Search engine marketing in creating website user impressions

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Search engine marketing in creating website user impressions

Iankovets Tetiana,

PhD in Economics, Associate Professor,

Associate Professor of the Department of Marketing State University of Trade and Economics Kyiv,

Increased competition in the digital environment leads to the search for effective tools to attract targeted traffic to websites. Search engine marketing (SEM), which includes search engine (contextual) advertising (SEA) and search engine optimization (SEO), allows toachieve this aim by means of technical settings and consideration of marketing aspects in creating user impressions. The effectiveness of search engine marketing is tested in practice with the help of web analytics, which allows real-time tracking of traffic, its sources, and user actions, which helps identify the most effective tools and advertising campaigns. In the context of the emerging impression economy, improving the user experience of potential and existing customers at every touchpoint depends on the speed and convenience of achieving user goals in the digital environment. Search engine marketing is based on users' search queries in the face of actualized demand. Therefore, websites that are quickly accessible in search and contain a value proposition in accordance with the search queries of potential customers will be convenient for users, have a competitive advantage by providing positive impressions based on an improved customer experience. This approach ensures that the interests of both users and businesses are satisfied, thus achieving the goals of digital marketing and business efficiency in general. The aim of the recearh is to substantiate the relationship between search contextual advertising and search engine optimization as search engine marketing tools and to identify their synergistic impact on creating positive user impressions, increasing targeted traffic and increasing website conversion. In the reseach, the general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, system- structural analysis, comparison, systematic, logical generalization were used. Based on the semantic mechanism of working with search queries, the article substantiates the relationship between search engine advertising and search engine optimization as search engine marketing tools and reveals their synergistic impact on creating positive user impressions, increasing targeted traffic and increasing website conversion. The proposed algorithms for search engine advertising and internal search engine optimization, taking into account the technical and marketing aspects of the implementation of these digital marketing tools, help in this regard.

Keywords: search marketing, web analytics, machine learning, websites, targeted traffic, search engine advertising, contextual advertising, SEO optimization, impressions, user experience, conversions.

ЯНКОВЕЦЬ Тетяна,

к. е. н., доцент, доцент кафедри маркетингу Державного торговельно-економічного університету, м. Київ

ПОШУКОВИЙ МАРКЕТИНГ У СТВОРЕННІ ВРАЖЕНЬ КОРИСТУВАЧІВ ВЕБСАЙТІВ search engine marketing

Посилення конкуренції у цифровому середовищі спричиняє пошук ефективних інструментів залучення цільового трафіку на вебсайти. Пошуковий маркетинг (SEM), який включає пошукову (контекстну) рекламу (SEA) та пошукову внутрішню й зовнішню оптимізацію (SEO), дозволяє досягати цієї мети за рахунок технічних налаштувань та врахування маркетингових аспектів у створенні вражень користувачів. Ефективність пошукового маркетингу перевіряється на практиці за допомогою вебаналітики, яка дозволяє в режимі реального часу відслідковувати трафік, його джерела та дії користувачів, що допомагає виявляти найбільш ефективні інструменти та рекламні кампанії. В умовах становлення економіки вражень покращання користувацького досвіду потенційних та існуючих клієнтів у кожній точці контакту залежить від швидкості та зручності досягнення цілей користувачів у цифровому середовищі. Пошуковий маркетинг базується на пошукових запитах користувачів за умови актуалізованого попиту. Тому вебсайти, які будуть швидко доступними у пошуку та містити пропозицію цінності відповідно до пошукових запитів потенційних клієнтів, будуть зручними для користувачів, мають конкурентні переваги завдяки наданню позитивних вражень на основі покращеного клієнтського досвіду. Такий підхід забезпечує задоволення інтересів двох сторін - як користувачів, так і підприємств, які таким чином досягають поставлених цілей цифрового маркетингу та ефективності бізнесу в цілому. Метою дослідження є обґрунтування взаємозв 'язку пошукової контекстної реклами та пошукової оптимізації як інструментів пошукового маркетингу, виявлення їх синергічного впливу на створення позитивних вражень користувачів, збільшення цільового трафіка та підвищення конверсійності вебсайту. При проведенні дослідження використано загальнонаукові методи аналізу та синтезу, системно-структурного аналізу, порівняння, системний, логічного узагальнення. У статті на основі дії семантичного механізму роботи з пошуковими запитами обґрунтовано взаємозв 'язок контекстної реклами та пошукової оптимізації як інструментів пошукового маркетингу та виявлено їх синергічний вплив на створення позитивних вражень користувачів, збільшення цільового трафіка і підвищення конверсійності вебсайту. Допомагають у цьому запропоновані алгоритми контекстної реклами та внутрішньої пошукової оптимізації, з урахуванням технічних та маркетингових аспектів реалізації цих інструментів цифрового маркетингу.

