Digital Marketing Interview Questions & Answers Which Are A Must Prepare!– Part 1

Are you looking to foray into the growing field of digital marketing in the coming years? If yes, then whether you are a fresher or experienced candidate, the industry demand for digital marketers is increasing with 4 of every 10 job postings in marketing reserved for openings in the digital marketing space.

However high the industry demand for digital marketers, it does not automatically guarantee a lucrative job for an aspiring candidate like you. You still need to perform well in the job interview in order to get a suitable break or even that dream job in digital marketing.

Don’t worry, we are here to help you. In this 2-part interview series, we intend to cover essential Digital Marketing interview questions (& the best answers) when applying for a digital marketing job in 2019. What’s more? We have selected questions & answers that are related to areas of specialization such as SEO marketing, PPC Ads, Content marketing, Content Writing, Social Media Marketing, & Google Analytics.

So, let’s get started!

Leading Interview Questions in Digital Marketing 

1.  How is digital marketing better than the traditional form of marketing?

Traditional marketing involves the use of traditional marketing channels like print and television that promotes a product or service to a local customer base. Traditional marketing is also known as outbound marketing as the business uses marketing tactics that can push its products or services to the wider customer base,  

On the other hand, digital marketing uses a variety of online marketing channels to promote products or services to a larger global customer base according to individual needs or interests. Also known as inbound marketing, this form of marketing is focused on pulling online users to a particular brand and products.

With traditional marketing, business enterprises find it challenging to accurately measure the impact of their marketing initiatives in terms of how many people showed interest or how they responded to the promotional message. A digital marketing technique like an online advertisement enables the business to accurately measures the number of ad views/ clicks along with customer purchases.

2.  Which are some of the common channels that you would use for digital marketing in 2019?

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) using keywords is among the most effective methods for successful digital marketing. SEO marketing can help in increasing incoming web traffic to your business website from the search engine or off-page SEO methods like backlinking. You can effectively use social media marketing on platforms like Facebook or Instagram to improve online brand awareness. 

Other online marketing channels include E-mail marketing and affiliate marketing, branded videos or advertising on YouTube, and engaging blog posts that can resolve common pain points for the readers.

3.  How can you popularize your YouTube video content with the help of SEO?

●Include your other social media handles in your YouTube channel page.

●YouTube video descriptions are critical for improving SEO.

●Add video transcript that has relevant search-specific keywords for your channel.

●Write description similar to that of your competitors.

4.  Rank the Top 10 Digital Marketing tools according to their utility?

The most efficient 10 digital marketing tools are:

●MOZ tool to choose the appropriate keywords for your website.

●Ahrefs SEO tool to track the most keyword searches and backlinks on your website.

●Serpstat or Buzzstream tool for content marketing & link building.

●MailChimp tool for Email campaigns

●Buzzsumo tool for generating content-related ideas

●Google Analytics tool for website analytics

●Later App or Social Pilot tool for social media management

●Google AdWords & Facebook Ads Manager tool for hosting your digital ads

●Manychat tool for building a chatbot on Facebook Messenger

●AdRoll or ReTargeter tools for Retargeting Ads.

5.  What are the various ways to increase incoming traffic to a business website?

An efficient SEO strategy is among the effective methods of improving your business ranking in a popular search engine like Google. A higher Google rank in search engine results can be achieved through optimum use of keywords on both on-page and off-page website content along with effective SEO-related website content that encourages more online visits. 

6.  What is the difference between White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO?

Both of these SEO practices are aimed at getting a higher search engine ranking for the concerned business website on Google. White Hat SEO is a legitimate practice that follows Google’s strict guidelines and uses techniques such as publishing relevant website content with keywords, website restructuring for effective SEO, and link building.

On the other hand, Black Hat SEO is an illegitimate practice that takes advantage of weaknesses in Google algorithms to achieve a higher search engine ranking. Some of the Black Hat SEO techniques include keyword stuffing, hidden website links, and spam links.

Black Hat SEO techniques can result in the imposition of a Google Penalty on the website owner. For more information, here’s the complete list of Google penalties.

Grey Hat SEO is a legitimate SEO technique that is classified between White and Black Hat SEO. Here are 20 of the leading Grey Hat SEO techniques that you can use.

7.  How would you go about devising the right SEO strategy for improving customer conversions?

As a digital marketer, my job includes devising effective SEO practices that can increase organic search traffic and improve customer conversions. Along with other successful practices, I would focus on the following:

●Keyword research using tools like Moz and Ahfrefs that can help in creating high-quality SEO content with the most relevant keywords.

●Website traffic analytics using tools like Google Analytics that measure website traffic numbers and trends and to use the analytics data to evaluate my current SEO strategy.

●Website ranking improvement using online tools to improve search quality and ranking.

