In 2013, Econsultancy ranked the top 100 digital agencies, based on income. We compared these rankings to Google’s own ranking of the top digital agencies for UK searchers. The degree of overlap was shocking, to say the least.
Only 3 of the top 100 earning agencies were considered worthy of being ranked in the top 20 (first two pages) on Google’s search results for the term “digital marketing agency”.
To give Google its due, we decided to check further, and broadened our search to cover more search terms that fall under the umbrella of digital marketing. These were the results:
| Search Query | Number of Real Top 100 UK Digital Agencies that Rank in Google’s Top 20 |
|---|---|
| digital marketing agency | 3 |
| seo agency | 1 |
| search engine marketing agency | 5 |
| online advertising agency | 3 |
| social media agency | 2 |
The search term that fared the best was “search engine marketing agency”, with 5 out of the top 20 sites listed actually ranking in the real world top 100.
So why is there such a vast difference between the real world and Google’s search results, especially in the field of digital marketing?
While it’s nice of Google to try and level the playing field for smaller agencies, is this necessarily what is happening here? Or are we just seeing yet another case of a bunch of people gaming the algorithm to come out on top?
One could make the argument that income isn’t a good indicator of the best agencies. But then should it really be so drastically ignored?
The full list of top 100 digital agencies, as ranked by Econsultancy, along with their presence on Google’s organic search rankings is shown below:
| Google Position for Keywords* | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Agency | Income | Digital | SEO | SEM | Advertising | SMM |
| 1 | SapientNitro | 132,118,020 | |||||
| 2 | LBi | 58,000,000 | |||||
| 3 | AKQA | 48,705,732 | |||||
| 4 | Engine | 40,167,660 | |||||
| 5 | BAE Systems Detica | 34,979,784 | |||||
| 6 | Salmon | 32,716,000 | |||||
| 7 | Deloitte Digital | 27,000,000 | |||||
| 8 | iProspect | 25,400,000 | |||||
| 9 | RAPP | 23,607,052 | |||||
| 10 | Wunderman Network UK | 23,000,000 | |||||
| 11 | M&C Saatchi | 22,900,000 | |||||
| 12 | iris Worldwide | 22,200,000 | |||||
| 13 | CACI | 21,783,000 | |||||
| 14 | Razorfish UK | 21,033,000 | |||||
| 15 | GSI Marketing Solutions | 20,200,000 | |||||
| 16 | Javelin Group | 20,000,000 | |||||
| 17 | Endava UK | 19,500,000 | |||||
| 18 | Dare | 18,900,000 | |||||
| 19 | MRM Meteorite | 18,312,000 | |||||
| 20 | Havas EHS | 17,145,630 | |||||
| 21 | Tullo Marshall Warren | 17,113,320 | |||||
| 22 | Amaze | 17,022,000 | |||||
| 23 | R/GA London | 16,000,000 | |||||
| 24 | VCCP | 14,872,000 | |||||
| 25 | Grass Roots Group UK | 14,500,000 | |||||
| 26 | Proximity London | 12,162,152 | |||||
| 27 | POSSIBLE | 11,800,000 | |||||
| 28 | Reading Room | 10,385,552 | |||||
| 29 | HeathWallace | 9,750,000 | |||||
| 30 | Greenlight | 9,600,000 | 9 | 1 | |||
| 31 | TH_NK | 9,563,400 | |||||
| 32 | Stickyeyes | 9,189,230 | |||||
| 33 | Leo Burnett Group | 9,000,000 | |||||
| 34 | Profero | 8,999,000 | |||||
| 35 | Realise | 8,831,438 | |||||
| 36 | Zone | 8,795,000 | |||||
| 37 | iCrossing | 8,302,401 | 7 | 6 | 19 | ||
| 38 | Haymarket Network | 8,008,640 | |||||
