Signs You May Need a New Digital Agency
They say in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. Often this is the case when it comes to choosing your digital marketing partner. There are a lot of one eyed agencies that know just enough to hurt your wallet and your business. They are tarnishing the industry and taking advantage of small business owners.
Here are five signs that you may need to look for a new digital marketing agency.
1. They Don’t Explain Their Process
A digital agency that doesn’t explain its process is suspect. In fact, any business partner that does not explain their process is suspect. They could be engaging in black hat techniques, trying to fool Google or generating fake clicks to your site.
Remember what Einstein said – “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Google tech-speak is often the default tool for the misinformed. Get your agency to tell you exactly what they’re doing. If they can’t do it, be skeptical. Our goal at eMaximize is to be as clear and upfront so that our partnership will be successful.
2. They Are Concerned About Their Own Metrics
If your SEO agency is constantly showing you linking and ranking reports and the obscure metrics that do not directly correlate to success, they may not understand your needs. Your digital agency is supposed to increase revenue and generate new customers with your marketing budget, period.
A good digital marketing agency will have a firm understanding of your website traffic; how much is coming from mobile, new visitors vs. returning and your most popular content. They should also ask you about call volume, sales & new customer growth. This is why you hired them. If they constantly bury you in reports of links, tags & rankings then you should be concerned.
Say you own a hotel and your agency says that you rank in the first position for “Hotel Westchester”. Wow that’s great you are thinking. What they are not sharing with you is that you are on page five for “Hotel Near LAX” , which is searched 4000 times more than the Westchester keyword.
3. They Don’t Understand Google Changes
The best digital marketers completely understand Google Algorithm changes. If your agency doesn’t know how many times the Google Algorithm is updated per year or what RankBrain is, then they are not staying current.
The reason why so many SEO companies have disappeared is because they failed to adapt to algorithm changes. If your agency is still stuffing keywords into meta tags, please tell them all search engines dropped keywords from their algorithms about eight years ago. SEO is now a function of what you do off your page as much as it is on your page.
4. They Provide No Strategic Consultation
A good digital agency will meet with you at least every 2 months to discuss any changes to your business. They will want to understand call volume, new customers, new products, procedures or events.
Digital marketing strategies include content marketing, social media marketing and branding. Your agency needs to understand your voice, your customers and your customer acquisition process. They should be concerned with the ROI on your ad spend and conversions. They should also be leveraging experiences from their other clients on ad campaigns, geo targeting or anything.
5. They’re A One-Trick Pony
Your agency should be able to provide more for you than just SEO or PPC or Social Media. A good digital marketing agency should be able to do all three, plus graphic design, email marketing & website development. They are all critical in supporting a quality digital marketing strategy. The more you have to find these resources on your own, the less valuable your agency is. You should be able to call your agency with an marketing idea and have them run with it. One touch point is beneficial to most business owners. In an age where digital marketing is critical to almost all businesses, you need an agency that has a wide set of skills and knowledge, because your competitors do.
Conclusions
Digital Marketing is not rocket science. It does however take a strong understanding of the Internet and the tools to create and promote websites, all of which are changing at a rapid pace. When you do find a good agency, stick with them. Treat them like a business partner. They can free up a lot of time for you, increase revenues and expand your business; and you don’t have to pay for their healthcare. ?
If you are still looking for a quality digital marketing partner that meets your budget, by all means drop us a line at info@emaximize.com.
Thank You For Reading
