The situation is especially critical in China. WebDNA’s research shows that all top SEO performers in China are portals. The situation can be explained by the Chinese internet audience’s preference of visiting portals to access information, and brands rely on this channel for promotion, instead of updating their websites. Clients on some paidsearch projects specifically request that the sponsored links land on the promotion pages within the portals.
Hong Kong’s situation is not much better, with only the banking industry showing any dedicated SEO efforts. Big names are not seen in the top rankings for beauty, sports or auto sectors.
So what should site owners be doing to improve the performance of their websites?
In general, there is a 10-step process for putting together a successful SEO campaign:
1 Market research A site owner has to understand which other sites it will be competing with for exposure and why they might rank higher in SERPs.
2 Keyword building A site should develop a list of keywords under which it thinks its target audience will search.
3 SEO copywriting Aside from making good marketing sense, the contents of a website should match and support the keywords that the site has tried to optimise against.
4 On-page optimisation There is no need to remove Flash and Javascript elements, as this will make the website more boring. These elements can also be optimised and made visible to search engines.
5 Site structure Maintaining a good site map and a balance of internal and external links will help lead to higher rankings, and also allow visitors to the site to retrieve the information they need easily.
6 Buzz marketing This is a little controversial. A marketer should only do it if there is an expert he or she can trust working on it.
7 Link-building A company can start this process by asking its business partners to put a link to its website on their own sites. Or it can include its URL in the listings of the trade associations it belongs to.
8 Search engine/directory submission After the above preparatory work has been carried out, the URL can finally be submitted to the search engines.
9 Link popularity/reputation analysis Continuous monitoring of the results is required; ideally, all keyword rankings should be monitored on a daily basis.
10 Reporting and adjusting A brand should always be looking to improve its website to keep up with the changes of search engine ranking algorithms, and the SEO efforts of competing websites.
Even if a brand takes all these steps, it should not forget to update its website content regularly and promote its website through other aboveand below-the-line channels.
Leonard Chan is chief executive of WebDNA Interactive
