Digital marketing is a rapidly evolving industry covering traditional search engine marketing, along with content creation and distribution via blogs, articles, and press releases; along with social media, new technologies and website usability. Many traditional marketing or advertising agencies have expanded into the digital space, and hundreds of new website marketing companies have sprung up. There are a number of attributes that define a great digital marketing agency and these include:
Ethics
Aside from the fact that you don’t want to be doing business with a dishonest or untrustworthy company, it is essential with any online marketing that you conform to Google’s guidelines. These are built around fairness, honesty and transparency. In the search engine marketing world honest techniques are known as ‘white-hat’ and dishonest ones are called ‘black-hat’. Often when Google updates its algorithms it is to catch out the cheats using black-hat SEO techniques. If the agency you deal with talks about using tricks, or beating Google, or guaranteeing number one rankings then it is likely they are not using completely ethical techniques and tools.
Flexibility
In order to meet the needs of differing clients, and also keep up with changes in the online environment, its important to be flexible. One size does not fit all, and whilst it can help for a company to offer a standard service, it’s imperative there is flexibility to provide an online marketing plan that reflects the situation, resources and requirements of an individual client.
Results
One of the benefits of online marketing is the transparency and tracking that is available. Compared to traditional media such as print and radio, it is often much easier to monitor and measure results. A professional digital marketing agency should clearly outline what measures are in place and should report on them regularly. Whilst Google says not to promise actual rankings, there are goals that can be set around conversion, brand awareness, social media exposure and more.