Ключові слова: пошуковий маркетинг, вебаналітика, машинне навчання, вебсайти, цільовий трафік, пошукова реклама, контекстна реклама, SEO-оптимізація, враження, досвід користувачів, конверсії.

Introduction

Increasing competition in the digital environment necessitates the creation of positive user impressions to attract attention to websites among a large number of them. The customer experience is formed at every point of interaction at every stage of the consumer's digital journey. Therefore, it is important for businesses to create customer impressions by applying digital marketing (DM) tools across all interaction sources/channels to facilitate website users and provide an "impressive" customer experience. It is important to provide users who are looking for specific goods and services with the information they need as quickly as possible. Search engine marketing (SEM) is one of the key tools of DM, providing simple and quick access to a website that will help in solving a specific query.

Among SEM researchers, there is no single interpretation of its constituent elements. Thus, some authors (Ivanechko, Dudar, Pavelko, 2022) refer to it as search engine optimization (SEO, Search Engines Optimization) and website optimization for social networks (SMO, Social Media Optimization). Researchers consider contextual advertising as a separate tool of Internet marketing and emphasize that it is paid, so it cannot be classified as SEM. This criterion cannot be decisive in such a distribution, since it is not users who pay for advertising, but website owners. The authors'

conclusion that users do not trust contextual advertising is not supported by research and is not justified. The main task of SEM is to attract target consumers to the website based on their search queries to solve actual needs. This principle is used in contextual advertising, which is also called search advertising (SEA, Search Engines Advertising), and in search engine optimization. Site optimization for social media (SMO) refers, along with targeted advertising (SMA, Social Media Advertising), to another DM tool, namely social media marketing (SMM, Social Media Marketing), which is aimed at building long-term brand relationships with customers provided that the demand is not actualized, in contrast to SEM. Technologically, the interaction of brands with the target audience in social media can take place without the company having a website. Therefore, these tools cannot be combined because they use different DM objectives and technologies to implement them.

In the study (Vovchanskaya, Ivanova, Baluk, 2023) SEM and SEO are considered as separate digital marketing technologies. Also, this study does not pay attention to digital advertising, including search advertising. Note that SEO and search advertising technologies are built on a single semantic mechanism for working with search queries, so these two tools are combined into a single DM tool is search marketing.

A significant amount of research is devoted separately to either search engine optimization or contextual advertising. Thus, in the work (Drokina, 2018) the factors and methods of SEO optimization are systematized, and the mechanism of SEO optimization for an active site is developed. Recognizing the importance of the results of this study, we note that SEO optimization as part of internal optimization measures must be started at the stage of creating a website, in order to save time spent on its promotion in search engines (Iankovets, 2023a). The study (Astistova, 2023) considered the technical possibilities of using SEO optimization in the website monitoring system, without taking into account the marketing aspects of its promotion. Other authors limit themselves to listing the advantages and disadvantages of SEO optimization and formulating conclusions about its importance for increasing the effectiveness of a website. Researchers studying contextual advertising draw similar conclusions (Chernysh, Salimon, 2023). Koslow, Stewart (2022) refer to search advertising as the dominant form of digital advertising. This thesis is debatable, since the choice of the type of digital advertising and media for its placement depends on many factors and is verified in practice for each specific website using web analytics. Each advertising tool has its own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, and its choice depends on the goals of digital advertising campaigns according to the DM strategy (Iankovets, 2023).

According to the results of the analysis of research papers on search marketing issues, the insufficiency of papers investigating the mutual influence of the analyzed SEM tools on the increase of targeted traffic to the company's website due to the synergy effect was revealed. Also, the possibilities of SEM in creating impressions and improving the user experience of website users remain overlooked by scholars.

The aim of the research is to substantiate the relationship between search contextual advertising and search optimization as search marketing tools and to identify their synergistic effect on creating positive user impressions, increasing targeted traffic, and increasing website conversion rates. In order to achieve the set goal, the following tasks must be performed: substantiate the connection between web analytics and the effectiveness of digital tools of targeted traffic to the website; to investigate the semantic mechanism, principles and algorithm of search contextual advertising; establish a connection between contextual advertising and search optimization for a synergistic effect on increasing targeted traffic to the website; to investigate the algorithm of search engine optimization, to identify the factors of search engine marketing to create positive user impressions and increase the conversion rate of websites.

