China boats the highest internet penetration rate among all nations. As the number of consumers migrating to the digital landscape is rising, the role of search engines will become more vital for a company’s marketing strategy in China. Let us understand the concept of Search Engine Marketing – When a business person or a consumer searches the net either by clicking through a directory hierarchy or a text box, s/he is in hunting mode. This psychological state occurs because it gives signals to the search engine and to the marketers that the person is looking for some information often of an indirect or direct commercial nature. Marketers very well understand that the hunt mode describes that the searcher may very well be at the end, middle or beginning stages of the buying cycle. When someone is looking for a service or a product for satisfying a future or an immediate need they are not in a normal state. They want relevant information and are open to acting and digesting on the information at their fingertips, all these are made possible through a search engine. This enables search engine results in some of the best sources of targeted traffic, whether this traffic originates from paid advertising listings or organic unpaid search listings.

Many marketers believe that search engines deliver Search Engine Results Page (SERP) or search results in the form of purely textual results. The fact is search results can be any mixture of audio, video, images, text or any other file formats. Many nations have specialty or general-purpose search engines launched at their respective countries to meet the demand of the local people just like China where Baidu is the preferable choice which is used by more than 95 % of the Chinese netizens. Moreover, new forms of search are rapidly evolving including voice-driven search and search within app environments.

Search engines use algorithms for providing the most relevant results to each user taking into account the search keywords and the user’s location, identity, past search behavior, and operating system. As search engines compete for the eras, eyeballs, and attention of the users, there is a greater incentive for constant innovation and improvement. For leveraging the power contained in this targeted traffic source, marketers must understand how effectively they should use both organic and paid search engine marketing in China and set realistic goals about what they can expect each method to achieve. Search engine traffic is unique in several ways.

It is a non-intrusive methodology of marketing

Most of the offline and online advertising intrudes on the audience thereby interrupting the present activities. Search is unique in tapping users at the exact moment when he or she is seeking solution or knowledge. Searchers are always on a mission: it’s just-in-time marketing.

 Originated from audience-driven and voluntary search behavior

Here the visitors engaged in search results or from a search results link have selected your content (video, image, link or any other format) from your peers but prefers to choose the search query that resulted in your organic or ad content being shown.

Organic search engine marketing combines the best practices of online promotion/PR, copy, usability, technology, and creativity

Many search engines base their relevant algorithms on a combination of the text they see on an image, video, site or a page and combine the content information with eternal elements like user preferences/behaviors and links demonstrated over time for a particular content element, content source or domain.

Marketers put legitimate efforts for organic SEO optimization specifically in server platform adjustments, content clarity optimization, content formatting, and site design. Paid search listings and ads played a major role for marketers due to their rising screen real estate mainly on mobile devices. Paid listings which are very popular are product listing ads, local search ads, video search ads, shopping search, paid inclusion and paid placement. In both PR and SEO, marketers have the choice of hiring an outside agency, consultants or internal staff. Marketers must communicate with the users and understand their requirements – ready to purchase, in need of some information or facing a crisis.

SEO is not only required for your business growth. It also helps customers to find the right businesses based on their requirements.

For it to work, SEO experts need to employ several practices relevant to a business category and for achieving the desired end results. For example, local SEO involves some distinct steps that are a must for getting regional businesses higher rankings on search engines. Then there are the usual SEO practices that necessary for businesses catering to regional, national, or international customers.

Here are the fundamentals every business will need to include for proper SEO practices.

Website Optimization

Your business website will need to be optimized for the desktop as well as the mobile devices. The web pages will need to be optimized for local SEO if your business operates only regionally. An SEO firm with sufficient experience can help you optimize the website as per your business needs. For instance, a Houston SEO firm will be ideal for a business operating solely in the Houston area. If you need local SEO, it is best to hire the best SEO Houston. Local SEO firms will have the experience to optimize the website with content and information relevant to the local population.

Your website’s pages will need to be optimized using the right meta tags and business information. The services pages will need to be divided into sections for SEO purposes. If you operate local businesses in different cities then it is imperative to create separate pages for each location as per SEO best practices.

If you use images on your website, it is important to optimize them for SEO as well. Use file names with good descriptions and keywords. Use alt tags on images so that search engines take them into account too when deciding a ranking for the website based on a search query.

Keywords and Content Creation

No SEO work is possible without the relevant keywords and the content using those keywords. Keyword research is an important SEO task. It needs to be done by keeping in mind the business category and the desired end results. Keywords for local SEO can differ from what you might use for national SEO. For example, ‘organic grocery store near me’ or ‘organic grocery store in Houston’ can be relevant keywords for an organic grocery store operating locally in Houston.

The content on the website can focus on such keywords as well as the product or service offerings of a business. For instance, you can create blog posts on topics such as ‘benefits of organic vegetables’ or ‘why organic food is healthier for you’. Such informative blog posts are also ideal for your business promotion on social media.

It is also important to continuously create good content for SEO purposes. You can’t achieve your desired SEO results by posting the same content repeatedly.

Keep your content extremely relevant to your business category so that search engines rank it higher. Search engine algorithms pay special attention to websites with authoritative content and rank them higher. The reason for this is because every search engine aims to direct customers to the best websites relevant to their search query. If search engines don’t perform well, people might stop using them.

Backlinks

When you promote content on your business’s social pages, it helps to create backlinks to your website. Backlinks are important for SEO to work well. Search engine algorithms pay attention to quality backlinks to a website from authentic sources. So, many SEO experts utilize them well.

For local SEO, you can create backlinks to your website by partnering with reputed local establishments to promote your business. For example, you can post content on a reputed school’s social page about the importance of organic food for children. You can collaborate with NGOs or organizations that work with children. You can create content for guest blogs or articles on reputed websites relevant to your business.

It is important to hire the right SEO firm that can cater to your unique business needs. It is always best to choose a local SEO firm for regional businesses. Hire SEO experts by keeping your business’s growth requirements in mind.