Global Search Marketing

SEMNE CT Meeting

March 31, 2010

Bill Hunt

Your just a click away from the world!

Twitter: @billhunt

International Opportunity

• 85% of Small Medium Businesses in US and Europe indicated search engines offer them the best mode for market expansion

• 65% of Fortune 100 generate more than 50% of their revenue outside the US

• 70% of all Google queries were in a language other than English

• Search is the least inexpensive mode of entry of any form or global expansion.

Twitter: @billhunt

Target Users at the Time of Interest in their language

www.yourcompany.comin English / Japanese / French / Korean / German / Italian / Spanish / Dutch

Drive targeted leads to your international sites

航空券

billet d’avion

flugticket

plane ticket 항공권

volo

vuelos

vlucht

Twitter: @billhunt4

Global Search Challenges

But, with the increased awareness and demand comes new challenges…

– Search breaks down traditional geographic barriers leading to potential customer frustration due to language, navigation or ecommerce issues

– Content owners now compete for keywords, awareness and traffic based on who has the better optimized content resulting

– Advanced creative techniques can be counterproductive to search requirements

– Grass roots programs create duplication and waste

Opportunities

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Business Opportunities

Going Global = More Business Opportunities

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Opportunities - Regins

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Opportunities - Languages

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Opportunities - Countries

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Why Go Global?

• Demand is already coming to you– Log file analysis

– Sales and leads

• Language and communication ability– Customer service

– Infrastructure (channel partners)

• Internet usage and E-commerce– Market place interests and product categories

• New Markets & Demand for Products– Emerging markets or advancing technology opportunities

Twitter: @billhunt

Review the Opportunities

http://www.google.com/landing/exporttool/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Planning & Challenges

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Objectives and Goals

• Determine the Business Objectives for Global Websites and Global PPC Campaigns– Target audience

– How to measure the success

– Size and budget of campaigns

– In-house, Out-sourced, or Hybrid

Create a Project Road Map

Research target markets and be prepared

Twitter: @billhunt

Target Engines

• Google – 62.4%

• Yahoo – 12.8%

• Baidu – 5.2%

• MSN(bing) – 2.9%

• Naver – 2.6%

Twitter: @billhunt

There are some challenges…

• Different market means different:– Rules

– People

– Culture

– Behavioral Patterns

Twitter: @billhunt

Regional Challenges

• Different outlet – social media, blog, etc.

• Market trends

• Different search behaviors

• Different seasonal behaviors– fiscal year

– shopping, vacation seasons

– difference in products to push

• Purchasing options– credit card, COD, offline

• Content regulations– gov regulations

– trademark, etc.

Twitter: @billhunt

On-going Challenges

• Ranking Reports

• Campaign Maintenance

• Foreign Customer Services

• Legal / ContractsHow to stay “Competitive” in foreign market

Twitter: @billhunt

Key Elements of Search – any language

• Ensuring your site is search friendly which allows spiders to visit and index the content on the site

• Ensuring your pages include the keyword phrases actually used by searchers

• Ensuring the pages of your website are as compliant as possible with the search engine scoring algorithms

• Ensuring compelling and action oriented descriptions that encourage visits

• Ensure a well defined and user friendly conversion path

Twitter: @billhunt

Technical Challenges

• CMS settings

• Geo targeting, ccTLDs– Index problem

– Duplicate content

• Different target engines

• Languages / localization– Right to Left

– Double byte character set

• Tools (multi-lingual)

• Domain, sub-domain

• Hosting

• Link building

Infrastructure Issues

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Leverage Templates for Scale

• Maximize reach across the organization & globe

• Focus on top level templates – Optimize the templates when developed

– Ensure the optimal page elements are pulled into the template correctly

• Leverage Style Guides and Business Rules– Forces overseas offices to comply with optimized formats

– Give you way to monitor implementation of the program

Twitter: @billhunt

Template and top-level content optimisation

Sony.de Sony.fr Etc.

Page Title and Meta Data recommendations

Fully indexable navigation?

Ensure all parts of the page are indexable

Correct use of Header tags

Can search engine’s follow all of the links?