●Link building tools such as Ahrefs that can increase backlinks and improve website ranking.

●Landing page optimization (or LPO) is an effective method of improving conversions by redesigning website elements.

●SEO audit tools like Screaming Frog and Semrush SEO that can audit the website and analyse all its webpages, loading speed, and links.

●On-site SEO methods like the Conversion Rate Optimization (or CRO) process.

●Easy and organized website design that is good for both SEO and user navigation 

8.  What is the character limit imposed on Pay-Per-Click (or PPC) ads in search engines?

Standard PPC ads have a limit of 25 characters in the Ad headline and 70 characters for the Ad description. Expanded Text-based PPC Ads in search engines have a limit of 30 characters each for Headline 1 and 2 of the Ad and 80 characters in the Ad description.

9.  Can Google detect an invalid click in its ads?

Yes, Google does protect its digital advertisers by automatically detecting and filtering out fake or malicious clicks on its PPC ads. For any Google AdWords campaign, Google has launched an Ad Traffic Quality Resource Centre for digital advertisers to monitor their ad traffic.

Read this Google support link for information on the types of invalid traffic and how Google handles this problem. 

Tip: Here are some Google Ad guidelines that you must know: Google Best Practices.

10.  How would you go about listing a Product-based PPC ad for an E-commerce retailer?

Product Listing Ads (or PLAs) are the most effective mode of advertising products on the Google search engine. PLAs are very effective for user clicks as they prominently feature the product image and can also be tailored for product categories. Users clicking on PLAs are directly navigated to the E-commerce seller’s website page. E-commerce sellers with more than 500 products to sell should also consider listing their products on Google Shopping.

11.  How do you make your blog or content article more SEO-friendly?

Foremost, determine the appropriate keywords that must be part of your blog or content article and include them seamlessly in the article flow. Make sure that your blog or article has a minimum of 300 words. Here are some more tips on how to make your content blog more SEO-friendly:

●Follow a clear blog post structure by including shorter paragraphs and sentences that are easy to read along with appropriate number of headings.

●Use an appropriate article title that is relevant and attractive in search engine results.

●Use internal links in your content piece that enable search engines to find new pages on your website.

●Make your blog more engaging by including optimized images, statistics, and other elements that enhance the content quality.

●Include an appropriate meta description in each blog post or article.

12.  Provide a few tips on how to achieve content marketing success with good content writing.

While a majority of both B2B and B2C invest in content marketing for their online campaigns, only a few are able to achieve their business goals from content marketing. These are a few tips on how business can achieve success through content marketing:

●Use of effective business blogs can improve your online presence.

●Use the Skyscraper technique to increase backlinks and your organic search traffic.

●As a B2B business, adopt a content marketing strategy that reflects your subject knowledge and authority that can guide your business customers. As A B2C company, adopt a content strategy that aims to benefit or improve your customer lives.

13.  Which method is more effective in search engine marketing - SEO or PPC?

SEO and PPC advertising are both effective in improving the visibility of your business in search engine results. While SEO can help in improving incoming website traffic, brand awareness, and organic searches, PPC enables your business in improving the effectiveness of targeted ads, conversions, and business revenues. Among the disadvantages, PPC ads can be quite expensive particularly if you are targeting your online campaign to a wider user base, while SEO techniques may not increase the organic traffic to your website.

By efficiently combining SEO and PPC marketing, business enterprises can achieve both short-term and long-term goals from search engine marketing.

14.  Explain the various types of SEO keyword matches and when to use them.?

There are broadly 3 types of keyword matches for SEO management, namely:

●Broad Match that includes keywords that can cater to a wide range of searches and search results. This includes the most common type of online searches made by users on search engines and can drive a large volume of traffic to your website.

●Exact Match where the search query has to exactly match your keyword in order to list your website or ad on the search engine results. While this method can drive lower traffic to your website, the incoming traffic will be more relevant to your campaign thus resulting in a higher conversion rate.

●Phrase Match where the included keywords range between broad and exact match.This method can drive more website traffic as compared to that of exact matches but is still lower than that of the broad match method.

15.  How does the “Map Overlay” feature of Google Analytics help?

The “Map Overlay” feature in Google Analytics tool displays a heat map that indicates the volume of incoming traffic and user engagement on your website according to geographical locations or countries. Typically, dark-colored maps indicate high traffic and engagement while light-colored heat maps indicate the lowest user engagement.

Conclusion

Along with having adequate technical skills in all the areas of digital marketing you also need to possess problem-solving skills in business enterprises and be updated in the latest industry trends in this field.In Part 2 of this article, we shall cover more essential interview questions to crack Digital Marketing interviews. 

Also, If you want to advance your digital marketing skills to the next level, take a look at some of Manipal’s advanced digital marketing courses in association with Google.

Written By

Kamal Jacob