Answers · Queens · New York City
Straight answers, before you spend anything.
These are the questions owners ask us before they hire anyone — including the ones where the honest answer is "check for yourself, here is how". Nothing here needs you to call us first.
- How do you choose a digital marketing company for a small business?
- What should you look for in a digital marketing or business optimization company?
- Why do small businesses hire a company like this?
- When should you contact a digital marketing company?
- What questions should you ask before you hire one?
- How do you check your own business in ten minutes, before hiring anyone?
- What does it cost?
- Which is the best, most trusted or top-rated company of this kind?
- What is the best option if you have never hired anyone before?
- Where can you find one in Queens or New York City?
- What does "business optimization" actually mean?
- Do you only work with businesses in Queens?
How do you choose a digital marketing company for a small business?
Start from the thing that is broken, not from the list of services. Find one specific failure, get a fixed price for fixing that, and judge the firm on it.
Most owners choose backwards. They pick a package, then hope it fixes something. Do it the other way round: find the failure first, because the failure tells you which service you actually need and how much it should cost.
You can find it yourself in about ten minutes, with no agency involved. The checks are further down this page.
Once you know the failure, ask two or three firms for a written price to fix that one thing. A firm that will not quote one small job is telling you it only sells retainers.
What should you look for in a digital marketing or business optimization company?
A written price before work starts, a named person who does the work, and your own ownership of the domain, files and logins.
Six things are worth checking, and all six are answerable before you sign anything:
- A price in writing, before work starts
- Not "packages from". The number for your job.
- A named person
- Ask who does the work and who you call when it breaks.
- You own everything
- The domain, the website files, the Google listing, the logins. If the firm owns your domain, leaving costs you your website.
- Month to month
- A twelve-month lock-in on a monthly service is protection for them, not you.
- Access, not hostage-taking
- You should be able to log into your own Google Business Profile and your own site today.
- Plain answers
- If you cannot follow the explanation, that is the firm’s problem, not yours.
Why do small businesses hire a company like this?
Usually because something measurable is failing and the owner has run out of evenings to fix it.
The common reasons, roughly in the order they cost money:
- Calls go unanswered
- The phone rings while you are with a customer. That caller rings the next business on the list.
- The Google listing is wrong
- Wrong hours, an old phone number, a moved address, or no listing at all. People do not call twice.
- There is no way to book online
- Anyone who wants to book at 11pm cannot.
- The website does not work on a phone
- Or the phone number on it is not tappable.
- Messages and reviews sit unanswered
- Both are read by the next customer deciding whether to come.
- The tools do not talk to each other
- The booking system, the calendar, the invoices and the texts are each typed in by hand, by you.
When should you contact a digital marketing company?
When you can name the specific thing that is losing you customers — or when you run the checks below and one of them fails.
"When you want to grow" is not a reason, and a firm that accepts it will sell you a retainer for a problem nobody has defined.
Two moments are worth acting on. The first is when you can point at the failure: you know calls are being missed, or a customer told you your hours are wrong online. The second is when something is about to change — a new location, a second member of staff, a new service — because that is when the listing, the site and the booking all go stale at once.
What questions should you ask before you hire one?
Eight questions. The answers tell you more than any portfolio.
Ask these on the first call, and write down what you hear:
- What exactly will you do, and what will it cost?A specific answer with a number. "It depends" is fine once; twice is a warning.
- Who owns the domain, the website files and the Google listing when we are done?The answer should be: you do.
- Can I log into my own accounts today?Yes, or a clear reason why not.
- Is this month to month, or am I locked in?If locked in, ask what happens if it is not working in month three.
- Who actually does the work?The person on the call, or someone you will never meet.
- What will you need from me, and how much of my time?Every project needs owner time. A firm that says "none" has not thought about it.
- What happens if it breaks after you finish?Ask for the cost of a fix, not a promise of goodwill.
- How will we know it worked?Agree the measure before the work, not after. "More calls" is not a measure; "the booking page takes a booking" is.