In order to realize the set aim, a hypothesis was formulated that it is possible to influence the creation of impressions of website users purposefully with the use of SEM tools. Search marketing is aimed at attracting users to a website based on their interests, which are formulated through search queries. That is, this audience is a target audience with updated needs and requests for exactly those goods and services that the company can offer right now. This gives rise to the possibility of creating positive impressions of users through instant satisfaction of demand, which will increase the conversion rate of the website and the efficiency of the enterprise as a whole.

To test the hypothesis, general scientific research methods were applied: analysis and synthesis, system-structural analysis, comparison (to identify key channels/tools for attracting targeted traffic to the company's website, substantiating the synergistic relationship of contextual advertising and search engine optimization; identifying factors of search engine optimization to create positive impressions of website users); systemic (for substantiating algorithms of search context advertising and internal search optimization); logical generalization (for formulating conclusions from the conducted research).

In the main part of the article: technological changes and possibilities of web analytics (using the example of Google Analytics 4) in choosing the most effective digital channels for attracting targeted traffic to the website are investigated; the features, advantages and disadvantages of the main channels/tools for attracting traffic are described; the semantic mechanism of working with search queries in contextual advertising is described; the principles and key strategic advantages of contextual advertising are highlighted, the corresponding algorithm is proposed, a comparison of contextual advertising and search optimization is made, the synergistic relationship of these DM tools in increasing targeted traffic to the company's website is revealed; an algorithm for internal search optimization is proposed, taking into account technical and marketing aspects; the factors of internal and external search engine optimization of the website to create positive impressions of website users were identified.

Web analytics and digital tools for attracting traffic to the website

Web analytics opens up a huge range of opportunities for enterprises to measure the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns, which are carried out with the aim of attracting a target audience to the company's website, as well as, based on the analysis of measured data, to draw conclusions about the quality of the site and the achievement of the goals set before it, which gives an understanding of the directions for its improvement.

The effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns depends on the quality of digital assets (website, mobile application, content, design), digital tools, traffic, measurement. Assets must be visible to ensure targeted traffic to the digital asset and increase it. In a previous study by the author (Iankovets, 2023b), the features and tasks of different types of sites were considered, and it was also indicated the need to add web analytics program code to each website page to track and measure in real time how digital marketing campaigns are performing in order to make decisions about them optimization and efficiency improvement.

In the world and in Ukraine, the most widespread web analytics service is Google Analytics - a free service provided by Google for collecting statistics from websites and mobile applications (it also has a paid version of Google Analytics Premium with the ability to process more than 10 million site visits per month. The free version handles up to 10 million visits per month). Variations of this service for websites are: Universal Analytics, support ended July 1, 2023 (historical data available for some time); Analytics 360, end of support July 1, 2024. Mobile apps used Google Analytics for Firebase. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is available today - the latest version, which is an innovative solution for collecting data from websites and mobile applications (for collecting data only from sites, the Universal Analytics service is used, and for tracking actions only in mobile applications - Google Analytics for Firebase). The novelty of the GA4 service is that it collects data from both websites and mobile applications and presents them in a joint report. Yes, users often change the devices from which they view the website. In order to identify the user and not lose it when moving from one device to another, as well as to collect data about all their interactions, regardless of the device, GA4 uses user identifiers (User-ID), Google Signals and device identifiers. In this way, duplicate users are eliminated and a single holistic user path is created from all data related to one person, which makes it possible to track the history of his relationship with the enterprise. For the user, this capability provides an improved customer experience based on taking into account their interests and eliminating inconsistencies when using different devices. In this way, the omnichannel principle is realized and positive impressions are created.

Also, Google Analytics 4, compared to previous versions, allows you to: collect data based on events, not sessions; track without cookies; model user behavior and conversions.

Today, user expectations regarding privacy have significantly increased. People expect transparency and more control over how their data is collected and used for personalized advertising and other purposes. Increasing global surveillance is affecting traditional data collection using cookies and device identifiers, these traditional methods of data collection are becoming less viable (Ganem, 2021; Dischler, 2021). Accordingly, browsers support cookies less and less, over time the use of this technology will be discontinued. This led to the complication of digital measurement. In this new environment, data collection company Google implemented machine learning models to identify patterns of cookie-accepting behavior and then use those patterns to model conversions, i.e. creating consumer paths to macro-conversion taking into account all touchpoints for those who who has refused cookies.

