Alyssa Ast

 Google Updates Local Pack to Show Fewer Results  Last week, you may have noticed a slight difference to local results displayed on Google's Local Pack-- 3 results instead of 7. Google updated the search results displayed in the query to show fewer local business listings to allow for a more mobile-friendly experience. This redesign allows the results to fit better when searching from mobile devices. "We are constantly exploring the best way to bring a better search experience to our users," said a Google spokesperson about the update. "This update provides people with more relevant information, including photos, reviews, and prices, for searched that have multiple results for  given location." What's the update mean for you? With the reduction in queries displayed, local businesses now face a bigger challenge to ensure they rank in the top three, instead of the top seven. The Local Pack update will lead to reduced visibility, which will impa

Small businesses with limited marketing budgets often ask me what's the best marketing avenue to take: search engine optimization or social media marketing? Due to their small budget, they feel they can only invest in one of the two options. Unfortunately, it's not an either or question. SEO and SMM go hand-in-hand. If you want to see real results, you need to invest in both-- not just one or the other. Small Business Marketing Many small businesses only choose SEO because they want a good ranking with high traffic to their site. So they spend time optimizing their site and develop a strong keyword strategy to support their blogging and content marketing. But, then they need a distribution outlet for their content marketing or they aren't going to see large results. The most popular and effective form of content distribution is social media, which is why you must invest in both. If you just stop at SEO, you're cutting your potential success in half. On the other