People ask us all the time: how do I go about finding the right digital marketing firm for my business? It’s a great question as there seem to be more and more companies springing up all the time advertising themselves as the best digital marketing agency.

While my opinion is obviously biased, it doesn’t mean I cannot provide you will some “expertise” on what will help your business and therefore what you should be looking for in a good digital marketing firm.

You may be asking yourself “if I already have a great website, why on earth would I need marketing firm to be great at web design / web development?” The answer to the question is simple: the development work on your site NEVER ends and contributes to one of the toughest aspects of digital marketing: conversion. You can drive all of the qualified traffic in the world to your site but if the site itself is not conducive to enticing them to take the next step (contact your business, provide contact information so you may contact them or to simply visit your place of business), you wasted a lot of time and money.

Here is a little secret: web design / web development is where most digital marketing / SEO companies struggle and get bogged down which wastes your money and can cause costly delays in the implementation to the changes necessary to convert your traffic. Thus, make sure you get detailed information on a firms experience in conversion optimization and what web development / web design projects / work they have done in the past.

Ok Great! On to Local SEO…..

Local SEO services is the SEO work any good SEO agency must complete to promote your business to the people who are searching for it in that locality. For example, we began in Portland, Oregon. This means we have local clients that require us to perform SEO in Albany, Oregon and SEO in Eugene, Oregon and SEO in Salem, Oregon separately.

Local searches can be triggered by two types of indicators:

1. Geographical Indicators. such as specific city, state, zip code, etc., which causes Google to search for results pertaining to that specific geographical area; and

2. ‘Near Me’ Indicator. Google picks up the geo-location of the person and provides search results from that area.

Therefore, local SEO services for local places can differ. Take for example the cities of 1) Albany, Oregon 2) Eugene, Oregon and 3) Salem, Oregon require different work. To perform SEO in Albany, Oregon is slightly different than performing SEO in Eugene, Oregon which is slightly different than performing SEO in Salem, Oregon. Despite their geographical proximity each involves slightly different optimization efforts. You as the business owner must decide whether you want Google to recognize you as an option when Albany, Oregon vs. Eugene, Oregon vs Salem, Oregon is indicated either via ‘near me’ or another geographical indicator so that your business shows up at the top of the SERPs.

Any SEO agency providing industry leading local SEO services to cities such as Salem, Oregon or Eugene, Oregon will optimize content, on-page (think H1 tags, meta descriptions, etc), and off-page activities with a localized intent towards Salem, Oregon or Eugene, Oregon.

A citation is any place your business’ basic information (Name, Address, Phone number, Website URL) appears together online: think online directories and business listing websites.