Machine learning models are created by analyzing vast amounts of historical data, identifying correlations and trends between key data points, and using this information to accurately predict consumer behavior (Sharma, 2021). In addition to modeling conversions, machine learning allows you to model:

user behavior on the website or in the application;

attributions, that is, points of interaction on the consumer's path that most stimulate purchasing activity;

online-offline (can attribute purchases or visits made in person to advertising points of interaction online. Online-offline modeling combines signals from many sources such as surveys, online route requests or calls to a store, restaurant or any business, as well as data on in-store sales or restaurant orders or offline service receipts to assess the impact of specific marketing campaigns (Measure the offline value of your online ads, n.d.);

Unique Reach (helps determine how often people in a certain demographic group were shown a certain ad and on which device).

GA4 also adds the function of predicting the receipt of recommendations without the use of complex models and the function of direct integration with media platforms to stimulate user actions on the site and in the application.

After installing the software package on the site, Google Analytics starts collecting traffic data, based on which it is possible to: evaluate traffic on the website and identify its most effective sources/channels; analyze

advertising campaigns; conduct split testing; evaluate the behavior of users on the site; calculate the sales funnel and conversions; determine the return on investment in advertising campaigns, etc. Analyzing the behavior of users on the company's website, among other things, allows you to identify the most effective DM tools in attracting targeted traffic to the company's website.

Figure 1 presents the key digital tools for attracting a target audience to a website on the Internet. Each of the presented tools has its own features, advantages and disadvantages.

Direct (type in) is a direct entry to the site by its URL address (domain name) through a web browser (browser). This channel is not a direct channel of Internet promotion, because it is not possible to increase the amount of traffic through it. At the same time, the channel provides a high level of conversion, since people who directly enter the site address in the search bar are interested in it. To increase the attention of potential consumers to the site with the use of direct measures, offline means of marketing communications are used: outdoor advertising, POS materials, television, radio advertising, etc. One of the factors that affects the decrease in the use of this channel in modern conditions is the improvement of search engine algorithms, in which the name of the website (or the name of the company/brand), as a brand search query, is enough to enter into the search line and immediately receive a call to this the site in the output of search results by the search engine.

Figure 1. Key digital channels/tools for attracting website traffic Source: created by the author according to (Iankovets, 2022).

Search engine marketing (SEM) includes search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA). The use of SEM is based on the fact that people in search engines search for information about specific products, services, brands, sites, etc. with specific search queries. Accordingly, businesses that offer exactly what people are looking for by promoting their site through SEM are working with a target audience that is ready to make a purchase right now. This is a significant advantage of this tool. The disadvantages also follow from this: great competition, constant changes in the algorithms of search engines and in the principles of search engine ranking. Speaking separately about search engine optimization (SEO) - this promotion channel is slow, while it is conditionally free. The main task of the company in the organic promotion of the site is to implement all the basic settings for SEO and monitor the quality of the content (payment for the services of a programmer, SEO specialist, designer, and copywriter), the company is not charged by search engines for appearing in the search results. The advantages also include the long-term effect of using this tool.

Marketing in social media (SMM, Social Media Marketing) includes optimization of social media (SMO, Social Media Optimization) and targeted advertising in social media (SMA, Social Media Advertising). In general, SMM is a long history of building brand relationships with customers; demand is not actualized, which is a disadvantage. The advantage of this channel is that it is easy to find a target audience on social media. People learn about the company, get interested, subscribe to the brand's pages, follow the news, get involved in discussions, etc. If not immediately, then over time, potential customers - members of the community in social media - become customers of the brand. Thus, it is precisely through the involvement of the target audience in communication that enterprises form their loyal audience and grow defenders and promoters of the brand.

WOM (Word of mouth) - word of mouth includes social engineering (SE, Social Engineering) and viral marketing (Viral Marketing). Social engineering involves the use of digital technologies to collect information about consumers in order to predict digital behavior and implement personalized targeted offers. The advantage of this tool is the ability to influence people's behavior and the choice in favor of the brand's product, the disadvantage is the danger of cyber attacks on the data of both consumers and enterprises. A feature of viral marketing is the rapid spread of brand news among customers and their friends, relatives, etc. The advantage of this channel is the low cost of one contact, and the disadvantage is the impossibility of constant use and the difficulty of reproduction, since it is impossible to accurately predict whether a news or advertising campaign will go viral or not.

Internet advertising (Ads) includes search (contextual) advertising (SEA), targeted advertising in social networks (SMA), banner advertising, video advertising, etc., in the form of images (image), context (context), links

(links). Online advertising is used mainly to spread brand awareness (image advertising) and sales (conversion advertising). The advantage is high efficiency, which is ensured by successfully created advertising creatives and correct settings for the target audience, which guarantees quick results and increased sales. The disadvantage is the high cost of placement due to high competition and short-term effect.

One of the important digital tools for attracting a target audience to a company's website is search engine marketing (SEM), which includes contextual advertising (SEA) and search engine optimization (SEO).

