August 6, 2018

2.1: Search Engines – National Differences

2.1 : Search Engines – National Differences

Dr. Tahir Rashid, Senior Lecturer, Salford Business School, UK

Search engine marketing is about increasing the visibility of the websites on the search engine results pages, known as SERP.

SERP = Search Engine Results Page

Search engines are free tools that are available on the internet and they are the second most frequently used tools after only sending emails and receiving emails.

Why do we need to understand search engine marketing? Because most users don’t go beyond the first three pages of search engine results pages and we want to gain a high listing on the search engines by search engine optimization.

If your website is not on the first 3 pages of SERP for a particular keyword phrase –

it is unlikely to be visited from that keyword phrase.

Search engine optimization is about making sure that our listing is higher than perhaps our competitors, and certainly on the first three pages.

Not all countries use the same search engine – you always need to think about the target audience and their preferred search engine.

There are a number of search engines available for a marketer to consider depending on the geographic locations and also perhaps the audience we are targeting. Google, of course, is the most popular search engine around the world, but Baidu is the most popular Chinese search engine. And if you are targeting Russian customers, Russian buyers, then Yandex is the most popular search engine there. Yahoo has been around for a very long time, but in Japan it is still the most popular search engine. Naver is the most popular search engine in South Korea, gaining into 80% popularity, and Seznam is the most popular search engine in the Czech Republic.

So we need to consider where we are targeting our digital marketing campaign, and which search engines would be the most appropriate for us to gain a higher listing.

Colin Telford, Managing Partner, The Candidate Ltd, UK

The use of content for search engines and optimization is absolutely crucial and central to our marketing initiatives.

Content is influence by the needs of the business plan and is targeted at search engines and other communication channels

The content which we produce all comes from the business plan which then leads on to the actual marketing plan and we produce content and tactical activity based around the key subjects and the key initiatives and objectives of those different plans.

The specifics are dictated by the target audience

The result is content influenced by the business plan but relevant to the target audience

We marry this up with the desire and the wishes and what our candidates are looking for when they are online and by optimizing what we are putting on our website matching that with what candidates are looking for then we can have content which is very strong, very search engine friendly, and attracts a lot of interest, and clicks, and interactions from our candidate base.

Alex Charalambidis, Digital Marketing Strategist, MONKS, Greece

Two main techniques: on page and off page.

Key SEO techniques:

  • On page optimization
  • Off page optimization

The on page technique is every thing related in your website from the content, navigation, user experience, so this is one part and I think itis more than 40% of whole success.

On page optimization:

Integration of identified keyword phrases in

  • Web page title
  • Web page description
  • Web page URL
  • Web page Heading1
  • First paragraph of the page
  • Image names

Use of keyword phrase synonyms etc.

And the other part, when your on page optimization is ready, is off page. Off page means every source and every link coming to your website. So if it’s a major source, you have a better link coming from Google. This is how the algorithm works, so I think it’s more than 50 or 60% of the whole success.

Off page optimization:

Promotion of targeted content to help amplify brand and non-brand phrases

Integration of same keyword phrases on social media platforms, creating externally hosted content in many formats – video, audio, text, etc.

Additional materials

Managing search engines

Search engines are one of the main tools that allow us to navigate the Internet. To make your website or social media profiles easily accessible you first need to understand How Search Engines Work.

Google is one of the leading search engines and whilst there are countries where it is not that popular the key principles used by Google apply to most other search engines:

In the above video Matt Cutts – one of the Googles Anti SPAM team members explains the key aspect of a search engine and its need to index your pages before they are shared with its audiences.

Here is a brief overview of search engine optimisation for start ups

References

SEO starter Guide by Google

 http://static.googleusercontent.co…

Beginners guide to SEO – MOZ

 https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to…

Search Engine Ranking Factors 2015 – MOZ

 https://moz.com/search-ranking-fac…

International SEO guide

 https://moz.com/learn/seo/internat…

Keyword density for SEO: really?

 http://mastersindigitalmarketing.o…

Google Algorithm Change History

 https://moz.com/google-algorithm-c…

Search Engine Ranking Factors

 https://moz.com/search-ranking-fac…

Please see following pages for chapter 2:

2.0 Understanding the different nature of digital channels based on geographic, demographic and digital fit for a campaign
2.2 Social Media platforms differences in countries and how to they can be used
2.3 Email marketing and how it can be used
2.4 Affiliate marketing and how it can be used
2.5 Mobile marketing and how it could be used
2.6 Paid channels overview – search and social
2.7 Communities focused engagement