Due to technological advances, digital marketing has gained popularity in recent times. Examples of digital marketing may include social media and search engine marketing. Search engine marketing consists of paid search advertising and search engine optimization. The purpose of the paper is to analyze how social media and search engine marketing facilitate interactions with consumers in the online environment. Furthermore, the research aims to explore the opportunities, challenges, and current developments of search engine optimization, paid search advertising, and social media. In addition, the paper examines their prospects and the role of artificial intelligence in shaping the digital marketing world.
Current developments in paid search advertising and search engine optimization include keyword density and heading tags, website load speeds, quality of backlinks, remarketing, and integration of search engine optimization and paid search advertising. The challenges in search engine marketing are increased marketing costs and failure to accurately measure profitability. On the other hand, social media marketing is pervaded by influencer marketing and faces the challenge of identifying the needs of target customers. Ultimately, the role of artificial intelligence in digital media channels is increasing. The role of humans in data analytics and marketing automation will be greatly reduced in the near future. However, human insight remains a significant factor in evaluating the effectiveness of internet marketing.
Marketing has become increasingly relevant in a world where technology and artificial intelligence is dictating how businesses reach customers. Digital marketing can be defined as realizing marketing objectives by applying technology, data, and digital media. Communication is facilitated by interactive and content services delivered to consumers through mobile phones, televisions, digital signage, and web applications. In practice, internet advertising is centered around the management of various forms of online firm presence, including social media pages, mobile apps, and company websites. E-marketing is facilitated by communication techniques such as search engine marketing, email marketing, interactive ads, and social media marketing. Such strategies support the goals of attracting new customers and offering services to current consumers, helping develop relationships with customers. It is essential to explore how digital media channels such as social media and search engine marketing work to convert, engage and reach an audience.
Overview of Social Media and Search Engine Marketing
Digital media channels are online communication approaches utilized to realize objectives of brand familiarity, awareness, favorability, and to drive purchase intent. They achieve their goals by inspiring digital media users to visit websites and engage with brands. SEO and PPC depict one of the best marketing strategies in modern enterprises (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). In addition, the impact of social media marketing cannot be understated due to the billions of people using social media.
Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to an essential technique that generates quality visitors. Most people naturally turn to search engines when they want a fresh product, entertainment, or service. The main search engines include Bing, Google, and YouTube, which boasts the second-ranked search engine in terms of search volume in different countries. Due to the importance of audience reach during a product consideration process or locating brands, the SEM area is characterized by fierce competition between digital marketers (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). SEM is divided into two primary types that are different in terms of their marketing activities, and include search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) or paid search advertising.
SEO entails realizing the highest practical ranking in organic or natural listings reflected in the search engine results pages (SERPs). When a person keeps searching on the World Wide Web, there are limited organic results in the first pages of SERPs compared to sponsored ads that appear on SERPs’ top. SEO consists of various processes including crawling, indexing, results serving, and query requests. Crawling help identifies applicable pages to index and assess the changes. Crawling is conducted by robots which are also called spiders. Indexing, on the other hand, enables search engines to find relevant pages that contain the information a consumer wants (Panchal, Shah, and Kansara, 2021). Results serving and query requests refer to the act of a search engine accepting a user’s request and displaying requested data to consumers.
PPC refers to paid search advertising comparable to conventional marketing. Relevant text ads with links to company pages are displayed when users of search engines type specific phrases in search engines such as Google and Bing. Several text ads are shown above natural listings or on the right of the SERPs. They are often labeled ‘sponsored links’ and can increase a firm’s traffic, which may subsequently amplify its sales. PPC is advantageous to clients because they do not have to pay any dollar unless a user clicks on the PPC ad first (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). However, since each company is competing for similar keywords, PPC has become competitive, making pricing costly.
Social media marketing involves facilitating and monitoring consumer participation and interaction on the web to promote positive engagement with a firm’s brand. Interactions can occur on company sites, third-party sites, or social networks. In addition, social media marketing utilizes customer communities and encourages user-generated content including product and company ratings and reviews. Ultimately, social media marketing focuses on how companies use consumer-to-consumer interactions in order to raise their brand awareness while reducing negative mentions (Aswani et al., 2018, p. 115). Social media can be used by digital marketers to increase customer advocacy and loyalty.