Semantic mechanism of contextual advertising

Contextual advertising is the display of text or image advertisements that appear on a search engine page alongside organic search results. The mechanism of contextual advertising, which is also used in search engine optimization, is semantic. This means that everyone gets the meaning of certain words (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Semantic mechanism of search contextual advertising Source: compiled by the author according to (Rindfleisch, 2020; Ivitsky, 2021).

The start of the action of the mechanism of search contextual advertising begins from the moment when the user enters a query in the corresponding line of the search engine. A user's request can be different in number and composition of words, but it is indicated by one keyword. A keyword is an identifier (word or phrase) that characterizes a seller's (advertiser's) product or service. The mechanism of contextual advertising is built on the same understanding of the meaningful meaning of the keyword by both the buyer (user, viewer) and the seller (advertiser). Work with semantics is fundamental in contextual advertising. The company's work with contextual advertising begins with the formation of a semantic core - a list of keywords for which the search engine will display ads to users. The success and effectiveness of an advertising campaign using contextual advertising depends on the completeness and quality of such a list. In Figure. 3 shows the semantic mechanism of working with search queries.

Figure 3. Mechanism of work with search queries Source: generated by the author from (Rindfleisch, 2020; Ivitsky, 2021).

The action of the mechanism starts from the moment the user enters a request in natural language; further, machine processing of the request takes place inside the mechanism, and its linguistic analysis is carried out. After that, there is a comparison of images, that is, a comparison of the semantic structure of the word with the machine's understanding of this word; the processed request is converted into keywords that are sent to data processing from information sources. Inside the mechanism of contextual advertising there is a huge number of information databases that rank words by semantic meaning, meaning; the received data from information bases are compared with keywords, after which the keywords enter the document repository;

there is a parallel comparison of images, filtering and sorting of keywords, again their linguistic analysis, and among numerous samples and images of documents, the machine selects the most relevant value that matches the user's keyword entered in the search line in the form of a search query. Advertisers in contextual advertising compete precisely for relevance, that is, for the search query (keyword) that coincides in the understanding of the user with the understanding of the advertising query.

The main principles of contextual advertising are presented in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Principles of contextual advertising

Source: created by the author according to (Rindfleisch, 2020; Ivitsky, 2021).

The main nuance of the user's search query interaction with the advertiser is a keyword, that is, a word or phrase that the advertiser chooses to match the user's search query. The selection of keywords in the semantic core takes place with the help of domestic and foreign digital services, such as, for example, Google Ads keyword planner, Serpstat, Key Collector, Keyword Tool, etc.

The strategic advantages of contextual advertising include:

attraction of the target audience thanks to the display of ads according to the search queries of those users who are looking for products or services offered by the company;

thanks to the use of web analytics counters and their integration with the advertising service of the search engine (for example, the integration of Google Analytics and Google Ads), it becomes possible to monitor the results of the advertising campaign in real time and quickly react to shortcomings (unsuccessful advertisement, unsuccessful selection of keywords, incorrectly selected target audience, incorrectly configured time targeting, etc.) by means of instant readjustments in order to increase its effectiveness or to abandon altogether in order to save the budget. Such monitoring allows you to notice problematic moments not only in the advertising campaign, but also in the product and/or the quality of the website, which allows you to quickly react and correct them;

the ability to independently manage rates and an advertising budget or use programmatic services using the technology of purchasing advertising at programmed online auctions and purchasing a target audience (for example, Programmatic), which allows you to control and optimize the company's advertising expenses;

powerful capabilities of geo-settings from a few kilometers around a person to a few meters from a person inside the maps and even to a point advertising campaign of certain places. Cartographic services are connected to more precise geotargeted settings, which are transferred to the mechanism of contextual advertising, and within one or another issue, within the maps, exactly those ads are shown that are configured for the geolocation of a specific person. This means that contextual advertising is the most accurate in terms of geolocation;

temporal targeting capabilities allow you to set up advertising campaigns for the target audience in such a way that they are shown exactly at the time when users are online and searching.

Figure 5. Algorithm of contextual advertising Source: systematized by the author according to (Rindfleisch, 2020; Ivitsky, 2021).

The contextual advertising algorithm consists of 7 steps (Figure 5).

The choice of search engine depends on which search engine the target consumers use. In Ukraine, the most powerful and widely used search engine today is Google with the Google Ads advertising service (Measure the offline value of your online ads, n.d.). If people in the country use several search engines, the company needs to find out the percentage ratio of the target audience, depending on which service is used by different groups of consumers, and take this into account when distributing the advertising budget between them.

