How to Choose a Digital
Marketing Freelancer

Pick someone who can explain in plain English what they'll do for your business, shows you real reviews and work, keeps every account in your name, and doesn't tie you into a long contract before they've proved anything. Avoid anyone who guarantees rankings or results, or goes vague when you ask who owns what. Being local is a bonus, not a qualification.

Digital marketing covers a lot: websites, SEO, Google Ads, social ads, email, tracking. Very few people are genuinely good at all of it. Before you look for anyone, write down the one or two things you most need to happen. More calls from Google. A website you're not embarrassed by. Bookings in the quiet months.

Then look for someone strong in those, and ask them straight what they don't do. A good freelancer has an answer ready. Someone who says yes to everything is either very rare or about to pass half of it on to someone you've never met.

If you'd like to try someone out before committing, ask for a small piece of work first. Mine is a free 15-minute review of your ads, website or SEO, with the top three fixes in writing. I do five a month, and it'll tell you more about how I work than any sales call.

A fixed-price project like a website should come with a written quote that says what's included, how many rounds of changes you get, and what happens with hosting afterwards. Ongoing work like ads or SEO should say what gets done each month, how you're billed, and how much notice either side gives.

Month to month is normal for a lot of freelancers, me included. If someone wants a minimum term, ask why. Sometimes there's a fair reason, SEO takes months to show, and some people want to protect a lot of setup work. Just make sure you know what you're agreeing to.

A good monthly report answers three questions: what did it cost, what did it bring in, and what's changing next month. For ads, that means spend as charged by the platform, enquiries or sales, and cost per enquiry. For SEO, which searches you're showing up for, and how many of those visitors got in touch.

Ask to see an example report before you sign. If it's twenty pages of charts and you can't find the answer to those three questions, you won't find it every month either. Better still, you should be able to log in and see the numbers yourself whenever you like.

Google reviews are the obvious place to start. Read the detailed ones and look at the dates. A handful of specific reviews from businesses you can actually find tells you more than a big number of one-liners.

Then go a bit further. Ask to speak to a current client with a business like yours. Look at websites they've built and see how they load on your phone. If they trade as a limited company, check Companies House, it's free and takes a minute. My company, Chunka Ltd, is on there, and you can read my reviews, 5.0 from 14 on Google.

Most of this work happens on a laptop, so a good freelancer in Cardiff or Manchester can do a fine job for a business in Llandudno. Local still helps. Someone who lives here knows the seasonal swings, which towns people actually travel between, and that a caravan park and a café on the same road have very different busy months.

It also makes it easier to sit down face to face when that's useful. I'm in Abergele and work right across North Wales, there's a list of towns on my areas page, and with businesses UK-wide by phone and video. You can read more about me and how I ended up doing this.