There are many advertising agencies out there. Some are industry specific agencies, such as an automotive ad agency, or a retail advertising agency. Others are agencies that work in any industry. Depending on your preferences, you can go with either one. But finding a full service ad agency with good online marketing consultants should be a little bit of a process. It is a lot like shopping for a car. You definitely don’t buy the first car that you see. You shop around, look for the best deal, the best prices, and the best product. Well, you should go through that same process for hiring the best ad agency as well.
First of all, you should find out whether the advertising agency actually does search engine optimization, or if they just claim to do so but do something else in reality. I know that some New Jersey marketing companies claim to perform SEO services, but instead they just buy the sponsored links at the top of the search results page. Anyone can do that, you don’t need an SEO consultation firm to do that for you. The whole point of SEO is improving organic search results, that is to say, all the search results that come underneath the sponsored links. Improving organic search results has nothing to do with buying sponsored links from Google or Yahoo.
Secondly, you’ll want to find out if the full service ad agency only offers SEO services, or if they also offer all other types of internet marketing services. The other types of online marketing are SEM – search engine marketing (that’s where the buying of sponsored links comes in), email advertising, website design, website development, and pay-per-click (PPC, sometimes referred to as CPC, or cost-per-click)
Your website will probably be the most important and powerful marketing tool that you’ll have, so make sure that your advertising agency is on the same page as you when it comes to long term success. And as when dealing with any salesperson, pay attention to how your questions are being answered (are they actually answering your questions or just beating around the bush), ask for references, and most of all, trust your gut (human intuition exists for a reason).