The conversion into the target user action directly depends on the high-quality preparation of the landing page to which the target audience is directed according to the advertisement. The landing page should be primarily relevant to the ad and also contain content that will meet the needs of the target audience. In addition, it should be optimized for work with search engines (SEO settings). The rating and place of the ad in search results depends on the quality of the page.

Each enterprise must know exactly its target audience and understand exactly who the advertisement should be aimed at, which will simplify its correct setting within contextual advertising.

Researching the target audience and understanding the rhythm of life of the target consumers will allow you to set the right time for the release of advertisements and displays to the target audience, that is, to match this time with the time when the user will directly search.

When forming a high-quality semantic core, it is advisable to use several different services for the selection of keywords that exactly correspond to search queries (Google Ads, Serpstat, Key Collector, Keyword Tool, etc.).

The text of the announcement must be competent and effective. Today, contextual advertising is automated and, accordingly, there are various services that help create ads and check them for appearance and perception by the target audience. It is advisable to check ads using various services, as well as conduct A/B testing in order to increase the effectiveness of the search advertising campaign.

An important stage within contextual advertising is the connection of web analytics in order to monitor in real time how the advertising campaign is progressing.

Implementation of the given recommendations in the selected stages will allow effective advertising campaigns taking into account the interests of the target audience, which will create positive impressions, with optimal costs. This will help to increase sales and increase the income and profit of the enterprise.

Synergistic connection of contextual advertising and search engine optimization

Search optimization, as a tool of search marketing, is a set of measures to increase the position of a website in the results of search engine results based on pre-selected user searches. That is, both contextual advertising and search engine optimization are based on the use of a semantic mechanism for working with user searches. Contextual advertising and search engine optimization have their own characteristics (Table 1).

Table 1

Comparison of contextual advertising and search engine optimization

Source: compiled by the author using data (Rindfleisch, 2020; Ivitsky, 2021; Shevchenko, 2024).

As it could be seen from the Table 1, both channels of attracting traffic to the website have their own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. At the same time, it is advisable for the enterprise to use both channels in order to ensure the synergistic effect of their interaction.

Search engine optimization is systematic work on a website, from the beginning of its implementation to raising the position of the site in the results of search results and bringing it to the top 3 on the first page, it takes from three to six months. Maintaining high positions and, accordingly, creating positive user impressions requires: constant generation of high-quality content relevant to the requests of target consumers; gradual increase in referral mass to the site from authoritative sources; tracking feedback about the site's performance and about the company and its brand/product in general, as search engine algorithms react to any negative mentions on the web related not only to the site, but also to the brand/company, which affects its ranking and site position in search results; competent settings of the internal optimization of the site without using dishonest methods of promotion, etc. Such organic promotion of the site in the long term leads to the fact that search engines begin to "like" it, they perceive it as high-quality and, free of charge for the enterprise, promote the site in the results of search queries of target users, which is effective in the long term. At the same time, enterprises that carry out entrepreneurial activities need to ensure sales every day. This task is helped by contextual advertising.

Contextual advertising is a paid tool, the company pays for each click on the advertisement (CPC pricing model (Iankovets, 2023а). The effectiveness of contextual advertising is ensured, among other things, by competent search optimization aimed at improving the quality of the website.

If the company will use only one of the search marketing tools, it will not perform part of the website promotion tasks. Using only search engine optimization provides targeted traffic to the site, but it happens slowly. Using only contextual advertising can provide a short-term effect in increasing sales, but only under the condition of a high-quality site provided by search engine optimization. Therefore, the use of both channels in communication increases the share of target customers' traffic from 40% (using one channel) to 90%.

Search engine optimization in creating website user impressions

To create positive impressions of website users, it is important to ensure that the site is optimized for the requirements of the search engines used by the target audience to find information. Searching and finding information should be convenient and fast, and the obtained results should contribute to the satisfaction of users from receiving exactly the necessary and useful information, which will make a positive impression. This will improve the customer experience and form a loyal audience of the website, which meets the requests as fully as possible and allows solving specific needs.

Search engine optimization (SEO) includes a set of measures to optimize a website to increase its position in search engine results for preselected user searches. The purpose of SEO for commercial resources is to increase the traffic of potential target consumers with the subsequent monetization of this traffic, that is, the receipt of income and profit by the enterprise. For non-commercial resources, the goal of SEO is to increase the network traffic of a potential audience.

