Businessman on blurred background using digital payment interface 3D rendering
These days, it is not hard to find agencies more than happy to offer questionable digital marketing services. You can also find agencies whose lists of services are so long as to be overwhelming. Here is the big question in both cases: are there some digital marketing services not worth paying for?
The answer is a qualified ‘yes’. It’s qualified because there are some services customers absolutely should not pay for under any circumstances. There are other services that are only worthwhile under certain conditions.
Below are some of the services (and service categories) that definitely warrant caution. If you are thinking about paying for digital marketing services for your company, do not just jump into the pool blindly. Make an effort to do some research. Take the time to vet service providers before you sign on the dotted line.
Questionable SEO Services
At the top of my list is the category of questionable SEO services. Some services in this category are questionable because they are either outdated or offer limited results. Others are more than questionable; they are considered black hat practices that should be avoided at all costs.
Content spinning is thought of as a questionable practice because it is terribly outdated. It was effective years ago, but content spinning was pretty much put out to pasture with Google’s Panda update. There is no point in paying for it now. It will not help.
Meanwhile, an example of a black hat practice that every organization should avoid is paying for backlinks through a link building exchange. Google and its competitors have gone to great lengths to stop the practice of buying links. They actively punish any websites tied to paid link building schemes.
Cheap Website Design
Another of the digital marketing services not worth paying for is cheap website design. By this I mean a service for which you pay a few hundred dollars in exchange for a WordPress or Drupal website built from a template. Content management systems like WordPress are so simple to use that you are better off building your own site – if a basic, no-frills site is what you’re really after.
If you want to go above and beyond what content management systems offer, it is worth paying for professional website development. Salt Lake City-based Webtek Digital Marketing could provide that service. They say their customers are more interested in long-term web development than simple sites built in WordPress.
This isn’t to say that WordPress and other content management systems aren’t capable of supporting full-fledged web development. They are. But to utilize them for that purpose, you still need a significant amount of coding skill. Without that skill, you need to pay for it or settle for something simple.
PPC Services
PPC services fall under that group of digital marketing services that may not be worth paying for depending on your circumstances. In other words, PPC works extremely well for some types of businesses but not for others.
Also known as pay-per-click, PPC advertising comes in many forms. You can advertise on search engines, social media platforms, and video streaming platforms. You can also advertise in mobile apps and streaming audio platforms. But if your target audience isn’t found on those venues, investing advertising dollars in PPC ads doesn’t make a lot of sense.
It is not hard to find a list of digital marketing services as long as your arm. Some of those services are definitely worth paying for. Others, not so much. Before you spend a dime on digital marketing, do yourself a favor and study up. You will be glad you did.