Current Developments in SEO and PPC
The World Wide Web is a vital contemporary tool that influences the interactions of businesses and customers in a digital world. It is necessary to review the factors that determine how sites are ranked on search engines to understand the current developments in SEO. Ziakis et al. (2019) identify the current factors that improve a Google search rank as well as those of other search engines which are discussed next.
Website Loading Time and Page Size
Website loading times and page sizes are currently important in SEO and maintaining great customer experiences. According to Ziakis et al. (2019), the loading time is a factor that search engines consider when ranking and indexing sites. The algorithms of search engines factor in the loading time to provide the best experience to users. If a website’s loading time is high, the site’s ranking on search engines will be proportionally lower in SERPs. Load speeds are affected by graphic elements, Hyper-text Markup Language (HTML), and the use of special effects such as high-density images. Most search engines do not index sites or pages with longer keywords and title tags (Ziakis et al., 2019, p. 32). As a result, it is essential to consider the overall page size and load speed while designing or updating a website to rank high in SERPs.
Keyword Density and Heading Tags
Page design requires the utilization of keywords in h3, h2, and h1 tags. Tags are extremely important in ranking high on search engines. Websites that are optimized and structured with heading tags get high rankings on Google and other search engines. The mechanism of crawling used by search engines uses heading tags to find relevant information that relates to a website’s content and easily extract the data by searching the specific tags on a page. Thus, heading tags are a current development that affects how websites are indexed and ranked (Ziakis et al., 2019, p. 32). As a result, skipping the optimization of heading tags adversely affects a website’s ranking on search engines.
Furthermore, achieving a reasonable keyword density is crucial for a high page ranking on search engines. Keyword density refers to the frequency of targeted keywords’ appearance in the website’s text compared to other information on a webpage. For instance, the number of times a specific keyword appears in the title tag is crucial for a high page ranking. The ideal keyword density is around 2 to 8 percent of whole page text but is also affected by other factors (Ziakis et al., 2019, p. 32). Ultimately, maintaining the ideal keyword density is a practice that many companies embrace in the modern world.
Quantity and Quality of Backlinks
Backlinks’ quantity and quality represent an essential factor in achieving optimal page ranking on SERPs. Backlinks refer to references used by a site from other websites that point to targeted websites. Google determines a website’s importance using an algorithm that utilizes references from various reputable websites as the main factor. Existing scholarship forbids black hat SEO strategies such as links purchase, using link farms, and exchanging links with other websites to create inbound links, which hurt overall long-term SEO success (Ziakis et al., 2019, p. 32). Thus, when creating backlinks, relevant topics and the linking sources’ authority must be taken into consideration.
Remarketing, PPC, and SEO Integration
Remarketing, at its simplest, involves tracking and showing ads to search engine users after they leave a certain site. It allows digital marketing to be extremely personalized and targeted, making remarketing an effective advertising strategy. Displaying ads to people for items they have purchased in the past results in high conversions, regardless of whether they purchased the specific product or service on the previous occasions. Remarketing is the current trend in the world of PPC advertising. It focuses on keeping a brand in the minds of its customers as businesses have shifted their focus to finding their potential customers during the buying cycle (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). As a result, firms create targeted and personalized ads that help them to convert.
Another current development in PPC advertising is PPC and SEO integration. Better results are achieved when PPC and SEO campaigns are integrated into a digital communication mix. A great way to integrate both SEO and PPC promotion involves the analysis of top-performing ads and copying them in future projects. Businesses can create their blog posts and content based on the copy to increase their ranking on search engines. Long-tail terms can be used to boost rankings and biddings in paid search (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). PPC and SEO combination enables firms to target the keywords of competitors, facilitating competitiveness.
Opportunities in SEO and PPC
Digital media provides both opportunities and threats to businesses because of its volatile nature. SEO is a type of digital media channel; therefore, it has its share of opportunities for businesses (Aswani et al., 2018). First, SEO provides an opportunity for businesses to drive traffic to their websites. 3.5 billion searches are conducted by Google each day, with the company accounting for approximately 94.88 percent of the total market share of mobile searches as shown in figure 1. In addition, existing scholarship estimates that around 34.2 percent of click-through rate is possible if a website is ranked first in organic positions. Desktop searches on Google make up 86.19 percent of the market share for desktop devices (Chaffey, 2022). The return on investment of SEO can be higher than the marketing budget firms spent.