There is a huge number of various websites on the network, from which search engines collect data (scanning) and, according to this data, classify sites by content (indexing). Next, ranking takes place, i.e. giving the site weight by the search engine and sorting the sites by location in the search results. According to the results of research presented in the source (Rindfleisch, 2020), it was found that if the site comes to the first place in the results of the search query, 80% of users switch to it, if the site comes to the fifth place - 20% of users. If the site gets to the second page instead of the first, only 3% of users make the transition. Accordingly, the further from the first page a site is located, the less likely it is to be seen at all by those who are looking for exactly what is offered on it. To increase the position of the site in the search results, SEO is carried out, which is divided into internal and external.

The internal optimization of the website is aimed at eliminating technical errors and improving the resource - the site becomes as relevant as possible for search engines and users. The terminology of internal optimization is updated over time and today contains the following basic concepts: metatags: title, description; h1 tag; mass and weight of the word.

A tag is the name of an element of the standardized HTML language (document markup language for viewing web pages in a browser), written in angle brackets (< >). Web browsers receive an HTML document from the server using HTTP/HTTPS protocols or open it from a local disk, then interpret the code into the interface that is displayed on the monitor screen. An HTML document consists of a group of elements, where each element begins and ends with a certain tag. Usually, tags are used in pairs, the opening and closing tags between which the element is located. Yes, information about the document is located after the opening <head> tag. The </head> tag closes a text element with information about the document. It is before the closing tag </head> that the web analytics counters are located, which are installed on the site pages to collect information about traffic and user behavior. Each HTML tag has its own unique name with a defined syntax, which is written in Latin letters and is not case-sensitive. A meta tag is a tag designed to present accompanying data about a web page. For the internal optimization of the site, it is important to specify the title and description meta tags correctly. This is service information about the page that does not get to the page itself, but is visible to the search engine, which is necessary for scanning and indexing the page.

The <title> meta tag tells the search engine what the page title should be in search results. The name of the page itself should be located between the opening and closing tags (Figure 6):

Figure 6. The title of the web page in HTML language in the source code Source: view-source: https://rozetka.com.ua/

The title of the page should briefly and clearly reflect its content, the optimal length of the title is 60-70 characters, the maximum is up to 120 characters. Usually, the most frequent search query is placed at the beginning of the title text.

The <title> meta tag is displayed:

in the source code of the page (Figure 6);

in the output snippet (Figure 7);

Figure 7. Displaying the title of the page in the search results output snippet Source: Google.

* in the browser tab (Figure 8);

Figure 8. Displaying the page name in the Google Chrome browser tab

in the CMS control panel (site management system).

The <description> meta tag is used by search engines to describe a page in search results. The description should be clear, concise, contain keywords. The optimal length of the page description is 120-135 characters, no more than 200 characters.

The <description> meta tag is displayed:

in the source code of the page (Figure 9);

Figure 9. Displaying the description of the website in the source code Source: view-source: https://rozetka.com.ua in the output snippet (Figure 10)

Figure 10. Displaying the description of the page in the search results output snippet Source: Google. in the CMS control panel.

For a long time, internal search engine optimization used the <keywords> meta tag to determine the relevance of a page. But over time, there are changes in the work of algorithms of search engines and, accordingly, in the requirements for the promotion of websites.

Algorithms of search engines are constantly developing and improving. Today, the relevance of a page is determined not so much by the similarity of keywords to user searches, but by the meaning of the text as a whole, even if synonyms and other phraseological units are used instead of keywords. Hence, the placement of the <keywords> meta tag has become optional since 2007. Practitioners even advise to remove this metatag altogether, as algorithms perceive it negatively as artificially created semantics and attribute it to dishonest promotion of the site, which affects the reduction of its positions in search results (Shulga, 2017). It is more important to generate high-quality content to increase the quality index of the site, which affects the increase of its positions in the issue as a whole with the use of search marketing tools, both search engine optimization and contextual advertising.

Also, in the internal optimization of the site, when marking up the page to structure its content in order to improve the display of information and its perception by users, headings and subheadings are used, which are marked with the tag hi - page heading, h2-h6 - subheadings. A title differs from a page title in that a page title is the service information that does not appear on the page, while the title is what users see when they land on it. Therefore, it is advisable to place the header on each page at the top, it should be clearly visible. Moreover, the title should not repeat the name of the page (hi is not equal to title), be concise and contain the main search query (Figure 11).

Subheadings h2-h6 must differ in terms of text and queries in them from the h1 header, may not contain exact queries, located inside the text on the page. When formulating the title and sub-headings, it is recommended not to use the word "buy" and its synonyms.