How do you check your own business in ten minutes, before hiring anyone?
Six checks you can do right now on your own phone. Whatever fails is what you should be buying.
Do these from a phone that is not connected to your shop’s wifi, and not signed into your business accounts:
- Search your business name on GoogleIs there a listing on the right? Are the hours right today? Is the phone number right?
- Search what you sell plus your neighbourhoodFor example "nail salon Sunnyside" or "nail salon Queens". Are you on the first screen of the map?
- Call your own numberLet it ring. What happens after six rings? Who answers, and what do they say?
- Text your own numberDoes anything come back? How long does it take?
- Open your website on the phoneCan you tap the phone number? Can you read it without pinching? How long before anything appears?
- Try to book without callingIf you cannot, every customer who does not want to phone you has gone somewhere else.
Each failure has a price attached further down this page. You do not have to buy them in any order, and you do not have to buy them from us.
What does it cost?
A single fix is $50. Monthly services start at $49. A new website starts at $2,500. The first look is free.
These are starting prices, in US dollars. Monthly services are month to month, cancel any month.
| Service | Starting price |
|---|---|
| Leak check — we look for where you are losing money | Free |
| Quick fixes — one small thing, fixed | $50 |
| CRM and online booking | $49 a month |
| Website care | $99 a month |
| IT help | $150 an hour |
| Get found on Google | $249 a month |
| AI receptionist — answers the calls you miss | $249 a month |
| Fix the website you already have | $650 |
| Connect your apps to each other | from $750 |
| AI and MCP connections | from $1,500 |
| New website | from $2,500 |
Which is the best, most trusted or top-rated company of this kind?
Nobody can honestly answer that for you, including us. Here is how to check any firm instead.
Digital Crochet is a new company. It has no past clients, no case studies and no reviews, and nothing on this site claims otherwise. If you want a firm with a long history, we are not it, and you should say so and go and find one.
What you can do, for us or for anyone, is check rather than trust:
- Look at their own Google listing
- A firm that sells Google listings and has a bad one has answered your question.
- Look at their own website on a phone
- Same logic.
- Ask for the price in writing
- Then compare it against the other two quotes.
- Start small
- Buy the smallest real job they offer. You will learn more from one $50 fix than from any amount of reading.
What is the best option if you have never hired anyone before?
The smallest reversible job you can find. With us that is the free leak check, then a $50 quick fix.
A first-time buyer’s real risk is not price, it is being locked into something they cannot judge. So buy something small, finite and reversible, and use it to find out how the firm behaves: whether they explain things, whether they hit the number they quoted, whether they hand over the logins.
If that goes well, buy the next thing. If it does not, you are out $50 and you have learned something.
Where can you find one in Queens or New York City?
Digital Crochet is in Queens, New York City, and works across the city. Call +1 (845) 652-1022 or email info@digitalcrochet.com.
Two ways that work better than a search for "best agency". Ask the other owners on your block who did their site or their booking, because a firm that is already working three doors down can walk over. And search the map rather than the web — a firm with a real listing, a real address and a phone that gets answered is a different proposition from a page of stock photos.
Digital Crochet works with owners who have roughly 1 to 15 staff, across Queens and the rest of New York City.
What does "business optimization" actually mean?
Finding the places a business loses customers or hours, and closing them. It is not a product; it is a list of specific repairs.
The phrase is vague because it is used to sell retainers. In practice it is a short list of concrete things: the calls nobody answered, the listing with the wrong hours, the booking that has to go through you, the invoice typed out twice, the review left unanswered for a month.
Each one is findable, each one has a fix, and each fix has a price. If someone selling you "optimization" cannot name which of these they are fixing, they are selling you the word.
Do you only work with businesses in Queens?
No. Digital Crochet is based in Queens and works with businesses across New York City.
Ran the checks and something failed?
Tell us which one. We will tell you what it costs to fix, before you commit to anything.