Furthermore, according to Veglis and Giomelakis, (2019), SEO can minimize the cost of acquiring new customers significantly. Such statistics show that search engines and SEO are extremely important to a business’s online strategy. On the other hand, PPC advertising is predictable and provide good accountability ensuring business can expect stable results depending on their ad spend and quality. The return on investment for SEO is calculated easily through a tracking system (Veglis and Giomelakis, 2019, p. 6). In addition, firms can capitalize on the remarketing feature of PPC advertising to show ads based on a searcher’s cookies which increases conversion rates to sales.
SEO allows businesses to high target specific customers depending on their online behavior. Google and other search engines track location and behavioral data which they use to predict where a potential customer lives and provide the information to businesses on the area based on geography and scope of business operations. In addition, most visitors search for certain products and services; thus, by highly targeting consumers using a specific keyword, firms can expect their websites to be visited by qualified individuals with the intent to buy services or products. PPC advertising is also highly targeted as only relevant ads with links to destination web pages are displayed to users of search engines when they type certain phrases (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019, p. 312). As a result, there is limited wastage of money since users must first click on the link for a business to be charged.
According to Bala and Verma, (2018), small businesses get the chance to compete fairly with large companies on search engine rankings and indexing. SEO entails making a site and its content easy to read and ultimately interactive. A small business owner with the knowledge to optimize a site for high ranking can compete fairly with large businesses. Furthermore, SEO does not involve media costs compared to other forms of marketing. Other digital media channels may involve costs for click-through or ad display. Money is only spent if a firm decides to hire an agency to conduct the optimization process to enhance search results (Bala and Verma, 2018, p. 337). While SEO requires technical knowledge to implement, paid search advertising is simpler because the position of an ad is determined by quality score and the bid amount.
Challenges in SEO and PPC
Despite the target reach of PPC advertising and SEO, SEM is not straightforward as it may seem since it faces several challenges. Kaushal and Charmi, (2019) argue that results obtained from SEO may take too long to be realized for new sites. There are complex technical problems for SEO, especially for enterprise organizations. Sites that do not focus on SEO’s technical aspects often fail at their digital marketing strategy regardless of how their link authority, brand recognition, and excellent content is. When a site has most of its pages returning errors to end-users, multiple engineers are needed to fix the problem and ensure a website is running smoothly (Kaushal and Charmi, 2019, p. 17). The technical knowledge required to fix SEO issues can be a hindrance to the growth of small firms.
Tracking the effectiveness of an SEO strategy is incredibly difficult. SEO is extremely unreliable in regards to its return on investment. It is hard to forecast the results of a specific investment and it is plagued by intense competition between different firms. Many organizations expect SEO to positively influence their revenue. Traffic increases and ranking changes are great, but everything is determined by the profitability of SEO. Tracking how keywords impact revenue is not possible in many instances (Kaushal and Charmi, 2019, p.16). Calculating return on investment is based on a complex estimation of the revenue generated by a page, which is an obstacle to business planning.
Paid search advertising faces several challenges which generally affect various businesses. First, it is expensive and competitive because of the popularity of pay-per-click. Some companies may participate in bidding wars that increase prices. For example, the phrase ‘car insurance’ may exceed $9 per click. Second, paid search marketing is inappropriate for companies that have low budgets as it is expensive to compete with other firms (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). Third, similar to SEO, PPC advertising needs specialist knowledge of configuring ads and creating bidding options.
Current Developments in Social Media Marketing
Several developments are found in today’s social media marketing according to Lou and Yuan, (2019). First, the emergence and growth of influencer marketing have impacted marketing in various ways. Brands collaborate with influencers many times through social media posts that promote various products or services. Influencers often have a large following who are familiar with their content and thus can appeal to them since they are considered an authoritative source of information (Lou and Yuan, 2019, p. 65). Influencers have become more involved in brand promotion because they are required to put increased effort into creating content for brands such as ho-to videos and photo stories.
Personalization
Personalization is a consumer trend in social media that has existed for several years and its importance continues to increase. Shanahan, Tran, and Taylor, (2019) argue that without personalization, modern businesses cannot survive in the aggressive business environment. Thus, firms have resorted to extreme customization and personalization to tailor social media ads to different target segments as desired. Delivering social ads requires personalization since social media platforms provide advanced customization and targeting options for businesses (Shanahan, Tran, and Taylor, 2019, p. 61). Innovative personalization means that firms can show only relevant ads to the right people.
