• FAQs

          Search engine optimization (SEO) helps businesses drive visits to their website through organic search traffic. Given that the top organic search results receive a third of the clicks, a decline in ranking could be detrimental for your business. Implementing SEO best practices on your website will help to ensure that your web content is seen by as many potential customers as possible. The more visitors you have, the better your chances are of converting those visits into sales!

          Local search engine optimization (SEO) helps local businesses gain visibility by optimizing their local business listings for local search. A business that leverages local SEO will include its address, phone number, local opening times, and exact location in the form of a local citation. The goal is to rank for local searches which are usually performed by people in a specific geographical region looking for a business near them.

          We typically see results within the first 30 to 60 days, but when it comes to SEO, there are many factors at play. It's important to remember that SEO is a long-term strategy and results may not come as fast at you wish.


        • FAQs

          Digital advertising uses the internet to send advertisements to customers who are online through different websites and social media platforms like Google, Bing, LinkedIn and Facebook.

          The price for Google Ads management depends on the monthly ad spend. For accounts with $1,000 in monthly ad spend, the price is $550/month. Between $1,000 and $5,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $950/month. For $5,000 to $10,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $2,000/month. For more than $10,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $4,500/month.

          The price for Social Media Ads management depends on the monthly ad spend. For accounts with $1,000 in monthly ad spend, the price is $550/month. Between $1,000 and $5,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $950/month. For $5,000 to $10,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $2,000/month. For more than $10,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $4,500/month.


        • FAQs

          This depends on the complexity and size of a redesign and if eCommerce is needed. On average, it takes around 14-18 weeks from the web design intensive stage to launch.

          If your website experiences the following issues: it’s not responsive on all devices, has a slow loading speed, the design appears old and tired, users don’t spend long on the site, sales are stagnant, or your business is going through a rebranding - your website needs a redesign to boost your brand awareness and sales.

          Sometimes there’s no need to rebuild a website. Minor edits, refreshing page content and images, or restructuring page layout for SEO best practices can boost traffic and sales.


        • FAQs

          Semantic search launched in 2013 with the release of Google's Hummingbird update. Since then, Google's search engine has become more complex. The integration of machine learning, with RankBrain, and NLP, with BERT, has enabled the search engine to better understand the context of a query and deliver more personalized and targeted results. Semantic SEO is the process of creating machine-readable content using structured data and linked open data to help search engines better understand your content.

          On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page SEO refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links and other external signals. From meta tags to page content, website structure, and HTML, on-page optimization services are focused on making your website more visible to search engines.

          Structured data refers to any organized data that conforms to a certain format, such as information in a relational database. When information is highly structured and predictable, search engines can more easily organize and display it in creative ways. Structured data involves using a piece of code that is laid out in a specific format easily understood by search engines. The search engines read the code and use it to display search results in a more dynamic way.


        • FAQs

          An SEO agency has experts in different areas of search engine optimization that may be out of the realm of your marketing team's abilities. SEO can be very complex and time-consuming. Furthermore, as search engine algorithms change it can be difficult to stay current on the latest ranking factors and strategies for improving online visibility. You will likely see a greater return on investment and better results from using a professional SEO agency than you would from tackling this on your own.

          As a digital marketing agency, SMA Marketing provides products and services in four areas: SEO, Local SEO, Digital Advertising, and Web Design

          We focus on building authentic, long-lasting relationships with our clients. We’re goal oriented and results driven and believe in doing good and making a difference in the world.

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How to Balance Empathy and Data to Make Better Decisions

Data is everywhere. We can track just about anything; website visits, click-though-rates, user behavior, shopping cart abandonment, the list goes on. Nearly every click, transaction, and engagement is being tracked and analyzed by someone or some machine. With all of this data available to use, why do so many businesses and marketing campaigns struggle to have success? While data can give us a good picture of what’s going on, it can’t replace the most important tool we all have access too, empathy.

Our culture is driven by data. We’ve been trained to trust the numbers no matter what. But what if the numbers are wrong? Or what if they are only telling part of the story? Don’t get me wrong, I am a big believer in data. We track and test everything we do here. But I am not so naive as to believe that the numbers won’t lead me astray. Underneath the data and the analytics are real people; people who make decisions driven more by emotion and feeling rather than data. If we are going to create companies that thrive or campaigns that produce lasting results, we must learn to balance empathy and data.

Trust the Numbers… to a Point

Having access to good analytics can be extremely valuable. It can help you see what is working and what is not. Today’s average business owner has access to more data than ever before. The best part, most of it is completely free. By simply adding some script to the header of a site, Google Analytics will provide in-depth insights into how users use and engage with that particular site. They will even give insights into who those users are. Using this information, a site owner can track and adjust its marketing strategy to better fit their users’ needs.

But what happens when the numbers don’t tell the full story? There are many examples I can point to where the data suggested one direction but really produced a very different result. We’ve seen these data errors in politics, investing, and marketing. One of the most famous stories is the turnaround of IBM. When Lou Gerstner was brought on as CEO, IBM was in a death spiral. Experts said the company was too big, going in too many directions and the only way to save it was to break it up. Despite what the numbers and the experts said, Mr. Gerstner chose to go with his gut.

“We needed to integrate as a team inside the company so that we could integrate for the customers on their premises. It flew in the face of what everybody did in their careers before I arrived there. It meant that we would share technical plans, we would move toward common technical standards and plans, we would not have individual transfer pricing between every product so that everybody could get their little piece of the customers’ money,” Gerstner said.

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

Instead of putting all of the weight on the numbers, Mr. Gerstner chose to trust people. He empathized with IBM’s customers and in return, he transformed a company. The reason he knew IBM needed to stay together was simple. He was a customer before he was CEO. He had experienced the same pain points as other business leaders and he knew that IBM was the only company on the planet that could integrate all of the information technology needs.

Empathy alone is not enough. You must take what you learn from connecting with your audience and put it into action. Mr. Gerstner used what he knew and what he experienced to shift the culture and change the course of IBM forever. From 1993 to Gerstner’s retirement in 2002 IBM’s market capitalization rose from $29 billion to $168 billion.

Finding a Balance

Data is powerful. But when fused with empathy it becomes game changing. Smart businesses are learning to combine data with empathy to create solutions that speak to the heart of their users. Maya Angelou is famous for saying, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” The numbers can tell us a lot. They can give us the details into what is working and what is not. But numbers can never replace reality. Business owners and marketers will be able to apply the data more specifically and successfully by empathizing with their audience.

Trust the data. Trust your gut.

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