Andy Atkins-Krüger founded Webcertain – the multi-language international search marketing services business that runs the International Search Summit alongside SMX in Europe – and also includes the in-house business which specializes in supporting internal agencies within big groups with the specialist language needs.
Yandex, the company behind the leading search engine in Russia with a presence in Turkey, has taken a radically different direction to its search activities by launching a voice social search app called “Wonder” on Apple’s iOS platform for the US market. Described by the company as “experimental,” the app responds to users’ spoken queries […]
Have you ever read those blogs and websites which start with the words, “74% Of The World’s Consumers Don’t Speak English,” or “54% Of The Connected World Is Outside The US?” They’re usually the first post of someone who has just discovered “global” and has been shocked by the numbers. International Business Is Becoming The […]
Have you seen or read much about what steps we SEOs should take to manage our activities around a world where an increasing personalization of search engine results is an ever present feature? I’ve seen a few things about needing to take less note of rank positions and more of traffic but can’t recall much […]
As I write this piece, the Mayan calendar is about to end bringing about the demise of everything. So, if you’re reading this, we survived and the predictions were wrong. Predicting the future is always tricky, but I’m going to have a go at predicting 2013 in the confidence that more of what I say […]
Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex has launched an approach to personalizing search results for users in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, affecting 75-80% of search queries and potentially all of the search results a user sees. Yandex has been testing the approach throughout the last year and found that users click 37% more often on […]
Everywhere I go and in every conversation I have, the importance of the quality of content keeps on cropping up. You’ve no doubt had the same conversations where Pandas and Penguins keep poking in their nosy beaks? So, here’s my question: “If quality is so important, why do we give up caring when it’s in […]
Last week, Bill Hunt asked readers to decide what would be the most important task they could perform in 60 minutes — a great question which also set me thinking. No matter how many times I thought about the question, I have kept returning to the same answer — improving the knowledge of our people. […]
Last time, I was talking about the analysis of click through rates by position based on data from Google’s Webmaster Tools and I promised we’d look at a wider range of countries. The chart below shows you exactly that data extracted from a wide range of webmaster data to give some relatively consistent averages. The […]
Last week, I was taking delegates on an international SEO course through their paces on using the data Google so generously provides in their webmaster tools. I’m a little puzzled that more people don’t dip into the data, analyse it and then take actions on their campaigns. So, high time for me to share some […]
Last week, someone accused me of being too technical when describing geo-targeting settings — it followed a conversation where I was told that one of my discussions was not “advanced” enough! So, I apologise in advance, as this post is going to be too technical for some and not for others! It’s also a little […]
Almost anyone who specialises in international SEO or SEM will tell you that within a few years, it becomes pretty obvious that most marketers’ problems have little to do with SEO or SEM techniques and are much more to do with brands cutting corners in their enthusiasm to go global. It’s inevitable really. Organizations expanding […]
No one can deny the rapid rise in the popularity of infographics. No wonder, since they are graphically attractive, they solve user problems of information overload and they make great webpages. Oh, and then there’s that point about infographics being great for link building too! Personally, I love looking at infographics − they make life bearable […]
As “online marketing” evolves, you’ll note I’ve used a generic term there rather than SEO — the titles and descriptions of what we do on a daily basis change as does the focus of the effort. Both “Panda” and “Penguin” in their different ways have had a dramatic influence on how important people think “content” […]
A question which is hitting my desk on a daily basis at the moment is, “Should I transliterate my brand for greater success in China, Korea and the other double-byte countries?” The very first time I saw this I though, “I’ll just wing off a quick email to respond to this,” then discovered that my […]
Sometimes it feels like a one-man crusade. Now in my 15th year of search marketing (yes, I started young) I have been trying to explain to Global SEOs for much of that time that translation is not a perfect process. But it appears I have been talking to the wrong people. I should have been […]
Writers and analysts who keep an eye on the value of certain stocks, have been writing all year about the curious phenomenon of Google’s stock price. They generally say something along the lines of, “If you compare Google’s cash generation capabilities, why is it valued so much less than Apple?” or similar statements. Is it […]
Usually, when I’m asked if “international” search or SEO is really different, the person asking the question has made up their mind that it’s actually not. Usually, they have a view that international SEO is all about infrastructure, domains and local domains and not much else. But is this true? You’ll probably not expect me, […]
Does Google really “get” international? There are clearly some very clever people within Google who do — but the corporation’s behavior bizarrely still tends to suggest a silicon valley tech company that’s a little insulated from the non-English speaking world. Take, for example, the “Global Market Finder” tool which you can find here. This tool […]
Google has been moving lots of goal posts for us all recently and the “Hreflang” tag is a case in point. A succession of Google speakers has presented the latest “Hreflang” thinking at International Search Summits @SMX throughout 2012. On each occasion, the presentation and explanation was different from the one before. The bad news […]
No. That is to say, no method of comparing country to country statistics fairly and accurately really exists. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you have a good day. Now, don’t tell me you want me to explain that? In the case of global organisations, the performance of businesses, people and campaigns […]