Top 10 Questions to Ask Your Digital Marketing Agency Before Hiring Them

Your website is like the front door of a physical building. It provides the first impression of your business, so it pays to have one that truly and positively represents your brand. When you’re developing your website with the intention to generate more leads, hiring the right professional can make the difference between a website that attracts quality leads and makes sales, and one that just sits on the web without getting any qualified traffic. Here are some questions to ask a web design and digital marketing agency to get information about their expertise and how they operate.

1. Can I Talk to Your Current Clients? Do You Have Reviews?

Read online reviews to get an overall idea of the digital marketing agency’s track record. Ask to talk to previous or current clients to get an honest and unbiased opinion of their experience. When you talk to clients, ask whether their digital marketing agency met their expectations, and how.

2. Do You Take the Time to Learn About My Business and Research My Competitors?

You want to work with an agency that is thorough from the very beginning. A serious SEO web design agency uses a proven process to learn more about your business in order to identify your unique selling proposition. They conduct a detailed analysis of your competitors to find your competitive advantages in your market and position your brand accordingly.

3. What Is Your Design & Development Process?

Your website is perhaps the first interaction a potential customer may have with your brand. Therefore, it needs to communicate your story quickly, but also be engaging. A digital marketing agency should be able to offer a complete design and development process which includes:

• Strategy – Before starting to develop your website, a good digital marketing agency seeks to understand your needs and goals. They identify opportunities that are available to allow you to shine above your competition.
• Keyword Research for SEO – Your site won’t help your business if no one can find it. Ideally, the agency you select will offer SEO services in addition to web design services. These services include keyword research to determine what words, phrases and content will help your website rank in search engines for a given search.
• Design – A web agency is able to translate your brand into a visual story that grabs users’ attention and makes them want to learn more. This story should respond to the expectations of your target market.
• Content Writing – Content is the backbone of every website. A qualified web agency is able to create content that motivates your visitors to take the next step, and more importantly, to keep coming back. Companies sometimes choose to write the content, but this more often than not, extends the development time by months and the quality of the content is not as fine-tuned and engaging as it could be if a professional copywriter is engaged.
• Development – The development phase includes some key steps such as reviews and approvals of design, content, special functionalities, important information and forms for your business, etc. Thorough checks are also performed at each stage of the development process to eliminate as many errors as possible before launch.

It doesn’t stop there!

• Launch and Quality Assurance Testing – Once launched, your website should undergo extensive quality assurance and testing to ensure that the site, links, photos and analytics are working properly.
• Analytics and Reporting – A good web agency is transparent when communicating with you. They provide you with performance reports and perform regular analysis to check the progress of your website and make adjustments if necessary.

Do not hesitate to ask the agency you are considering questions about their design and development process. A vague answer should make you doubt the professionalism and expertise of the agency.

4. Will We Be Able to Edit Our Website?

Many business owners would like their team to have the ability to update and manage their own Websites. The WordPress content management system is one of the best solutions for this.  It can be configured to allow users to edit a site without any coding knowledge.  However, a WordPress site can be coded in many different ways and in some cases, they are not built with the end user in mind.  Don’t be shy to ask the marketing agency for a demo, so that you are assured of the ease of making updates.

A good digital marketing agency believes in developing sites that can be easily managed and edited by their clients without having any coding knowledge. If you want to actively manage your website, ask your agency if they offer training sessions to better help you manage your website.

5. Do You Provide Training & Support?

As mentioned above, if you want to manage your own website, training should be provided to teach you the essentials of your website and inform you of possible features for future marketing initiatives.  If you have any follow-up questions down the road, you should feel at ease to connect with a development partner that is there to support you as your needs evolve.

6. What Documents and Information Do I Need to Provide?

Any web agency will ask a lot of questions to get information about your brand, your mission and your vision, and ask about who your ideal customer is before they start developing your site. They will ask you to provide visuals that will help them illustrate who you are, what you have to offer, your expertise and capabilities, etc. In the absence of recent material, they may suggest a photo shoot to capture the essence of your business.

The most important asset the agency will need, however, is website content.  You will need to decide whether this content can be produced internally by your team or whether a writer should be involved. Using content writers is highly recommended, as they are content creation professionals and will get the job done in a fraction of the time, allowing the website to go live faster and attract more potential customers now rather than in six months. Check with your web design agency to see if they offer the service of content copywriting.

7. What Is Your SEO Process?

As an established SEO agency in Montreal, we know the value of conducting in-depth research at the outset of a mandate. It is essential to perform competitor analysis and check keyword volume and competition to identify the best keywords to target.  The chosen agency should be able to perform all of the above and work with you to evaluate the potential of the selected keywords to generate quality leads through your website.

Thereafter, the website is optimized. This involves keyword slotting, content and meta-content optimization, internal linking, speed optimization, as well as many other more technical elements to ensure that the site is easy to crawl and index by Google. SEO is a strategy that will yield a big ROI in the long term. Analytics should be set up to follow the progress of the SEO keyword rankings, traffic and conversions and it is recommended that content marketing be part of a successful SEO strategy.

So go ahead, ask them what their SEO process is and ask for specific details.

8. Do You Provide Hosting, Support and Maintenance?

If you have a WordPress Website, it is important to maintain your website on an ongoing basis, for security and technology purposes.  This includes the core WordPress version, the theme and plugins. A digital agency should offer maintenance and support services for a small annual fee.

If you are focused on SEO, the loading speed is crucial for better Google rankings and low-cost hosting services are generally not sufficient.  It is essential to find a reputable hosting provider that is suitable for WordPress, one that offers the security, backups, reliability and speed required for WP. Some agencies can offer you this service or advise you on the best hosting provider for you.

9. Do You Offer Content Marketing Services?

Good quality content is essential to best communicate your marketing message but even more so if you are going to invest in SEO services. Finding an experienced writer who can convey your message that is fully optimized for search engines but also writes for the human audience, can be a challenge. Your content needs to be engaging and direct customers through your sales funnel to meet your goals. A wide variety of content, from blog articles to case studies, E-books to social media posts is often needed as part of your strategy.

A strong content marketing plan relies on professional copywriters who understand how to write for real people and how to represent your brand in a story while optimizing the content based on your keyword strategy. SEO agencies such as WSI Montreal often have a team of writers available to write content that appeals to search engines and attracts and engages your audience.

10. What Is the Timeline from Start to Finish?

While you want your website up and running quickly, it is important to realize that developing a functional, feature-rich, aesthetically pleasing website typically ranges from twelve weeks to several months. An agency that promises you a short timeline may not give you a comprehensive site that conveys a strong brand image and can grow to meet your changing business needs. They may not spend enough time in strategy planning, design, development, QA and testing to ensure it meets your goals. Don’t sacrifice quality for speed!

In Conclusion

As you can see, choosing the right digital marketing agency to create your company’s website requires more thought and research than simply finding the best price. If your goals are to increase your web presence and generate more leads, it’s even more important to do your homework and ask the right questions. From competitive analysis to quality assurance to SEO, there are many elements that contribute to a successful website. Not considering some of these aspects from the start could prove to be more costly in the long run.

Solve Your Digital Marketing Challenges with Proven Solutions

At WSI Montreal, we offer a complete suite of digital marketing services. Whether you need help with website design, search engine optimization, paid marketing, local SEO or social media marketing, our team uses data-driven insights to create and implement a strategy that achieves your business objectives and delivers strong ROI.

Call WSI Digital Marketing in Montreal at 514-693-9339 or contact us online. Our qualified and experienced team is excited to design digital marketing strategies and solutions that help your business grow profitably.