How to choose the right digital marketing agency for your business

If you’ve shopped around the services of various digital marketing agencies, chances are you’ve seen a lot of the same claims: growing business, delivering performance, and generating a return on your investment.

No doubt that most if not all of these agencies can deliver on these promises, but then who do you choose? What sets one agency apart from the others? Here’s how to choose a digital marketing agency that’s right for you.

What does a good digital marketing agency do?

What you expect to get from a digital marketing agency arguably depends on what you’ve hired them to do, but generally, you expect to see results!

In the current digital marketing landscape, this will almost certainly involve SEO to boost your rankings in search results. This is the foundation of being visible online and being easy to discover through searches for keywords related to your business.

Any good digital marketing agency will have a working knowledge of SEO and know how to utilise (honest, ethical) tactics to boost your SEO. Of course, jumping straight in is pointless.

That’s why an audit of your current practices is needed, with open communication that addresses what you’re currently doing well, what needs improvement, and how they’re going to improve things for you moving forwards.

By taking the time to understand your business—its niche, its competitors, and its goals—a sound plan can take shape, utilising knowledge of your target audience and the most lucrative keywords to target.

This is the foundation of how to choose a digital marketing agency. Don’t just look at what they do; take note of how and why they do it, and how progress is being measured and quantified.

What should I expect from a digital marketing agency?

In a word, communication. You can’t just sit by and trust that work is being done behind the scenes if you don’t actually understand what’s being done and what it’s in aid of.

SEO, for instance, can take time. It can take Google’s crawlers and algorithms a number of months to fully realise a change in a page’s ranking, and with honest SEO being a long-term game, it can seem like promises of professional SEO aren’t materialising as you hoped.

However, this paints all the more reason that your chosen agency needs to be communicative and give you evidence of what’s being done, what’s working, and how they know that it’s working. If your agency really knows the method behind their actions, they’ll be keeping their fingers on the pulse and using the right metrics.

This doesn’t necessarily mean a daily report of everything they’re doing, but a regular weekly or monthly catch-up is sufficient to show you that your money is making a return. And if something isn’t working as you hoped, you should of course except to be able to have a meeting and iron out any issues with honesty and accountability.

Speaking of which, you actually shouldn’t expect a good digital marketing agency to do everything you want. Why not?

Because, to an agency operating with integrity, doing things right is more important than pandering. You might want to be on page one of Google within a week, but it’s just not going to happen. Eventually, sure—but not overnight. You know what they say about building Rome.

Any agency who will tell you this honestly is one that deserves your consideration. They respect you and your business enough not to make promises they can’t keep, and they want to manage your expectations so that everyone can proceed with the right impressions and mutual respect for the time needed for your joint efforts to flourish.

How do I know a good digital marketing agency when I see one?

One thing’s for sure: don’t put all your stock in reviews. We’ve seen first-hand how you can’t trust online reviews as the only way to judge a business, meaning you need to dig a little deeper.

Any agency that has been recognised for their work will want to shout about it, and their website will be sure to display their accolades, awards, and marketing case studies. Popular recognitions like the Drum Awards and the Global/European/UK Search Awards should demonstrate not only great work, but a desire to prove themselves and constantly improve.

The right choice for Liverpool SEO

Aqueous Digital is a digital marketing agency built on honesty and integrity. Everything we do, we do it in pursuit of giving our customers the very best service and a clear return on investment. We win big, but we play fair.

To find out more about our award-winning services, contact us today