Figure 11. Comparison of the title (<title>) and the title (<h1>) of the page Source: view-source:https://intertop.ua/ua/catalog/zhenskaya_obuv/marc-o-polo/

When working with texts on website pages, it is important to improve the quality indicator of both a separate page and the site as a whole to comply with the requirements for the mass and weight of words. Word weight is the ratio of the number of repetitions of a given keyword (phrase, phrase) to the total number of indexed words on the page. The share of the keyword in the text on the page should not exceed 8%, and this value is critical from the point of view of over-optimization (oversaturation of the text with keywords). The optimal value of the word weight indicator is 4% (Rindfleisch, 2020). The weight of the word characterizes the semantic connection of the keyword with the content of the page. The weight of the word is higher if the main keyword: is used in the title of the page; located in the header (and, as mentioned above, the name of the page and the header must be worded differently); highlighted in bold; placed in the first third of the text; used in picture captions.

The sequence of actions for the internal optimization of the website is presented in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Algorithm of internal website optimization

Source: systematized by the author according to (Rindfleisch, 2020; Ivitskyi, 2021; Shulga, 2022; Shevchenko, 2024)

Competitor analysis is important in terms of identifying how competitors are represented and where they appear in search results, what keywords they are promoting, and what their site structure is, etc. Like any competitor analysis, competitor analysis in search marketing is necessary to identify their strengths and weaknesses. It is advisable to use the best experience in the development and promotion of your own site. Disadvantages of competitors are opportunities for the company. Services such as Serpstat, SEMRush, etc. are used to analyze competitors.

1. The creation of the semantic core takes place according to the same principles and using the same resources as in contextual advertising. The difference is that in contextual advertising, the semantic core is selected to promote a specific ad and is small in scope. In search engine optimization, the semantic core is formed to promote each page of the website, so it can include tens of thousands of keywords (depending on the type and information architecture of the site (Iankovets, 2023b).

Query clustering involves the analysis of selected keywords in the semantic core, which allows you to identify clusters (groups of keywords) in different thematic areas. The semantic structure of the site is formed from the obtained clusters.

Formation of the semantic structure of the site, which is a logical scheme and principle of location of site pages, categories and subcategories. How quickly the user will find the necessary information on it depends on how simple and understandable the site's structure is. There are two main types of site structure: simple linear and tree.

A simple linear structure assumes the presence of a main page and several internal pages. This structure is suitable for small sites, for example, portfolio or business card sites (Figure 13).

Figure 13. Simple linear website structure Source: generated by the author.

The tree structure of the site is used for more large sites, blogs, online stores and online portals. In Figure 14 presents examples of the tree structure of various types of sites.

a) the structure of the corporate website

b) the structure of the online store

c) blog structure

d) the structure of the news portal

Figure 14. Semantic structure of different types of sites Source: created by the author based on (Iankovets, 2023b).

In the structure of the corporate site (Figure 14a), "Subdivision" is the main page relative to the "Subdivision 1" page. The main page of the "Blog" is divided into several sections, each of which contains articles on the corresponding topic.

The tree structure of the online store (Figure 14b) can have an unlimited number of categories and subcategories. At the same time, it is important to comply with the requirement that the page of any product should be located no further than three clicks from the main page. For example, for a clothing store, it is advisable to create such nesting of pages "clothing - men's clothing - outerwear". The user can choose types of clothing using filters.

In the structure of the blog (Figure 14c), posts are grouped by categories. For example, in a food blog, articles can be categorized by region or country (Mediterranean, Chinese, Italian, etc.) or by type of food (soups, meat dishes, fish dishes, salads, etc.).

The content on the news portal (Figure 14d) can be grouped according to a more complex branched structure. It can be grouped by material type or publication date. In this case, the content will be placed in the appropriate categories.

Technical aspects, indexing. After the necessary metatags (title, description) and tags (h1, can also be h2-h6) are added to the code of each web page in the formed site structure, the pages are filled with high-quality content, all technical settings are made, it is important to add the site to search engine services, with the help of which you can get information about how the site is presented in the search results in order to optimize the content and identify and correct possible malfunctions. In particular, registration in the free Google Search Console service helps to find out how the site is scanned by the Google search engine and allows you to improve interaction with it (About Search Console, n.d.). With the help of Search Console, it is possible to monitor and optimize the traffic, position and appearance of the site in the search results due to: acceleration of the process of finding the site by the Google system and its scanning and indexing; detection of problems with indexing and, after their correction, a request for re-indexing of new or updated content; estimates of the traffic coming to the site from Google search, how often and for which queries links to the site's pages appear in search results, how often users click on them and make a transition; receiving a notification about problems with indexing, spam and other malfunctions; identifying which sites refer to the resource; troubleshooting AMP pages (a format of web pages that load quickly and are convenient for viewing on smartphones), etc.