• 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.

  • Contact

Think Mobile First When Designing Your Website

Bridget O'Connor

January 16, 2020

Mobile-friendly website design should be a top priority in 2020 to ensure that your visitors have the same user experience across the board from a smartphone, desktop, or tablet. There’s nothing worse than viewing a poorly rendered website on a mobile device and struggling to read overlapping text with cluttered images that run off the page.

In 2015, 31% of people viewed websites on their mobile devices. As of December 3, 2019, records indicate that it’s as high as 51%. With a little over half of the web traffic worldwide using mobile devices, mobile design is no longer an afterthought.

Aside from potentially poor aesthetics in mobile view, it’s now imperative to have a mobile-friendly website in order to rank in Google. As of July 1, 2019, Google announced that “all new websites previously unknown to Google Search” will be indexed using mobile-first indexing. In other words, Google now crawls and indexes your website based on how it renders on a mobile phone versus a desktop computer.

What Does This Mean for My Existing Website?

For older websites, Google will continue to monitor and evaluate pages for their mobile readiness (as in mobile-friendliness) and will move these sites to mobile-first indexing. Readiness is based on Google’s best practices for mobile-first indexing. You can read a detailed definition of Google’s best practices for mobile-first indexing on their developer site. I suggest you keep this link bookmarked because they have a Changelog of announcements on this page.

It’s important to know if your site is mobile-responsive. A quick way to check is by using Google’s mobile-friendly test tool where you type in your website URL to see if there are pages that need fixing and what issues are detected.

Test While You Build

Whether you are building or redesigning a website, you need to test for mobile responsiveness. Besides the obvious way of testing which is to type your URL into a smartphone and review every page, there are several other ways to do so as well.

It’s a good habit to check each page and fix as you build rather than at the end which can make for more work and needless troubleshooting.

How Can I Test My Site?

Here are 4 ways you can switch your website from desktop to mobile device view:

1. In this first example, you can do so while in the Chrome browser. This function works similarly in other browsers.

Open your website and select anywhere on your page and right-click. You will see a list of options appear. Select the bottom option, ‚ÄòInspect’.

Step 1: Click on the multi-device icon as seen below. This will reduce the size of your website.

Step 2. Select from the ‚ÄòResponsive’ drop down options to see how your website fares in a number of mobile device views.

test website for mobile responsiveness

2. If you’re designing a WordPress site and using a page builder like Beaver Builder, you can select the module you’re working on and choose the mobile view from the Advanced tab to see how the site looks.  

3. WordPress has its own built-in mobile device preview option via Customize which is located in the admin panel. This comes in handy when you want to take a quick view of your mobile design.

4. Free tools such as responsivedesignchecker will show how your site looks in different device options.

Often times when you see discrepancies between your desktop and mobile design, it may require further development and additional code. When you encounter these differences you will find investing in a knowledgeable web developer who can correctly align the site for mobile responsiveness is worth every penny.

Remember, Google is watching! It’s important to keep up with the ever-changing and evolving trends in order to rank high and get found in searches. Following Google’s best practices for mobile devices and using one or all of these simple, easy-to-use tools will save lots of time and avoid potential issues before you launch your site.

If you are looking for help with your website or would like to do a redesign, download this free ebook, The Ultimate Website Redesign Project Plan, and get started today!

New Call-to-action
Bridget O'Connor

As our Website Operations Manager, Bridget is responsible for the project management and website builds/rebuilds. She has been working exclusively in the website design and development space for over 5 years, always learning the latest technologies to better serve clients. Her biggest passion and joy is working in WordPress.

Search by Topic

  • All Resources
  • SEO
  • Digital Advertising
  • Content Marketing
  • Web Development

Get Up-To-Date Digital Marketing Tips Delivered Straight to Your Inbox!

SMA Marketing Digital Marketing Agency Giving Back to Kiva Making Loans