Enhancement of cross-links to distribute link equity

Twitter: @billhunt

IBM Software Online Catalogs are currently available in 235 countries translated in 23 languages. Product ordering is currently available in 33 countries around the world

Goals:

•Be the “go to source” on the web for all IBM software•Rank well without significant local interaction and optimization•Drive incrimental traffic and conversions from brand and generic terms

Global SEO for IBM Software Online Catalog

Countries who can order Countries with catalogs only Countries not enabled

Languages

1. Brazilian Portuguese

2. Chinese Simplified

3. Croatian

4. Czech

5. Dutch

6. English

7. Finnish

8. French

9. French Canadian

10. German

11. Hungarian

12. Italian

13. Korean

14. Norwegian

15. Polish

16. Russian

17. Slovakian

18. Spanish

19. Swedish

20. Turkish

21. Japanese

22. Traditional Chinese

23. Danish

Twitter: @billhunt

Optimizing the Catalog

Results:

• 82% of Tier 1 phrases in all markets ranking on first page

• Majority of traffic now from Search

• Exponential increase in sales immediately after indexing

• Working with geo teams to determine current rankings in local search engines and geo-specific terms to optimize for

• Altering templates to allow addition of geo-specific keywords to titles, headings, and spiderable text

• Reducing redirects and simplifying URL structures to increase performance of pages as well as spiderability

• Created country-specific XML site maps to push inclusion

Source: IBM Presentation SES San Jose 2009

Twitter: @billhunt

Barriers to getting global sites indexed

• Popups can’t be indexed

• Pull-down country maps can’t be crawled

• Restrictive JavaScript for language detection

• Restrictive Robots.txt and meta robots

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Location and Language Detection

• Country Detection Methods– Top Level Domain, IP of server/host, detected language

• Language Detection– Most engines an detect top 3 languages automatically

– 93% of European searchers restrict to “language”

• Engines using Searcher IP detection to present local relevant content

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GEO Targeting for Google

All web Pages in German languagePages in Germany “.de”

Sitemap Country setting

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Fixing Location & Language Barriers

• Use correct Meta language tags

–<html lang=“de"> or <html lang=“en_gb">

–<meta http-equiv="content-language" content="ja">

• Use correct Character Set meta tags

–<meta http-equiv="content-type" content= "text/html; charset=shift-jis"> -- Japanese

–<meta http-equiv="Content-Type“ content="text/html; charset=windows-1251"/> -- Russian

• Use local domain names .de .fr .co.uk– They can be hosted in the US

– At least a few pages on the local market domain

Twitter: @billhunt

Maximize WW Link Architecture

• Leverage enormous power of WW Sites to build link equity

• Leverage Partners and Distributed content to increase link equity

Link Equity is the amount of positive value your website receives from the totality of “links” or “votes” for your content from internal and external sources which is the foundation of Google’s Scoring Algorithm.

Helps define the global server strategy as well

Linguistic Issues

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Benefit of Website Globalization

• Standard site design and management

• Linking strategy

• Cost saving

• Time efficiency

• Manpower reduction

• Standardizing brand image and business strategies

Twitter: @billhunt

Localization Challenges

• Languages:– Different spellings

• “localise” or “localize”

– Different meanings• “football” or “soccer

• Currencies

• Metrics

• Address

• Local Legal Requirements– Business & License information

– Hours & Locations

– Return Policies

Twitter: @billhunt

Mistakes With “Word for Word” Translation

Not translated 「ホテル名」

「 US$40以下」

「 US$200以上」

「 US$ｘｘ以上、 US$ｘｘ以下」

「 111件中 1番目から 20番目のホテル」

This should be on the right side of the currency box.

???Wrong character「ホテル名」

「全てのホテルを表示する」

Twitter: @billhunt

• Don't force US keywords on the local offices - share with them the logic behind the recommended KWs (w/data) and let them add their own local touches

• Educate them on the value of the words and why to look beyond branded terms 

• Share well performing words in local markets with all markets for potential new opportunities (closed feedback loop)

• Don’t translate keywords but identify the best words for the local market.

Keyword Research

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Keywords

• Keyword Research in each market“America (USA)”アメリカ : 110,000アメリカ合衆国 : 14,800米国 : 4,400合衆国 : 720

“Baby carrier”ベビーキャリア :1,600抱っこ紐 :12,100抱っこひも： 6,600だっこひも： 2,900だっこ紐： 1,300

Twitter: @billhunt

Keyword planning in each language

• Don’t just translate the English words

• Add all of the variations to expand keywords

• 20% of keywords in campaign are not popular or wrong translations

• 70% of Google queries are from outside the USA!

Spanish Italian German French

Keyword Searches Keyword Searches Keyword Searches Keyword Searches

ordenador 115,826 computer 557,015 notebooks 1,536,826 ordinateur portable 1,201,928

portatil 66,609 notebook 107,758 computer 1,205,954 ordinateur 728,504

ordenador portatil 40,026 pc 87,493 laptop 232,756 portable 254,664

computadora 20,419 portatile notebook 54,516 pc 194,804 pc 127,644

venta de ordenador 17,224 computer portatile 33,212 pc system 39,778 pc portable 59,568

oferta portatil 11,179 pc portatile 24,381 pcs notebooks 35,066 achat pc 18,252

oferta ordenador 9,790 personal computer 14,658 computer hardware 14,952 achat ordinateur 16,836

juego de ordenador 6,969 negozi computer 10,829 computer notebook 14,805 laptop 10,260

oferta ordenador portatil 6,720 notebook offerta 6,528 pc komplettsystem 13,146 vente ordinateur 9,440

notebook 3,609 vendita notebook 4,274 pc hardware 10,458 ordinateur de bureau 9,148

Twitter: @billhunt

Keyword Organization & Management

• Organize your keywords by:– Languages– Locations– Target audiences– Purchase cycle– Importance

• Brand name

• Product name

• Model numbers, etc.

