The following is coverage of the Search Engine Strategies conference by Dave Rohrer.
The Challenges Of Search Marketing To US Hispanics & Latin Americans
Not convinced that US Hispanics and Latin Americans are a market you should be targeting through search? This session examines some of the challenges you'll need to face as well as solutions to consider. It sets up issues and solutions further explored in the Tactics session on Day 2. Moderator:
* Nacho Hernandez, Founder and CEO, iHispanic Marketing Group
Speakers:
* Matt Williams, Vice President, Prominent Placement * Emerson Calegaretti, VP of Client Development, Latin America, Acronym Media * Lucas Morea, CEO, LatinEdge Inc. * Alexandre Hohagen, Country Director for Brazil, Google Inc.
Lucas Morea
Going to talk about Monografias.com – Monograph: a detailed and documented treatise on a particular subject. The site was started 10 years ago to help bring Spanish content to the web.
- 1 million daily visitors - 200k content pages - 3.5 million subscribers - Top 10-30 in Spanish sites worldwide
A few notes on Latin America
A Challenge - fewer users - most are newbies
An Opportunity - Plenty, and growing fast - A very captive audience
Latin America is still a few years behind. The average # of keywords per search is much lower and again, behind the USA.
Google leads in USA, but REALLY leads in Latin America. The lowest penetration in Latin America is in the 70% range.
*back to Monografias
Content brings users, when you facilitate users to bring content you get this virtual cycle. It takes some effort to get it started but once it picks up speed it gives you all sorts of great things.
The content brings member relationships, member loyalty, then word of mouth promiton and activity increases.
The Users bring marketing opportunities and supply more content for deeper content for the users to visit.
Our SEO Philosophy - the site was built with SEO in mind from the start - Not much was done, the site was simply built with helping search engines understand the site
Highly searched words….. *gives quick lists of some keywords*
Build a solid SEO structure - the trick is to be methodic way of building the site - use keywords in urls, and text links, use breadcrumbs, don’t have “click here” - the content management system use to use “great” links but they weren’t search engine friendly and improved the internal linking with keyword urls. It had a very positive effect. - Over time, did interlinking. Added linked keywords to relevant content.
Help your content be unique - Allowed comments and debates to take place on the article
Accents? Google handles the accents differently. Use unaccented keywords in places users wont read very carefully Words that have to have the accent that don’t, are wrong. Use the accent.
Duplicate Content - If others copy content from you: o Don’t worry. Show you are the original source by adding more. Add comments, add more to it. If people are copying you, you should be flattered. o Pick your fights. Someone registered a typo of the domain and copied the entire the site. Using blackhat techniques they tried to overtake the main site. Using the WIPO they took on the other site and were able to secure the domain.
Less control in the future - *shows some Universal Search examples* Images, Videos, and News are being shown along with the normal results. With all of this, don’t worry about SEO. Build it in, educate everyone so that is just becomes something that everyone does.
Ask.com – doing the same changes. Do a search for “Shakira”, its more of a portal then a search engine result page.
Tips - build SEO into your structure, write guidelines for your team to follow - don’t aim “to be #1”, aim to bhe the authoritative site. Own your niche. - Heave a link strategy with YOUR USERS in mind. Make your site worth linking to. - Define your target and stick to it, but LISTEN to your audience. - Expand your channels and optimize all your online media. - Learn tools and methods. Tweak and revise periodically, focus on your site.
Matt Williams
Gives background on Prominent Placement
After 3 years were able to convince a company to jump into Spanish market
First dedicated international effort for either organization - no previous exp with developing non-English programs - funding – was mid year and hard to get the budget - knowledge base – very little published in English on the subject - Familiarity with the international search landscape - Limited access to fluent Spanish/Portuguese linguists/copywriters
Can a successful English-language program be “translated” to Spanish and Portuguese?
