backlinks are pretty key."

Don't forget that even nofollowed links serve a purpose, so don't automatically skip a link opportunity simply because it is a nofollow link.They can still send referral traffic, they can serve as a brand reminder and you never know if the linking site will decide to switch to dofollow links in the future.

Getting into the top 3: Focus on citations

Some market areas were just not competitive enough that citations and directories made a significant difference, while for others it was crucial. Be sure all your citations and directories are accurate and complete.

"My initial analysis started to paint a picture that citations were still important," says Barwig. "Make sure your clients are listed on the big directories, are feeding into the data aggregators and that the listings are 100% filled out and correct."

Buquet agrees. "I would also be sure citations are in order."

For those not familiar with the citations they should be considering for their city or state, Moz lists the best local citations for cities in the US as well as by industry.

Citations are particularly important for those local businesses that do not have their own website.When Google can't pull data from an official site, they tend to pull information from other third party sources, which might not always be accurate.

Getting into the top 3: Marketing priorities

Local SEO is more than just link building, reviews, and directories. But many businesses were able to skate by with minimal SEO if they weren't in super-competitive local business areas such as law offices or restaurants. But with those 4-7 spots now gone in desktop, skating by isn't good enough anymore.

Shotland feels that marketing and PR will play a much bigger role for many businesses wanting to complete.

"One piece of advice: I just spoke to an attorney who is spending six figures on PR and they rank #1 in their market for some pretty high-value legal terms," says Shotland. "They have an SEO company to get the basic SEO pieces right and advise the PR program, but they are really invested in marketing. So my one piece of advice is get used to the idea of investing in marketing, not just hiring link builders."

We aren't just talking about the standard press releases, of course. Think beyond that, whether it is outreach to industry experts, local promotions or teaming up with complimentary – but not competitive – businesses in the same neighborhood as your local business. There are always great opportunities to get your name out there, and some will come with a bonus link.

Competitive analysis

For those who are currently residing in the top three positions for the new 3-packs, that doesn't mean it is time for you to sit back and reap the rewards. Those top three spots have become much more competitive than it ever was when there was a 7-pack.

If you are in the top three, you are going to want to be even more aware of every move your competitor makes, especially those you know will make a push for the top three. Monitoring back links will be crucial. Yes, even for those businesses you think are not doing any optimization at all, because sometimes their marketing and links are unsolicited. You can't foresee such things as a new link from the local Chamber of Commerce, a link because they sponsored a charity or even a popular blogger who does a review, complete with a nice juicy back link.

Set up alerts for each of your competitor's business names so that you get notification if they have a news story written up about them, you are aware of it. The same with any press releases, reviews, or anything specific to your particular industry that could be seen as a new promotion opportunity.

But rest assured, if you sit back and do nothing to improve your local SEO someone will be able to knock you out of that top three.

Local SEO in Google is an evolving process and we have seen two major shifts in how Google handles local searches over the past year.Local businesses have to learn how to adapt with the changing times or risk being left behind, and this means catering to local SEO in a 3-pack search result world.

Whether hoping for more Google+ reviews or deciding how to handle traffic when Google has brought their new lead ads to your vertical, local SEO has become much more complicated than it was just over a year ago. But it is those local businesses who are not only capable of evolving on the fly, but are also able to see the larger picture in the entire search results that will dominate the new SERPs. At least until Google decides to turn the industry upside down once again with brand new local SEO changes.

About jenstar — Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland.

https://moz.com/blog/google-local-snack-pack-shakeup?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_content=google_local_snack_pack_shake_up_what_you_need_to_know&utm_campaign=blog_post

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