Set up separate account with different target language/location for each market to avoid bidding against yourself

Twitter: @billhunt

Managing the Localization Process

• Cheap translation is just that… cheap translation!– Translators are NOT optimizers– Many translators don’t even use the Internet– Few translators understand keyword research– Few translators integrate keyword research into their process

• Review basic optimization techniques with team– Teach them to understand key techniques and concepts– Help copywriters combine search techniques with marketing copy– Maintain keyword prominence and density– Often substitute words and phrases “it, our product, we” – Understand “correct word” is not always “optimal word”

•

Twitter: @billhunt

Blended L10N & Optimization Process

Scope

Primary Tasks

Keyword Optimization

Identify, analyze and refine optimal keywords

1. Critical Keyword List2. External Demand 3. On-site Search4. Current Position5. Content Availability &

User query centric

Glossary Development

Localization Step

Algorithm Compliance

Use SEO best practices to ensure translated content is optimal for scoring

1. Keyword Occurrence2. Keyword Density3. Keyword

Prominence4. Descriptive Sentence

Content Translation

Page Updates

Ensuring the final page has all the key elements needed for ranking well.

1. Ensure complete translation

2. Ensure proper language tags

3. Ensure optimal placement of keywords

Page QA

SEO Step

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Localized PPC Ad Creative

• Write effective ads for each market

• Double byte characters = A half the space

• Check competitors’ ads

• Use dynamic insertion cautiously

Team & Organizational Issues

Twitter: @billhunt

Winning Hearts and Minds• Build a Culture of Search

• Set expectations accordingly -- local teams often don’t have as much resource and asked to do many other tasks

• Develop your own local awareness. • Remember, you’re from headquarters and you’re supposed to be

there to help.• Not knowing what the major local search engine (or language, or

major holidays) are doesn’t make for a good foundation.

• Where you have them, trust your local teams.• Educate, Empower, and Trust Them: They have the cultural

context and local market knowledge.• Provide global resources and support (basic search knowledge,

central infrastructure optimization, etc.)

Twitter: @billhunt

WW Search Manager

Brand Brand Brand BrandWeb

MarketingSite Arct

Manages • Coordination of centralized team• Overall Search Strategy• Search related Training • Integration of Paid and Organic Search• Agency Relationships

Centralized Team Structure

Brand Search Strategists Role• Brand specific keyword research • Brand level page auditing and optimization • Coordination with Development Team• Both outsourced and internal resources

EuropeLatin

America AsiaJapan

Website Liaison Role• Coordinate with site framework and design• Consulting with Site Infs. team on metrics, flow & function • Support web strategy & Web 2.0 efforts• Compliment web marketing initiatives

Twitter: @billhunt

Global PPC Management Tools

• Search engines have best global bid tools

• Few tools work with double-byte keywords– Kenshoo & Make Me Top

• Few tools roll up all global campaigns

• Few tools work with local search API’s

• Deploy tracking tags on international sites– Many analytics tools can’t display double-byte

– Resources are scarce in many markets

Twitter: @billhunt

Deploy Performance Metrics

• Leverage Scorecards for governance to ensure consistent global performance goals are achieved.

• Helps prioritize resource allocation

• Forces all business units to make an effort

IBM’s global search performance increased 500% when BU level

performance metrics implemented

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Deploy Performance Metrics

Performance by business unit for critical keywords

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Key steps to a successful global program

• Demonstrate the business opportunity for search

• Ensure translators and localizers understand search fundamentals

• Research and deploy the optimal keyword strategy

• Integrate search attributes into the development and localization workflow process

• Research the target markets for regulations, trends, statistics, popular engines and social outlets

• Take advice from local experts and local offices, and make necessary adjustments to your campaign strategies for each market

Twitter: @billhunt

Enabler – Get a Handy Reference

• “Buy this book, read it, and then read it

again.” --Chris Sherman, Search Engine Watch

• Helps guide you through developing your program

• How to form your team and manage for success

Thank You.

eMail: bill@whunt.com

Twitter: billhunt

Blog: www.whunt.com

Site: www.back-azimuth.com