• 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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Frustrated with Inconsistent Website Traffic? Try Blogging

The most frequent comment I receive from fellow bloggers is “Ugh! My numbers are dropping again!” It’s great to see so many people begin to take steps to understand and track their analytics with Google’s free tools, but I find that similar to stock market numbers, paying too much attention to your analytics isn’t always helpful.

It also doesn’t help decrease frustration levels when the rules for social media, blogging, and SEO best practices frequently shift depending on who you listen to or where you find information.

Although I’m not going to suggest you ignore analytics altogether, I do think you will find that consistently posting excellent blog content to your website is one of the best things you can do to best maintain (or increase!) your website traffic and reduce your analytics frustrations. The great thing is that whether your goal is to increase website traffic to sell a product or to have more people reading your website content, consistent blogging will help.

Excellent Content

Before we go any further, let’s explore what excellent blog content includes. We’ve said it before, but it’s so important I’ll repeat myself here. If driving readers to your website is a priority for you, the days of typing out a few thoughts and posting them on a blog are gone.

Every Blog Post Needs to Include:

  • Content that is relevant to your website niche (this goes for either a business or author’s blog)
  • Keywords
  • Inbound and outbound links
  • An optimized image
  • A great title
  • Grammatically correct sentences that are also free of spelling errors
  •  A minimum of 500 words
  •  Meta description
  •  Proper references to quotes and statistical data
  •  Bonus: Relevant H2 and H3 headers and/or bulleted lists when possible

The ability to search for information before purchasing deeply influences today’s buyer. Even brick and mortar stores benefit from having an active website.

Here are a few stats to consider:

  •  72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles. (WordStream, 2016) (Source)
  •  47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. (Source)
  •  96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders. 

Consumers are looking to read more than one article on a subject before purchasing. B2B buyers value content from industry leaders. Excellent content is important to help you not only be found by search but to help you develop a reputation as a trustworthy source.

Why Blogging Helps Your Website Traffic

Every time you add a blog article to your website you increase the opportunities search engine bots have to connect your content with a search query. More than that, Google has made it clear that they prioritize new content. “When crawlers find a webpage, our systems render the content of the page, just as a browser does. We take note of key signals ‚Äî from keywords to website freshness ‚Äî and we keep track of it all in the Search index.“(source)

While most of your website content will not change once you publish it, your blog content continues to add pages to your website with new information. Publishing fresh content on a regular basis tells Google your website is active and increases the number of pages for bots to scan.

Read more about how search engines work here:  Why Site Owners Should Know How SEO Works

Frequency Matters

While there is not an exact rule as to how often you publish new content, a Hubspot study found a direct correlation between publishing frequency and website traffic. “Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5x more traffic than companies that published between 0 – 4 monthly posts.”

Consider these Stats:

  • Companies with 1 – 10 employees that publish 11 or more blog posts per month drive much higher traffic than companies of the same size that publish fewer than 11 blog posts.  (source)
  • Like the companies with 1 – 10 employees, companies with 11 – 25 employees saw the largest jump in traffic numbers when they published more than 11 blog posts per month.
  • Companies with 26 – 200 employees that published 11+ blog posts per month had a little less than 2X more traffic than those publishing 0 – 1 posts per month.
  • B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0 – 1 times per month.
  • B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4X as many leads than those that blog only 4-5 times per month.

As you can see, both company size and the type of company matter when determining the frequency of publication. While your goal may be to drive as much traffic as possible, it’s better to publish fewer excellent blog posts than to just put something out there to meet a number. Producing excellent content cannot be compromised.

Getting Started

Now that you know the details to include in every blog post, and you have an idea of how many posts to publish, it’s time to get writing. This process may feel overwhelming, but if you are starting from scratch, the good news is you can pretty much start anywhere and build from there.

Brainstorm a list of the most common questions you answer for your customers. Even if your competition has already published a blog article explaining the answers, your customers still haven’t heard the information in your voice.

Staying organized is going to be the key to success in this endeavor, but you cannot ignore the importance of creating a strategy. We’ve created helpful content to get you started. Our SEO Keyword Research Template will help you prioritize and focus your content ideas.

Remember, your goal is the have a steadier traffic flow to your website. So, while adding content is the first step, you will also need to promote the content across other communication channels such as your marketing emails and social media channels. Check out our Content Calendar Template for an organizational structure for planning out when posts will publish as well as when and how you can repurpose blog posts for promotion.

We know how important digital marketing is for companies which is why we are in the business of helping businesses. We would love to help you get started with blogging. Whether you need content, SEO support or both our team is available to help you increase your website traffic. Send us a note to learn more about how we can work together to help you meet your goals.

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