US/English strategies/tactics - ppc - site optimization - linking - online press release
Intent - Drive targeted traffic - Customer acquisition
Opportunity Assessment - an ability to be visible in the search engines o was hard to do, there was no competition at the time - determine the level of performance
Knowledge of Search Landscape - Search engine share of market, know where to focus - People search in a form that is most individually relevant. Ex. English, Spanish, Portuguese or whatever the native language was
Things that are the same: Tactical
Site Optimization - search term selection - effective on and off page elements
Content Creation - grammatically correct - relevant - unique and compelling
PPC - watch your metrics - finding/refining tail terms - testing creative
Institute a Process - benchmarking results - ability to monitor/measure cause and effect - adjust as necessary
PRWeb/ Off-site Content - additional SERP opportunity due to optimized content - linking – authority site, anchor text with keywords. Got the press release on a big IT authority site. - branding opportunity - additional reach – RSS feeds
Effective Project Management - planning - scheduling and logistics - budget and resource oversight
Shortage of SEM talent - Experienced, knowledgeable search marketers in short supply among English-speakers, even more so for those fluent in Spanish.
Level of Sophistication - competitors – only were able to compete in paid. American competitors were just using Adwords to show up in Latin America - Tools – have come along quite a bit. The tools had didn’t have the volume so nothing would show up.
Project Management - additionally complexity – didn’t speak Spanish so there was additional costs and time to work with translation companies. 30% more work required due to the extra translation costs
Things that are different - Additional credibility o Extensive pre and post sale resources o Tech support o Warranties o International expertise Shipping Customs brokerage Currency exchange o One stop shop - PPC o Competitors Country specific and localized campaigns o Language Campaigns were difficult, more words to say the same thing in non-English ads Tail terms – discovering regional, and colloquial differences Non-US/English words, acronyms, brands, and/or model numbers. Misspellings & “Spanglish” o Creative
Seasonality and World Events There are differences between Southern and Northern hemispheres, business cycles, elections, sporting events, festivals, holidays and etc.
Shows graph of sporting events, presidential election, and holidays effecting traffic levels.
Results
- Did no linking or article/white paper distribution - Did do SEO, PPC, and online press releases
Slide shows how the site owns many to most of the top 10 results. In Google ES they have 7 of the 10 spots. Spanish and Portuguese speaking visitors increases +510%. $2.2 million potential new revenue in sales… with $3 million in the pipeline all for the cost of $3000.
Strategy is universal – visibility, drive targeted traffic, increase revenue
Nacho thanks for a great case study.
Emerson Calegaretti
Was the first guy for Google in Latin America. Now is with Acronym Media.
Customer Mental Dictionary – radio, newspaper, magazines, TV, direct mail, viral marketing. From these messages we create a mental dictionary based on what we need and want. What a search marketer does is tries to translate what a person has in their mind to words.
What is search marketing? It is keyword-driven marketing. To go from wanting a “plumber” -> from demand to offer -> getting a plumber
Steps: Keywords –> Text Ads –> Landing Pages
84 million potential consumers – Comscore Media from April 2006 52% English, 27% Bilingual, 21% Native
Overall Marketing Strategy – is similar from a high level for all languages. You want to see the users interact with your brand in a constant way. The more localized you go, the more custom you have to be.
Pay attention to your translation and the several shades of gray. South California is Mexican, Florida is Cuban, New York is again different.
Phase 1 - Build a short keyword list in Spanish. - Develop Spanish landing pages optimized with these keywords - Run a PPC ad campaign. Both Spanish/English text ads. Track time spent and conversion and CTR. Compare with English PPC campaigns and landing pages. You will need 3 versions of Spanish Landing Pages to do it right and test them. - Analyze traffic from organic results on the landing pages. Track where the Spanish keywords are driving users to. Use your web analytics and look into the keywords that your users are using right now.
Phase 2 - Consider professional website localization. This is very important. Know the local area you are moving into and get help to do it right. - Organize multilingual/country SEO and PPC management - Do your global marketing strategy with a local touch. Don’t change your logo, just adapt your message.
Cooking recipe: test then invest. What can we learn from the test? - Which keywords are hot in Spanish? Use CTR, time spent, and conversion rate to measure this. - The best combination of ads/pages to keywords (Spanish keywords and Spanish pages, or English keywords to Spanish pages or English keywords to English pages) - Translate or redesign the landing pages. Depending on your results you will have to do one or the other. - What products/services are more attractive to this audience
