Now that you have established yourself and become familiar with your home market, its time to expand to other geographies. You look at the market research reports and realize that there is a tremendous growth potential. Poring over the new country demographics you decide on the best location for your store and set up shop. The market research report also advises you to setup a local website in that geography. You take your SEO optimized website and put it through Google Translator or through a local translation agency and presto your Search Engine Optimized local website is ready. Well that was quick & easy - wasn’t it? That cost even lesser than the cost of registering the local domain.

But is my site really optimized?

International SEO is a complex process as it involved several variables like the local language and the local search engines. Most of the SEO companies optimize for Google - what do you do in China - there is no Google? What do you do in Japan - where mobile internet is the norm and Yahoo is the most preferred search engine.
Continue reading »

Riding the Marketing Highway

If you searched on the keyword “oil spill” (937M+ results) on Google you will discover that BP is bidding on the keyword to hit the top spot. Their ad tells the curious that the link will provide information on the spill and BP’s effort in helping.  BP did not stop at this one keyword but extended it  right into the realm of the long tail with keyword like “deepwater horizon explosion causes” (down to 2M+ search results). The company extended its paid search to News (ok), Books (?), Shopping (??), Discussions (not bad) and if you are in map section searching for “deepwater horizon oil spill” you will find the BP ad pointing you in the right (?) direction!

BP bidding on the keyword oil spill

Why is EzLocalJobFind.com paying for the keyword - oil spill on Yahoo??

BTW the keyword “oil spill lawsuits” brought up 16M hits  on Google with Beasley Allen as the sole advertiser (they claim on their website -www.oil-spill.com to have filed a class action lawsuit on the oil spill).
Continue reading »