Google Asia: Search Market

Marketers should consider the many local search engines and search methods evolving across Asia when developing their marketing strategies in this fragmented region.

In Japan for example, whenever the Japanese market is discussed, people often focus on Yahoo Japan and Google Japan. Some businesses may only target Yahoo Japan. And while it is a fact that a majority of searches done in Japan happen on Yahoo Japan or Google Japan, there are other players, less known outside of Japan, which can be just as effective for a targeted strategy.

While not many people may go to Bing Japanese site to search, MSN’s Japanese site is popular as a portal site. It’s worth the effort to test an ad campaign here if you are looking for another place to drive traffic and create awareness. Their messenger and email services Hotmail/Outlook are widely used by Japanese. It offers banner ads and native ad services.

It also displays ads from Google Japan’s AdWords and Xlisting in its search result pages. The services include shopping, travel booking, auction, mobile, and finance.

While their PC search market share is still small, this new search site seems to offer better mobile search experiences. Speaking of mobile search Google is the second largest mobile search engine in the Chinese market.

Being owned by a Chinese mobile Internet software technology and services provider means it will very likely take a larger share of the mobile search market in the near future. It offers integrated marketing services to suppliers and also verifies the quality of each manufacturer. It also holds several trade shows across Asia – mainly in Hong Kong and China.

But for those interested in growing their businesses in Asia beyond traditional search markets, this is a good place to start. Though the sites may not be popular as search engines, they do offer unique opportunities for advertisers especially those wanting to target specific audiences.

Instead of just chasing the usual suspects in search, trying different directions may give your business the push it needs to succeed in these markets in 2015.

SEO Agencies