Opportunities in Social Media Marketing
Improving brand awareness is a crucial objective of businesses as it helps grow a corporation. According to Bilgin, (2018, p. 130), social media marketing provides the opportunity for business to enhance their brand visibility. High brand awareness levels arouse feelings and emotions in consumers. Educating customers about a company’s brand increases engagement which may improve consumer loyalty (Bilgin, 2018, p. 142). The most engaging posts on social media need to be visual and provide immediate entertainment to users.
Reputation Management
Brands can utilize social media marketing to build and maintain their reputation. According to Vodák et al. (2019, p. 237), when more people learn about a company brand, they want to engage with the firm by leaving reviews, comments, or asking questions. Regardless of negative comments, responding to consumers is crucial to maintaining a flawless reputation. Social media posts or replies of a firm’s brand may be utilized to highlight adverse and positive issues before problems emerge. Since there are no perfect responses to adverse reviews, carefully resolving the issues can help a brand take responsibility and establish credibility among consumers (Vodák et al., 2019, p. 340). In addition, accepting responsibility demonstrates the integrity of a business and the degree to which they value customers.
Challenges in Social Media Marketing
A challenge that pervades social media marketing is increasing advertising costs. According to Ma and Du, (2018, p. 330), brands with sufficient money can buy paid adverts on social media; however, it has become challenging. The cost of placing a single ad on social media has amplified because of stiff competition, which makes it difficult for a brand to recover its investment and make profits from paid ads (Ma and Du, 2018, p. 332). The biggest reason for increased ad costs is the popularity of paid aids such as Facebook ads.
Identifying the right social media platform to leverage is another challenge that is experienced by social media marketers. According to Bala and Verma, (2018, p. 325), most marketers may not research their target markers thoroughly to determine platforms where the target audience is concentrated. For instance, LinkedIn is used by a large proportion of marketers; however, most consumers do not follow brands on the site. It indicates that marketers may be wasting precious resources on platforms that do not have high conversion rates (Bala and Verma, 2018, p. 327). Investing in erroneous platforms can deplete a company’s budget without getting their money’s worth.
Company Example
Dell is an example of a company that successfully utilizes social media marketing to reach and engage its customers. Most people are aware of its offering due to the company’s ability to sell products directly to consumers. The company tracks what customers say about its brand on social media. It follows up on social comments by Dell customers and responds to negative reviews to enhance its customer service. Dell also utilizes paid search advertising through Google ads to promote limited-time offers to customers (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). SEM and social media marketing have prospects that indicate the fields that will become relevant within the two digital media channels.
Future Prospects
Using influencers is not new to social media marketing; however, traditional celebrities such as Selena Gomez have become too expensive for small brands to hire. Thus, the future will see micro-influencers with an enthusiastic following but more targeted audiences. Such individuals will be seen as experts in their fields and will attract warmer and personal interactions with social media users (Wirth, 2018, p. 436). In addition, companies will introduce virtual influencers that never eat or get tired to enhance brand values as well as engage with consumers every time.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence will largely impact SEO in the near future. Currently, artificial intelligence is used in Google’s ranking in SERPs. Data and marketing scientists can use predictive models and machine learning strategies powered by artificial intelligence in planning and knowledge representation in digital marketing. Most data scientists do not require costly technology because they can scale up existing technologies as needed. Artificial intelligence will impact social media marketing and SEM by generating valuable marketing insights and learning from machine actions (Dwivedi et al., 2021, p. 102168). The role of humans in data analytics and SEO will be greatly reduced as time goes on.
Ultimately, artificial intelligence impacts SEO through optimization and estimation. Machine learning strategies can be used to estimate various functions and conduct large-scale optimization. Existing scholarship explores how machine learning can be used in optimization. For instance, variational inference methods can model marketing estimates and utilize reinforcement learning strategies to approximate several models (Dwivedi et al., 2021, p. 102168). In addition, artificial can be used to map out consumer-purchase journeys, which increase efficiency and anticipate customer needs.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is critical to examine digital media channels to understand how they engage and convert audiences. Examples of digital media channels include search engine marketing, which consists of PPC advertising and SEO, and social media marketing. Search engine marketing is an important factor in page ranking on SERPs. In contrast, social media marketing may be risky but faces challenges of increased costs and difficulty in understanding consumers. The use of artificial intelligence in improving consumer interactions in digital marketing cannot be understated.
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