| 39 | Jam | 8,000,000 | |||||
| 40 | Tangent Snowball | 7,538,847 | |||||
| 41 | Investis | 7,400,000 | |||||
| 42 | Axonn Media Limited | 7,391,720 | |||||
| 43 | ais London | 7,300,000 | |||||
| 44 | The BIO Agency | 7,100,000 | 2 | ||||
| 45 | The Big Group | 7,090,000 | |||||
| 46 | Edelman Digital | 7,000,000 | |||||
| 47 | VML London | 6,924,000 | |||||
| 48 | Cognifide | 6,900,000 | |||||
| 49 | Valtech | 6,817,577 | |||||
| 50 | CDS Digital | 6,636,945 | |||||
| 51 | Technophobia Ltd | 6,610,000 | |||||
| 52 | Karmarama | 6,581,969 | |||||
| 53 | Ayima | 6,500,000 | 13 | ||||
| 54 | Epiphany | 6,217,187 | 4 | ||||
| 55 | Equator | 6,200,000 | |||||
| 56 | Group FMG | 6,150,000 | |||||
| 57 | 1000heads | 6,150,000 | |||||
| 58 | The Group | 6,080,809 | |||||
| 59 | G2 Joshua | 6,011,625 | |||||
| 60 | Volume | 6,001,000 | |||||
| 61 | Summit Media | 5,900,000 | |||||
| 62 | gyro | 5,891,000 | |||||
| 63 | WCRS | 5,827,792 | 8 | ||||
| 64 | twentysix | 5,718,000 | |||||
| 65 | Click Consult | 5,600,000 | |||||
| 65 | Jellyfish | 5,600,000 | 12 | 19 | 10 | ||
| 67 | Metia | 5,589,000 | |||||
| 68 | Rippleffect | 5,583,584 | |||||
| 69 | Agency Republic | 5,306,708 | |||||
| 70 | POKE | 5,221,886 | |||||
| 71 | Foolproof | 5,200,000 | |||||
| 72 | Latitude Digital Marketing | 5,082,000 | |||||
| 73 | Hugo & Cat | 5,053,000 | |||||
| 74 | Weapon7 | 5,000,000 | |||||
| 75 | Precedent | 4,851,000 | |||||
| 76 | Indicia | 4,724,735 | |||||
| 77 | Elvis | 4,600,000 | |||||
| 78 | AIA Worldwide | 4,494,226 | |||||
| 79 | CMW | 4,420,000 | |||||
| 80 | MSL Group UK | 4,386,774 | |||||
| 81 | The Real Adventure | 4,380,000 | |||||
| 82 | Code Computerlove | 4,305,000 | |||||
| 83 | TBG | 4,300,000 | |||||
| 84 | Rufus Leonard | 4,292,000 | |||||
| 85 | Add People | 4,265,000 | |||||
| 86 | Freestyle Interactive | 4,242,725 | |||||
| 87 | Holler | 4,200,909 | |||||
| 88 | Tempero | 4,200,000 | 12 | ||||
| 89 | Search Laboratory | 4,188,029 | 14 | ||||
| 90 | Abacus e-Media | 4,032,284 | |||||
| 91 | Redweb | 3,899,619 | |||||
| 92 | Fresh Egg | 3,850,000 | |||||
| 93 | Huge | 3,800,000 | |||||
| 93 | Grey London | 3,800,000 | |||||
| 95 | Five by Five | 3,747,000 | |||||
| 96 | e3 | 3,720,000 | |||||
| 97 | equimedia | 3,700,000 | |||||
| 98 | Mediaworks Online Marketing | 3,500,000 | |||||
| 99 | Brass | 3,477,000 | |||||
| 100 | Pancentric Digital | 3,351,000 | |||||
* Google rankings were analysed for the top 20 listings returned on each of the following search queries, which are similarly listed as column headings in the table above: digital marketing agency, seo agency, search engine marketing agency, online advertising agency and social media ageancy.
I’m going to have to agree with this. While we’re a small creative agency, most of our business is repeat, or direct referral from past customers. We do get inquiries in from search engines, however a lot of the times they’re not quite the right business for us.
Being visible on Google is important, especially for peer recognition and awards, but it doesn’t equal success. Networking, making long lasting relationships, and good impressions lead to better business. Continue to do that at a higher level year in and year out and you’ll start to understand how these companies amass so much business.