• 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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Don’t Let SEO Poisoning Kill Your Search Rankings

    Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is one of the most important keys to running a successful business online. Having your website at the top of Google’s search results is indispensable for your business. 91.5% of Google traffic is concentrated on the first page of results. Shockingly, less than 10% of people proceed to page 2. With the task of trying to beat all your other competitors to the first page, there is no time for any slip-ups. A serious threat exists that can threaten your search engine rankings and everything you’ve worked so hard for. This threat is SEO poisoning.

    What is SEO Poisoning?

    SEO poisoning is when hackers infect your site with malicious code and use aggressive SEO tactics to redirect your visitors to their own sites to increase their revenue as well as infect these visitors with malware. The black hat tactics that they use to swindle their way to the top of the search engines include keyword stuffing, doorway pages, and invisible text.

    • Keyword stuffing is often done by inserting repeating keywords in the input type=”hidden” meta tag or in the keyword tag. This ensures that the keywords are hidden from the user’s view but are still scanned by search engines.
    • A doorway page is a page that is designed to contain keywords that a search engine’s bots will pick up on in order to be placed higher on the search engine rankings.
    • Invisible text is the method of hiding keywords in the body of a web page by changing their color to match that of the background of the page. The more keywords a hacker injects into an infected site, the higher the site rises in the search engine rankings.

    While these tactics are considered poor netiquette, hackers don’t care as long as their search engine rankings increase. They are aiming these tactics at search engines rather than a human audience, after all.

    Who’s at Risk?

    To determine what sites to target, hackers often look at what searches and topics are trending. They make sure to get their poisoned sites at the top of the search results in time for holidays like Halloween and Christmas when people are doing a lot of shopping online. For example, you may think you’re clicking on a site that sells Halloween costumes but you are actually clicking on a compromised site with nothing to offer but the danger of being infected with malware. According to data from GFI Labs, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are among the most targeted holidays for malicious scams.

    Another big target for hackers is sites that use the same CMS, like WordPress, Joomla!, or Drupal. This means that the hackers are probably exploiting vulnerabilities found in the CMS to infect the sites. Business owners are at a big risk for SEO poisoning because, for hackers, using a legitimate site with a good reputation makes it harder for search engines to identify and remove the hacked site.

    When a visitor clicks on a compromised site, scripts determine if the user is a search crawler bot or a real person. Search bots and real people are sent in two different directions. While users are being redirected, it may look like the page is loading but the site is actually looking for vulnerabilities where they can infect the user with a virus. The poisoned site may advertise for things like fake anti-virus malware or medications like Viagra and Cialis.

    How Does SEO Poisoning Affect Your Search Rankings?

    SEO poisoning can be devastating for your business. People won’t want to return to your site after experiencing redirects and other suspicious occurrences. Not only will visitors be wary of your site, but search engines will be suspicious too. Knowing the indicators of SEO poisoning can help you to identify a problem as soon as it arises so that you can minimize the damage that is done to your business and reputation. You may notice that your search engine rankings have dropped, especially for keywords that usually perform well.

    Sometimes the only unusual thing you notice may be a warning from Google telling you that your site has been compromised. The malicious code that hackers install on your site will show visitors a different version of your site than the version that it shows the search engines. This makes the search engines suspicious and they will start to penalize you by lowering your rankings or worse, banning your site altogether.

    Has Your Site Been Poisoned?

    To figure out if your site has fallen prey to SEO poisoning, you can use Google’s handy Fetch as Google tool. This tool will show you your site as it would look to a Googlebot user agent. It triggers the scripts that a hacker may have installed to present a different version of your site to Google. If your site looks different, you may be infected.

    To repair your site, you can follow Google’s infection recovery guide or learn how to fix a hacked WordPress site here. When repairing your site, pay special attention to the header.php file. This file is often modified by hackers to include scripts to redirect search bots and users in different directions. Also, check the footer and index files as these are often targeted by hackers as well. If you aren’t confident in your website repair abilities it is always better to hire a professional rather than risk causing any more damage to your site by trying to fix it yourself.

    Stay on Guard

    After the hack is dealt with, it’s important to make sure you aren’t slacking when it comes to your site’s security. There’s always a chance that your site may be hacked again. Remember to keep your CMS as well as your plugins and themes updated. It’s also important to install a firewall if you don’t have one already. SEO poisoning can be a huge setback, affecting your business and reputation. You want to make sure that you do everything you can to make sure this doesn’t happen again so you can focus on what you do best, running your business.

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